What is a general solution to creating a transparent control?

Question

So having looked this up for a while now, I have read probably twenty different implementations but have not yet seen a solid, control-based, framework-based general solutio

Answer 1

I have created the required general transparency control, the solution was a detailed breakdown of the control and all of its siblings in the parent, and preparing a recursive drawing routine on the OnPaintBackground() method relying on the InvokePaint() and InvokePaintBackground() methods. By defining successively smaller clips and intersecting with lower controls, this method minimises drawing overhead.

• The complete control includes a method of detecting and responding to sibling controls' Invalidate methods, efficiently drawing the stack of transparent controls and effectively allowing full alpha channel overlays on animated underlying controls.

• The control can be interleaved with all permutations of child and parent controls while giving visually accurate transparency.

• Hit testing has not been considered in the control.

• This control will not overdraw controls whose drawing is not performed during paint events. This is a big limitation.

• To use the control one simply inherits from the base and overrides the OnPaint method to perform custom drawing. It is also possible to override the OnPaintBackground method so long as a call to the base method is called first.

Finally, if anyone would like the full code including invalidation handling, let me know. If you have a solution to system drawn components let me know that too. Also if you have a more trivial solution that implies I wasted a bunch of time on this, I wouldn't be upset about receiving that either!

An excerpt of the control on the OnPaintBackground method is presented:

''' <summary>
''' Recursively paint all underlying controls in their relevant regions, stacking drawing operations as necessary.
''' </summary>
''' <param name="pevent"></param>
''' <remarks></remarks>
Protected Overrides Sub OnPaintBackground(pevent As System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs)
    'Store clip and transform for reversion
    Dim initialClip As Region = pevent.Graphics.Clip
    Dim initialTransform As Drawing2D.Matrix = pevent.Graphics.Transform

    'Develop list of underlying controls
    Dim submarinedControls As New List(Of Control)
    For Each Control As Control In m_Siblings
        If Control.Visible AndAlso Above(Control) AndAlso Me.ClientRectangle.IntersectsWith(Control.RelativeClientRectangle(Me)) Then submarinedControls.Add(Control)
    Next

    'Prepare clip for parent draw
    Dim parentClip As System.Drawing.Region = New System.Drawing.Region(initialClip.GetRegionData)
    For Each Control As Control In submarinedControls
        parentClip.Exclude(Control.RelativeClientRectangle(Me))
    Next
    pevent.Graphics.Clip = parentClip

    'Evaluate control relationship to parent, temporarily adjusting transformation for parent redraw. This translation must be relative since the incoming graphics may already have a meaningful transform applied.
    Dim translation As Point = Parent.RelationTo(Me)
    pevent.Graphics.Transform = New Drawing2D.Matrix(1, 0, 0, 1, initialTransform.OffsetX + translation.X, initialTransform.OffsetY + translation.Y)

    'Fully draw parent background
    InvokePaintBackground(Parent, pevent)
    InvokePaint(Parent, pevent)

    'Reset transform for sibling drawing
    pevent.Graphics.Transform = initialTransform

    'Develop initial clip of submarined siblings
    Dim siblingClip As System.Drawing.Region = New System.Drawing.Region(initialClip.GetRegionData)
    siblingClip.Exclude(parentClip)

    For Each Control As Control In submarinedControls
        'Define relative position of submarined sibling to self
        translation = Control.RelationTo(Me)

        'Define and apply clip *before* transformation
        Dim intersectionClip As New Region(Control.RelativeClientRectangle(Me))
        intersectionClip.Intersect(siblingClip)
        pevent.Graphics.Clip = intersectionClip

        'Apply transformation
        pevent.Graphics.Transform = New Drawing2D.Matrix(1, 0, 0, 1, initialTransform.OffsetX + translation.X, initialTransform.OffsetY + translation.Y)

        'Raise sibling control's paint events
        InvokePaintBackground(Control, pevent)
        InvokePaint(Control, pevent)

        'Revert transformation and exclude region
        pevent.Graphics.Transform = initialTransform
        siblingClip.Exclude(intersectionClip)
    Next

    'Revert transform and clip to pre-drawing state
    pevent.Graphics.Transform = initialTransform
    pevent.Graphics.Clip = initialClip
End Sub

Answer 2

Me.Visible = False

OR

Me.Opacity = 0

OR

Me.Hide()