Vista - Drawing over title bar

Is it possible to draw over the Windows title bar? I can set my top margin
to -25, but my content still resides under the title bar. This is how I
would expect it to behave, and normally, I would just draw my own title bar,
but I'm running into issues trying to duplicate the glass look (blur + 2
drop shadows - or is it a shadow outer glow? - kills performance) as well as
adopting the system look/feel of the window buttons.

No, it's not possible using WPF to draw over the Windows title bar.

There's no cheap/low CPU way of doing what you want with WPF.

--Aaron
www.wiredprairie.us



"Keith Patrick" <richard_keith_patrick@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:F9084EFC-698C-45B8-BBE4-60F9C94A29AF@microsoft.com...
> Is it possible to draw over the Windows title bar? I can set my top margin
> to -25, but my content still resides under the title bar. This is how I
> would expect it to behave, and normally, I would just draw my own title
> bar, but I'm running into issues trying to duplicate the glass look (blur
> + 2 drop shadows - or is it a shadow outer glow? - kills performance) as
> well as adopting the system look/feel of the window buttons.

I guess it wouldn't be Office if it wasn't a complete pain in the ass to
match the look & feel.

You'll take a CPU hit due to software rendering (and would want to be wary
of the interior content), but the easiest way would be to ditch the regular
titlebar and draw it completely in WPF code.

"Keith Patrick" <richard_keith_patrick@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:B3C5351D-D5D1-4153-9BBA-635FDBB5C018@microsoft.com...
>I guess it wouldn't be Office if it wasn't a complete pain in the ass to
>match the look & feel.
>
>

Hi Keith,

I saw your post and wanted to reply. We just released Actipro Ribbon for
WPF, the first public release of an Office 2007-like UI control suite for
WPF. Our product includes implementation of all the core Microsoft UI
design requirements and a number of optional ones too.

We also include a separate RibbonWindow class that you can use which
provides the Office style window and doesn't even need a Ribbon control
hosted in it.

I encourage you to check out our site, which has a lot of info, links to a
downloadable sample project, and an XBAP demo:
http://www.actiprosoftware.com/Produ...n/Default.aspx

If you have any questions, you can shoot us an e-mail (address available on
our site) or post in our product's forums.

Thanks,

Bill




"Keith Patrick" <richard_keith_patrick@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:B3C5351D-D5D1-4153-9BBA-635FDBB5C018@microsoft.com...
>I guess it wouldn't be Office if it wasn't a complete pain in the ass to
>match the look & feel.
>
>

Cool, thanks! Yeah, after a while, the only alternative I could find as
well was to create a new window class to get some lower-level magic to
happen. I really wish Explorer had been WPF hosting GDI instead of
vice-versa.