How to fix the flickering in User controls

Question

In my application i am constantly moving from one control to another. I have created no. of user controls, but during navigation my controls gets flicker. it takes 1 or 2 se

Answer 1

Just to add to the answer Hans gave:

(TLDR version: Transparency is heavier than you think, use only solid colors everywhere)

If WS_EX_COMPOSITED, DoubleBuffered and WS_CLIPCHILDREN did not solve your flicker (for me WS_CLIPCHILDREN made it even worse), try this: go through ALL your controls and all your code, and wherever you have Any transparency or semi-transparency for BackColor, ForeColor, or any other color, just remove it, use only solid colors. In most of the cases where you think you just have to use transparency, you don't. Re-design your code and controls, and use solid colors. I had terrible, terrible flickering and the program was running sluggish. Once I removed transparency it sped up significantly, and there is 0 flicker.

EDIT: To add further, I just discovered that WS_EX_COMPOSITED doesn't have to be window-wide, it could be applied just to specific controls! This saved me a lot of trouble. Just make a custom control inherited from whatever control you need, and paste the already posted override for WS_EX_COMPOSITED. This way you get low-level double-buffer on this control only, avoiding the nasty side-effects in the rest of the application!