Windows aero glass form text problem

Question

I use windows form with GlassForm(using Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack.Shell;). my problem when I change form to GlassForm my textbox texts doesnt

Answer 1

Place a panel on the form set the dock style to fill, set the panel's BackColor to color X and then set the form's TransparencyKey to the same color X.

Answer 2

Check this sample out: http://www.danielmoth.com/Blog/Glass-In-C-An-Alternative-Approach.aspx

I was not studying it any further but putting a TextBox or Button or other components over this Aero glass area worked - the rendered component didn't have the transparency problem. The labels aren't perfect but these can be easily drawn with GDI+ The direct link to the sample project is here: http://www.danielmoth.com/Blog/MothGlass.zip

It looks like he puts a panel behind the control and setting the TransparencyKey for the panel.

Answer 3

Yes, that's how it works. With the Aero Glass effect applied, anything drawn in the color black will be rendered as transparent. That includes text in a textbox control. This general theme has been the subject of many other questions here. When well-written, they gather lots of upvotes, but few answers.

There just aren't a lot of good solutions here. All of them that I've come across qualify as both "ugly" and "hackish". Owner-drawing is a reasonable approach when you're using something like a label control, but I wouldn't recommend trying to draw your own textbox—it's just too hard to get right. Someone tried to do that here; like I said, the result is both ugly and hackish. I wasn't satisfied with it for my own use, but it may work for you, depending on how high your standards are.

The goal with owner-drawing, of course, is either to do all of the drawing using GDI+ (which natively supports transparency) instead of GDI (which all of the built-in controls use by default), or calling functions like DrawThemeTextEx, which is specifically designed for rendering text with a shadow that is [somewhat] readable over glass.

As well, the usual tricks like enabling compatible text rendering (which causes the built-in controls to draw using GDI+ routines, as they did in the early versions of .NET) don't work for a textbox.

Honestly, your best bet is to place the textbox over a region of your form that is not rendered as glass. Use the DwmEnableBlurBehindWindow function to selectively enable the glass effect behind certain areas of your form, rather than the entire thing. I provide a complete, ready-to-use .NET implementation in my answer here.