spice the boring default winforms treeview appearance up a bit...

[Hazz]

I am using the Winforms Treeview right out of the toolbox with all the
default settings. It looks very boring.
What can I do to dress it up and make it look at least kind of cool?

I remember hearing one time that one line of code would give it a Windows XP
look and feel. But I can't remember what that was.
I would like to give it some depth or 3D effect with just a little bit of
system color scheme behind the node boxes.

Thank you for any ideas. -hazz

 

[Ken Tucker [MVP]]

Hi,

I believe that you are looking for application.enablevisualstyles.
Unfortunately that doesnt do much for the treeview control. You might need
to use a third party control to see much of a difference.

Developers express treelist
http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/XtraTreeList/

Pure Components Treeview
http://www.purecomponents.com/products/TreeView/features.aspx

Glacical Treelist
http://www.glacialcomponents.com/ProdDetail/gtl.aspx

Ken
-----------------
I am using the Winforms Treeview right out of the toolbox with all the
default settings. It looks very boring.
What can I do to dress it up and make it look at least kind of cool?

I remember hearing one time that one line of code would give it a Windows XP
look and feel. But I can't remember what that was.
I would like to give it some depth or 3D effect with just a little bit of
system color scheme behind the node boxes.

Thank you for any ideas. -hazz

 

[Hazz]

Thank you for these ideas Ken.
For a start I'll look at the imagelist collection and see what I can do
there.
And if I could just make those boxes at the nodes look a little 3D'ish, that
might help.
-hazz

 

[Ken Tucker [MVP]]

Hi,

Application.enablevisualstyles will do that on an windows xp
computer. Dont forget to call application.doevents after you enable the
visual styles.

Ken
--------------
Thank you for these ideas Ken.
For a start I'll look at the imagelist collection and see what I can do
there.
And if I could just make those boxes at the nodes look a little 3D'ish, that
might help.
-hazz

 

[Hazz]

Thank you for saying it twice Ken. application.enablevisualstyles. why the
application.doevents?
I included these two lines on by .net 1.1 based vs.net app but didn't notice
any difference whatsoever in the appearance.
But you got me pointed in the right direction. -hazz