custom design UI

[Benoit Martin]

I am currently working on an application where we decided to have a
customized look and feel (as opposed to the standard Windows UI). I took an
approach using graphics to define windows borders and buttons, etc... but
I'm not satisfied at all with the performance. Windows take a long time to
display making this interface less than friendly.
The graphics for the windows borders are placed on the form using PictureBox
controls. Graphics are GIFs ranging from 1K to 5K with 90% of graphics
between 1k and 2K.

Am I taking the wrong approach?
What would be a better way to go about this?

Thanks a lot for your input

Ben

 

[Guest]

Chances are you are using the wrong approach. For the fastest performance you must try to use the most primitive drawing. Using bitmaps to draw the borders is an extensive process. Consider doing the drawing using GDI+ but not using images. For example the windows XP themes are all drawn using LinearGradientBrushes to fill portions and the performance is quite good. Of course, it all depends on the system you will be running it on..