Is there a way to make the Rad controls look like normal WinForms controls? I making a business app and don't need the facy styles, but it needs to take on whatever style Windows XP is using, or no styles. One of the problems is that the Telerik styles don't render well in low resolutions, i.e. remoting.
13 Answers, 1 is accepted
0
Hello PortVista,
We don't have support for system themes at the moment. Nevertheless, you can use the VsualStyleBuilder to create a theme that will look good for you. Just set the the GradientStyle to Solid for all gradients and borders.
Kind regards,
Angel
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center
We don't have support for system themes at the moment. Nevertheless, you can use the VsualStyleBuilder to create a theme that will look good for you. Just set the the GradientStyle to Solid for all gradients and borders.
Kind regards,
Angel
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center
0
PortVista
Top achievements
Rank 2
Rank 2
answered on 08 Aug 2007, 12:53 PM
Thanks, that's right, what I guess we're looking for is linking to system colors instead of an actual color. I suppose this would be a worthy feature addition, even though Vista handles this differently I believe (have not gotten into VS 2008). Actually, I'm not sure how Telerik would even do in Vista if it's not using the system styles? I believe this is part of .NET 3.0 where there is no released VS for yet. But isn't Telerik styles just like hardcoding?
I don't think I'd want to build an app using hardcoded styles that would look really odd on computers with say all dark purple colors, and your app is still all bright green!
I don't think I'd want to build an app using hardcoded styles that would look really odd on computers with say all dark purple colors, and your app is still all bright green!
0
Hi PortVista,
Support for system themes is a good idea but using the Microsoft mechanism for system themes is rather complicated when rich painting for the controls is required... The Microsoft API offers functions that draw the content of a control according the selected system theme. This is in conflict with the way for organizing and painting the GUI that is used in our controls.
For example, see the "First Look" example for the combo box - for each drop-down item there are 2 text primitives that paint the 2 texts - above and below the line. Each text primitive can have its own color and font. If you like, you can even rotate some items. If we use the Windows theme mechanism we cannot achieve such rich painting.
This is the reason why for now the support for system themes is suspended. In the future we will try to achieve a graceful degrade of the UI richness in favor of using the system-theming mechanism.
Greetings,
Angel
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center
Support for system themes is a good idea but using the Microsoft mechanism for system themes is rather complicated when rich painting for the controls is required... The Microsoft API offers functions that draw the content of a control according the selected system theme. This is in conflict with the way for organizing and painting the GUI that is used in our controls.
For example, see the "First Look" example for the combo box - for each drop-down item there are 2 text primitives that paint the 2 texts - above and below the line. Each text primitive can have its own color and font. If you like, you can even rotate some items. If we use the Windows theme mechanism we cannot achieve such rich painting.
This is the reason why for now the support for system themes is suspended. In the future we will try to achieve a graceful degrade of the UI richness in favor of using the system-theming mechanism.
Greetings,
Angel
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center
0
PortVista
Top achievements
Rank 2
Rank 2
answered on 06 Mar 2008, 02:06 PM
I see this hinted at in the forums as being released soon, but is this feature now included in the Telerik controls? This was a main reason we had to stop using the Telerik controls.
We need support for Windows 2000, XP, and Vista. We are not so interested in creating our own styles and colors. We want the controls to take on the look and color scheme of the desktop. This would also help in cases where people are remoting in and only have 16 or 256 colors.
We need support for Windows 2000, XP, and Vista. We are not so interested in creating our own styles and colors. We want the controls to take on the look and color scheme of the desktop. This would also help in cases where people are remoting in and only have 16 or 256 colors.
0
Hello PortVista,
This task is indeed on our ToDo list. We are still not sure whether we will provide common Windows themes for all of our controls (easier), or we will try to use the native Windows theme to paint our controls (time- and resource-consuming, but better cross-platform solution). We will need to dig deeper in the latter solution in order to decide how to proceed.
Unfortunately, we do not see this happening for the upcoming Q1 release, because we have tasks with higher importance. There are several people who have requested this functionality and all will benefit from it. We will do our best to raise the importance of this feature for Q2 2007 due in July.
All the best,
Angel
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center
This task is indeed on our ToDo list. We are still not sure whether we will provide common Windows themes for all of our controls (easier), or we will try to use the native Windows theme to paint our controls (time- and resource-consuming, but better cross-platform solution). We will need to dig deeper in the latter solution in order to decide how to proceed.
