Developing XP Style Applications

Overview

Since Windows 95, Microsoft has always changed the styles of its GUI, but with Windows XP, the changes are very profound. If you want to build your programs with XP style, you can do it. The process is very simple, you just need an assembly manifest, where you say that you want to use the common control library 6.0 instead of 5.0. Actually, when you set XP, you have to choose what kind of interface you like, Win 2000 or XP style. If you choose the XP Style, you have to tell Windows that you want to use that interface in your program.

Description

There are two steps.

1. write an assembly manifest file.
2. change the property of your controls setting FlatStyle property = system. N.B.

Don't worry if you can't see any changes in your VS Studio environment, the changes have an effect only on the *.exe file, so you can see the difference, only when you run the program.

Let's look at how to write the manifest

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
    <assemblyIdentity version="1.0.0.0" processorArchitecture="X86" name="Lorien2000.XPStyle.XPStyle" type="win32"/>
    <description>XP Style Controls</description>
    <dependency>
        <dependentAssembly>
            <assemblyIdentity type="win32" name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls" version="6.0.0.0" processorArchitecture="X86" publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df" language="*"/>
        </dependentAssembly>
    </dependency>
</assembly>

name="Lorien2000.XPStyle.XPStyle" where Lorien2000 is the name of your company, XPStyle is the name of your product, XPStyle is the name of your Excel file, in general, is.

name="Company.NameProgram.ExecutableFile".

<description>XP Style Controls</description> Here you can put the descriptions of your product.

name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls"
version="6.0.0.0"
processorArchitecture="X86"
publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df"

It's the version of the controls that you want to use.

And finally, the most important thing is to save the file as your program.exe.manifest.

The second step is to change the properties of your controls for example.

Now let's have a look at your application.

Before

After