GDI+ Programming: Creating Custom Controls Using C# [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Eric White (Author), Chris Garrett (Author)

Book Description

Series: Programmer to Programmer | Publication Date: June 2002

Whether you are using Windows Forms to build rich-client business applications or the ASP.NET framework to build powerful web applications or web services, the use of well-designed graphics will greatly enhance their usability, impact, and visual appeal. This book provides a comprehensive guide to the use of GDI+ in .NET applications and aims to provide developers with all the information they need to build effective custom controls.

The opening section of the book investigates the .NET Framework classes that implement GDI+. It covers all of the classes, methods and techniques needed to create, manipulate, and display precise graphics in a form, a page being sent to a printer or an image.

On this foundation, the second section describes how to design and build effective custom controls for use in a business environment. Topics covered include building composite controls, implementing keyboard navigation, and enhancing design-time support.

The final section of the book explores the use of GDI+ and ASP.NET to build custom controls that can provide reusable, GUI components for web projects and to deliver customized graphics over the Internet.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This book is designed for the professional developer or tecnhical lead who needs to write GDI+ code for either Windows Forms or for Web Forms applications. Upon completion of this book, the reader will be able to:

* Program in GDI+ and understand the concepts on which GDI+ is based
* Build custom controls in Windows Forms and Web forms
* Enhance design-time support
* Construct a custom server side bitmap file and display it on a Web page
* Create a Web Service that serves up custom images

The book is oriented towards a business applications audience and presents designs and techniques that will be useful in such an environment. The information in the book regarding the semantics of GDI+ is language agnostic and the examples are written in C#. A good working knowledge of C# syntax and of the .Net framework is assumed.

About the Author

Eric White is an independent software consultant with over 20 years experience in building Management Information Systems, accounting systems, and other types of rich client and n-tier database applications. He has written custom controls in numerous windowing systems, including all versions of Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, OS/2, X/Motif, and others. Eric has particular interest in Object-Oriented design methodologies, including use case analysis, UML, and design patterns. After years of working with too many varieties of technologies to list, he is currently specializing in C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, XML, COM+, GDI+, SQL Server and other Microsoft technologies.

Product Details

• Paperback: 500 pages
• Publisher: Peer Information; 1st edition (June 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861006314
• ISBN-13: 978-1861006318
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,065,400 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Chris Garrett is an online marketing consultant, coach, teacher and all-round web geek. He helps bloggers, consultants, freelancers, authors, coaches and speakers to grow their business by attracting and serving engaged audiences of people who know, like and trust them.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learn to Create Dynamic Graphics, October 8, 2002

By 

Edward Tanguay (Berlin,Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: GDI+ Programming: Creating Custom Controls Using C# (Paperback)

One of my first .NET ah-hah experiences back in 2001 was creating an .aspx file that I could reference as a graphic (!). The .aspx file received two query parameters which informed it of the file name of the jpg and the width that the returned image was supposed to be. So then in an IMG tag, I would simply put src="ShowPicture.aspx?file=product1343.jpg&width=100" and it would display a thumbnail of that picture 100 pixels wide and proportionally high. This is an excellent way to produce dynamic pictures as well as protect your online photographs (show thumbnails to visitors, full sized pictures to members), and the .NET GDI+ classes are straight-forward and easy to use. Ever since then I have been looking for a book which goes into deeper detail of creating graphics in .NET with the GDI+ classes. Wrox has finally produced this book! In chapters 1 through 10 you get the basics: pens, brushes, texts, fonts, image manipulation, paths, regions and printing. Then in the rest of the book you learn how to make custom controls which create custom graphics (I love books that teach two things at a time -- great for developers who do four things at a time). If you read this book, you will think about graphics differently, namely, as dynamic objects which your application, the user and the environment can manipulate at run time. Very exciting.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Intro book - lite on actual custom controls content, September 16, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: GDI+ Programming: Creating Custom Controls Using C# (Paperback)

In my opinion, this is an intro book to GDI+ with only a very few chapters on Custom controls of any substance. The book seems well written and I like the fact that it was not written by committee as many/most of Wrox books are. I bought the book based on the title with expectations of more advanced topics being covered, but I should have spent time looking at the detailed table of contents. A more appropriate title for this would have been `An Introduction to GDI+'. My recommendation would be to look at the detailed table of contents and if it meets your needs then buy it otherwise hold off and use the documentation available online.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Introduction!, September 18, 2002

By 

Markus Egger "www.MarkusEgger.com/blog" (Spring, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: GDI+ Programming: Creating Custom Controls Using C# (Paperback)

This is the kind of book you want to read when you want to get started with GDI+ development, and custom controls in particular. Yes, there are a lot of things that are not explained, but they, GDI+ and custom control development is a huge topic and couldn't possibly be covered in one book! The information provided in this book is excellent. It covers the basics of GDI+, custom control development, printing, and even web related stuff you may not think of at first. What's missing is how to build input-oriented controls, such as as fancy grids or spreadsheets and other advanced topics. But then again, I wouldn't expect a book like this to cover these topics.