Unfortunately, we do not see this happening for the upcoming Q1 release, because we have tasks with higher importance. There are several people who have requested this functionality and all will benefit from it. We will do our best to raise the importance of this feature for Q2 2007 due in July.
All the best,
Angel
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center
0
Graham
Top achievements
Rank 1
Rank 1
answered on 08 Apr 2009, 10:44 AM
I need to add a datetimepicker to an existing VB.NET 2008 application. I need it to look "boring and gray" (just like the other standard controls on XP). Is there an easy way to remove all the colour from the Telerik control. I don't really want to spend hours learning how to create a custom theme.
0
Hi Graham,
Thank you for the question.
Currently, the only way to get the desired look is by deleting the state tabs of an existing theme. This will remove the effects triggered by user actions (mouse hover, mouse press, etc.). We will consider implementing a feature which will enable the system theming on our controls. However, currently I cannot provide with an exact time frame.
I am attaching a sample theme with its state tabs (except the Initial State) deleted. I have also changed some of the colors set at the elements. For additional information about setting properties for an element, you can refer to this help article. I hope this helps. If you have additional questions, feel free to contact me.
Best wishes,
Nikolay
the Telerik team
Check out Telerik Trainer , the state of the art learning tool for Telerik products.
Thank you for the question.
Currently, the only way to get the desired look is by deleting the state tabs of an existing theme. This will remove the effects triggered by user actions (mouse hover, mouse press, etc.). We will consider implementing a feature which will enable the system theming on our controls. However, currently I cannot provide with an exact time frame.
I am attaching a sample theme with its state tabs (except the Initial State) deleted. I have also changed some of the colors set at the elements. For additional information about setting properties for an element, you can refer to this help article. I hope this helps. If you have additional questions, feel free to contact me.
Best wishes,
Nikolay
the Telerik team
Check out Telerik Trainer , the state of the art learning tool for Telerik products.
0
Code Authority, Inc.
Top achievements
Rank 2
Rank 2
answered on 14 Jul 2009, 04:00 PM
Here's an idea, why doesn't telerik have their theme designers provide a system like theme?
0
Hi Jason Taylor,
Thank you for this question. Generally we have a "system theme" in our to-do list and I hope it will be ready soon. However in order to make sure we are developing a feature that will add value for you, can you please specify if you need:
Sincerely yours,
Mike
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions on the new Telerik Support Portal.
Check out the tips for optimizing your support resource searches.
Thank you for this question. Generally we have a "system theme" in our to-do list and I hope it will be ready soon. However in order to make sure we are developing a feature that will add value for you, can you please specify if you need:
- A theme that resembles the current OS theme - like the standard Toolbox controls?
- A theme that no matter what current OS theme is, renders like, for example Windows XP Luna theme?
- Any other case? Please describe in more details.
Sincerely yours,
Mike
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions on the new Telerik Support Portal.
Check out the tips for optimizing your support resource searches.
0
Code Authority, Inc.
Top achievements
Rank 2
Rank 2
answered on 19 Aug 2009, 06:05 PM
- A theme that resembles the current OS theme - like the standard Toolbox controls? I would say yes to this, this would be nice if the telerik controls had a theme that blended gracefully with the standard toolbox controls.
- A theme that no matter what current OS theme is, renders like, for example Windows XP Luna theme? Really just looking for a theme that blends with the os about 90%, not something that is way off. Say the developer wants to add a .net standard toolbox control, we'd like the telerik control to blend as ui friendly as possibly.
- Any other case? Please describe in more details. Well here's another thing I think would be very helpful, in your themed approach. It would be nice if there was a utility kinda app you provided that showed all your controls using a theme, and be able to switch between them easily. Not a functioning application, something like how the silverlight guys display their templates. http://silverlight.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Silverlight%20Toolkit%20Overview%20Part%203
This way we don't have to roll our own to see how the them behaves for all controls.
Hope that offers something to help with this issue.
0
Hello Jason,
Thanks for writing back and for providing details on this matter.
1. As my colleague said in the previous post, we are working on a System Theming Engine which should enable the standard Windows look-and-feel for most of our controls. This engine, however, is still in development process and we hope that we will finish it for our next major release.
