Question

I have a details panel which can be shown or hidden.

How can I made a simple fade effect for showing/hiding that panel (and of course its contents) ?

I am using Windows forms, and controls don’t have opacity property in windows forms.

Answer 1

This is quite do-able in Winforms, it only has to look like a fade. One technique is to use Control.DrawToBitmap() to create a bitmap of the control. And then blend from a background bitmap to the foreground bitmap with a timer.

I’ll use a UserControl instead of a Panel so you can design the control with the Winforms designer. The code will however work in any kind of control. Add a new class to your project and paste the code shown below. Compile. Create your own UserControl from this one with Project + Add New Item, Windows Forms node, “Inherited User Control” template and pick FadeControl from the popup list. Design the user control as normal.

As written, the control will automatically fade from the parent’s BackColor to the control content as soon as you add the control to the parent. Call FadeOut() to make it blend back to the background. Pass true if you want to automatically dispose the control when it is done fading. You can use FadeIn() and the Faded property for manual control of the fading. You can adjust the numbers in the lines commented with // tweakable to adjust the animation. Additional work is needed if the parent has a non-opaque background.

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Imaging;
using System.Windows.Forms;

class FadeControl : UserControl {

    public FadeControl() {
        pbox = new PictureBox();
        pbox.BorderStyle = BorderStyle.None;
        pbox.Paint += new PaintEventHandler(pbox_Paint);
        fadeTimer = new Timer();
        fadeTimer.Interval = 15;   // tweakable
        fadeTimer.Tick += new EventHandler(fadeTimer_Tick);
    }

    public bool Faded {
        get { return blend < 0.5f; }
    }
    public void FadeIn() {
        stopFade(false);
        createBitmaps();
        startFade(1);
    }
    public void FadeOut(bool disposeWhenDone) {
        stopFade(false);
        createBitmaps();
        disposeOnComplete = disposeWhenDone;
        startFade(-1);
    }

    private void createBitmaps() {
        bmpBack = new Bitmap(this.ClientSize.Width, this.ClientSize.Height);
        using (var gr = Graphics.FromImage(bmpBack)) gr.Clear(this.Parent.BackColor);
        bmpFore = new Bitmap(bmpBack.Width, bmpBack.Height);
        this.DrawToBitmap(bmpFore, this.ClientRectangle);
    }
    void fadeTimer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e) {
        blend += blendDir * 0.02F;   // tweakable
        bool done = false;
        if (blend < 0) { done = true; blend = 0; }
        if (blend > 1) { done = true; blend = 1; }
        if (done) stopFade(true); 
        else pbox.Invalidate();
    }
    void pbox_Paint(object sender, PaintEventArgs e) {
        Rectangle rc = new Rectangle(0, 0, pbox.Width, pbox.Height);
        ColorMatrix cm = new ColorMatrix();
        ImageAttributes ia = new ImageAttributes();
        cm.Matrix33 = blend;
        ia.SetColorMatrix(cm);
        e.Graphics.DrawImage(bmpFore, rc, 0, 0, bmpFore.Width, bmpFore.Height, GraphicsUnit.Pixel, ia);
        cm.Matrix33 = 1F - blend;
        ia.SetColorMatrix(cm);
        e.Graphics.DrawImage(bmpBack, rc, 0, 0, bmpBack.Width, bmpBack.Height, GraphicsUnit.Pixel, ia);
    }

    private void stopFade(bool complete) {
        fadeTimer.Enabled = false;
        if (complete) {
           if (!Faded) this.Controls.Remove(pbox);
           else if (disposeOnComplete) this.Dispose();
        }
        if (bmpBack != null) { bmpBack.Dispose(); bmpBack = null; }
        if (bmpFore != null) { bmpFore.Dispose(); bmpFore = null; }
    }
    private void startFade(int dir) {
        this.Controls.Add(pbox);
        this.Controls.SetChildIndex(pbox, 0);
        blendDir = dir;
        fadeTimer.Enabled = true;
        fadeTimer_Tick(this, EventArgs.Empty);
    }

    protected override void OnCreateControl() {
        base.OnCreateControl();
        if (!DesignMode) FadeIn();
    }
    protected override void OnResize(EventArgs eventargs) {
        pbox.Size = this.ClientSize;
        base.OnResize(eventargs);
    }
    protected override void Dispose(bool disposing) {
        if (disposing) {
            stopFade(false);
            pbox.Dispose();
            fadeTimer.Dispose();
        }
        base.Dispose(disposing);
    }

    private PictureBox pbox;
    private Timer fadeTimer;
    private Bitmap bmpBack, bmpFore;
    private float blend;
    private int blendDir = 1;
    private bool disposeOnComplete;
}