how to get glow style text in visual basic?

[cdlink14]

I'm trying to get the glow style text shown in win vista/7 title bar in my VB applications to use for labels/textboxes.

Image of glowing text:
[IMG]http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/3972/capturegm.jpg[/IMG]

Anybody know how to do this in visual basic ( visual studio 2010)?

[andersonmat]

Well, it probably goes beyond your area of programming if you're using Visual Basic, or what it's capable of. But you'd probably have to manually render that effect. I don't think that there is a setting for that in VB for fonts / effects.

[id3z]

    public class AeroGlass
    {
        #region API
        [DllImport("dwmapi.dll")]
        public static extern void DwmIsCompositionEnabled(ref bool pfEnabled);

        [DllImport("dwmapi.dll")]
        public static extern void DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea(IntPtr hWnd, ref MARGINS pMargins);

        [DllImport("gdi32.dll", ExactSpelling = true, SetLastError = true)]
        public static extern IntPtr CreateCompatibleDC(IntPtr hDC);

        [DllImport("gdi32.dll", ExactSpelling = true)]
        public static extern IntPtr SelectObject(IntPtr hDC, IntPtr hObject);

        [DllImport("gdi32.dll", ExactSpelling = true, SetLastError = true)]
        public static extern bool DeleteObject(IntPtr hObject);

        [DllImport("gdi32.dll", ExactSpelling = true, SetLastError = true)]
        public static extern bool DeleteDC(IntPtr hdc);

        [DllImport("gdi32.dll")]
        public static extern bool BitBlt(IntPtr hdc, int nXDest, int nYDest, int nWidth, int nHeight, IntPtr hdcSrc, int nXSrc, int nYSrc, UInt32 dwRop);

        [DllImport("UxTheme.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
        public static extern int DrawThemeTextEx(IntPtr hTheme, IntPtr hdc, int iPartId, int iStateId, string text, int iCharCount, int dwFlags, ref RECT pRect, ref DTTOPTS pOptions);

        [DllImport("gdi32.dll")]
        public static extern IntPtr CreateDIBSection(IntPtr hdc, BITMAPINFO pbmi, UInt32 iUsage, int ppvBits, IntPtr hSection, UInt32 dwOffset);
        #endregion

        #region Constants
        public const int DTT_COMPOSITED = 8192;
        public const int DTT_GLOWSIZE = 2048;
        public const int DTT_TEXTCOLOR = 1;
        public const int SRCCOPY = 0x00CC0020;
        public const int DT_CENTER = 0x1;
        public const int DT_VCENTER = 0x4;
        #endregion

        #region Structures
        [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
        public struct DTTOPTS
        {
            public int dwSize;
            public int dwFlags;
            public int crText;
            public int crBorder;
            public int crShadow;
            public int iTextShadowType;
            public POINT ptShadowOffset;
            public int iBorderSize;
            public int iFontPropId;
            public int iColorPropId;
            public int iStateId;
            public bool fApplyOverlay;
            public int iGlowSize;
            public int pfnDrawTextCallback;
            public IntPtr lParam;
        }

        [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
        public struct POINT
        {
            public int x;
            public int y;
        }

        [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
        public class BITMAPINFO
        {
            public int biSize;
            public int biWidth;
            public int biHeight;
            public short biPlanes;
            public short biBitCount;
            public int biCompression;
            public int biSizeImage;
            public int biXPelsPerMeter;
            public int biYPelsPerMeter;
            public int biClrUsed;
            public int biClrImportant;
            public byte bmiColors_rgbBlue;
            public byte bmiColors_rgbGreen;
            public byte bmiColors_rgbRed;
            public byte bmiColors_rgbReserved;
        }

        [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
        public struct MARGINS
        {
            public int left;
            public int right;
            public int top;
            public int bottom;
        }

        [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
        public struct RECT
        {
            public int Left;
            public int Top;
            public int Right;
            public int Bottom;

            public RECT(int iLeft, int iTop, int iRight, int iBottom)
            {
                Left = iLeft;
                Top = iTop;
                Right = iRight;
                Bottom = iBottom;
            }

            public RECT(Rectangle r)
            {
                Left = r.X;
                Top = r.Y;
                Right = r.Right;
                Bottom = r.Bottom;
            }
        }
        #endregion

        #region public Methods
        public static bool IsCompositionEnabled
        {
            get
            {
                if (Environment.OSVersion.Version.Major < 6) return false;

                bool compositionEnabled = false;
                DwmIsCompositionEnabled(ref compositionEnabled);
                return compositionEnabled;
            }
        }

        public static void ExtendGlassIntoClientArea(Form f, int leftMargin, int topMargin, int rightMargin, int bottomMargin)
        {
            MARGINS m = new MARGINS();
            m.left = leftMargin;
            m.right = rightMargin;
            m.top = topMargin;
            m.bottom = bottomMargin;

            DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea(f.Handle, ref m);
        }

        public void PaintGlass(IntPtr pHdc, IntPtr mHdc, Rectangle r)
        {
            Bitmap buffer = new Bitmap(r.Width, r.Height);

            IntPtr Ptr = buffer.GetHbitmap(Color.Black);
            IntPtr Ptr2 = SelectObject(mHdc, Ptr);

            BitBlt(pHdc, r.Left, r.Top, r.Width, r.Height, mHdc, 0, 0, Convert.ToUInt32(SRCCOPY));

            DeleteObject(Ptr2);
        }

        public static void DrawGlowingText(Graphics g, string text, Font font, Rectangle bounds, Color color)
        {
            IntPtr primaryHdc = g.GetHdc();
            IntPtr memoryHdc = CreateCompatibleDC(primaryHdc);

            BITMAPINFO info = new BITMAPINFO();
            info.biSize = Marshal.SizeOf(info);
            info.biWidth = bounds.Width;
            info.biHeight = -bounds.Height;
            info.biPlanes = 1;
            info.biBitCount = 32;
            info.biCompression = 0;

            IntPtr dib = CreateDIBSection(primaryHdc, info, Convert.ToUInt32(0), 0, IntPtr.Zero, Convert.ToUInt32(0));
            SelectObject(memoryHdc, dib);

            IntPtr fontHandle = font.ToHfont();
            SelectObject(memoryHdc, fontHandle);

            DTTOPTS dttOpts = new DTTOPTS();
            dttOpts.dwSize = Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(DTTOPTS));
            dttOpts.dwFlags = DTT_COMPOSITED | DTT_GLOWSIZE | DTT_TEXTCOLOR;
            dttOpts.crText = ColorTranslator.ToWin32(color);
            dttOpts.iGlowSize = 10;

            RECT textBounds = new RECT(0, 0, bounds.Right - bounds.Left, bounds.Bottom - bounds.Top);
            IntPtr ptr = new IntPtr(65536);

            DrawThemeTextEx(ptr, memoryHdc, 0, 0, text, -1, 2084 | DT_CENTER, ref textBounds, ref dttOpts);

            BitBlt(primaryHdc, bounds.Left, bounds.Top, bounds.Width, bounds.Height, memoryHdc, 0, 0, Convert.ToUInt32(SRCCOPY));

            DeleteObject(dib);
            DeleteObject(fontHandle);
            DeleteDC(memoryHdc);
            g.ReleaseHdc(primaryHdc);
        }
        #endregion
    }
}

i've used this at one point. it's c# but you should get the idea. mainly DrawGlowingText

and it's probably all wrong.

[explosiveegg]

Personally, i'd just create a .gif of what I want, and draw it as a graphic on the screen. You could do it through code, but it'd be a lot more effort for what you want to do.