2. System Theming mechanism would enable us to achieve much more consistent look of RadControls in comparison to the standard Visual Studio Toolbox controls. We have also the Vista theme which is designed to resemble the standard controls as much as possible. In general, we are constantly working on polishing our themes and improving the consistency of all themes that we ship in our suite. Last but not least, you can design your own themes and fine tune the appearance of our controls so that they match your requirements.
3. I am happy to inform you that we are working on a Theme Viewer application that is pretty much what you suggested: a showcase application that contains all of our controls and allows the user to change themes on the fly and see how they look.
I hope my answers are helpful. However, you can write back anytime you have further questions or any suggestions.
Best wishes,
Deyan
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions on the new Telerik Support Portal.
Check out the tips for optimizing your support resource searches.
Thanks for writing back and for providing details on this matter.
1. As my colleague said in the previous post, we are working on a System Theming Engine which should enable the standard Windows look-and-feel for most of our controls. This engine, however, is still in development process and we hope that we will finish it for our next major release.
2. System Theming mechanism would enable us to achieve much more consistent look of RadControls in comparison to the standard Visual Studio Toolbox controls. We have also the Vista theme which is designed to resemble the standard controls as much as possible. In general, we are constantly working on polishing our themes and improving the consistency of all themes that we ship in our suite. Last but not least, you can design your own themes and fine tune the appearance of our controls so that they match your requirements.
3. I am happy to inform you that we are working on a Theme Viewer application that is pretty much what you suggested: a showcase application that contains all of our controls and allows the user to change themes on the fly and see how they look.
I hope my answers are helpful. However, you can write back anytime you have further questions or any suggestions.
Best wishes,
Deyan
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions on the new Telerik Support Portal.
Check out the tips for optimizing your support resource searches.
0
Michael
Top achievements
Rank 1
Rank 1
answered on 04 May 2011, 12:29 PM
After testing the current release of RadControls and emailing with Telerik customer service, I have to say that the topic in this thread is still actual. Even in the newest version it seems to be impossible to let the RadControls look like the underlying system out of the box.
Unfortunately this is an important thing for our developer team, because our end-users still use Windows XP and appreciate the old classic Win2k theme as well as the Luna theme. This and the fact, that we cannot replace all controls on all our forms instantly but step-by-step (because we have a lot of forms with a lot of controls), prevents us from using RadControls right away. Although we would like to, because the features of all RadControls are convincing technology, especially the GridView!
So I want to /push this topic and look forward to a system-like theme for your RadControls!
Best regards,
Michael
Unfortunately this is an important thing for our developer team, because our end-users still use Windows XP and appreciate the old classic Win2k theme as well as the Luna theme. This and the fact, that we cannot replace all controls on all our forms instantly but step-by-step (because we have a lot of forms with a lot of controls), prevents us from using RadControls right away. Although we would like to, because the features of all RadControls are convincing technology, especially the GridView!
So I want to /push this topic and look forward to a system-like theme for your RadControls!
Best regards,
Michael
0
Hello Michael,
Thank you for your vote.
Indeed, currently there is no way to easily make RadControl look like the standard MS controls under Windows XP. I am not able to provide you with a specific time frame in which we will develop this feature because of other features that become popular lately.
Still, I think that you can achieve XP-like style by creating a theme based only on system colors. It will be best if you use our ControlDefault theme as a base for the custom theme. Please refer to the Examples application that comes with the WinForms suite, section Dock >> Visual Studio IDE. This example demonstrates that creating an XP-like theme is an achievable task.
Write back if you decide to follow this path and have any specific questions about our themes.
All the best,
Nikolay
the Telerik team
Thank you for your vote.
Indeed, currently there is no way to easily make RadControl look like the standard MS controls under Windows XP. I am not able to provide you with a specific time frame in which we will develop this feature because of other features that become popular lately.
Still, I think that you can achieve XP-like style by creating a theme based only on system colors. It will be best if you use our ControlDefault theme as a base for the custom theme. Please refer to the Examples application that comes with the WinForms suite, section Dock >> Visual Studio IDE. This example demonstrates that creating an XP-like theme is an achievable task.
Write back if you decide to follow this path and have any specific questions about our themes.
All the best,
Nikolay
the Telerik team