Thread: Question About Designing Skinnable Front End In .NET.

Maherino: No, there is no secret. You cannot use designer to design your skins.

Instead of placing controls, just start with a blank form. Then make a function, for which all the buttons will trigger. You read from the ini file to get the position and name of all the buttons you want, and create an array to hold the buttons. Create new buttons as per the ini file and place them in this array, at the same time setting their click method to the function. In the click method, check the name of the button (set in the ini file) against a list of common commands.

This is a very simple way, if you want I can push out some simple c# code to do just this.

I got bored:

Skin file:

Code:

button,100,100,100,35,"Test Button",CMD_PLAY
button,200,100,100,35,"Test Button",CMD_PAUSE
button,300,100,100,35,"Test Button",CMD_STOP

Form1.cs:

Code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.IO;
namespace SkinTest
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            this.Load += new System.EventHandler(this.Form1_Load);
            this.ClientSize = new System.Drawing.Size(598, 394);
        }
        List<Control> controlList;
        private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            controlList = new List<Control>();
            String[] array = File.ReadAllLines("test.skin");
            for (int i = 0; i < array.Length; i++)
            {
                Control tmpControl;// = new Control();
                String[] split = array[i].Split(',');
                if (split[0] == "button")
                {
                    tmpControl = new Button();
                    tmpControl.Parent = this;
                    this.Controls.Add(tmpControl);
                    tmpControl.Location = new Point(int.Parse(split[1]),int.Parse(split[2]));
                    tmpControl.Size = new Size(int.Parse(split[3]),int.Parse(split[4]));
                    tmpControl.Text = split[5];
                    tmpControl.Name = split[6];
                    tmpControl.Click += new EventHandler(ButtonClick);
                    controlList.Add(tmpControl);
                }
            }
        }
        private void ButtonClick(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            MessageBox.Show("Button Clicked: " + ((Button)sender).Name);
        }
    }
}

I'd really like some sample code. I get what you're saying but not why I should do it that way.

I must have posted 30 seconds before you. try out the above code see if that explains how to do it a bit better.