Anti-Aliased Text in a Transparent .NET Form

Question

I have a C# application which shows the current time in a transparent .NET Form. The Form has no controls and no border. Its property TransparencyKey is set to the Form\'s

Answer 1

I asked a similar question a few months ago.

What I ended up doing was having two options:

1. Copy the background behind the application by setting its opacity to 0 temporarily, then draw antialiased text onto that. This approach works well if the window and those under it don't move often.
2. Using a layered window. Works better than TransparencyKey, but still works best with non-antialiased text. (just avoid using a ClearType font and you will be fine)

Answer 2

In your Display_Paint method, try this:

this.SetStyle(ControlStyles.DoubleBuffer | 
      ControlStyles.UserPaint | 
      ControlStyles.AllPaintingInWmPaint,
      true);
this.UpdateStyles();