Question

I have a .gif file which i wish to use as the background image for a button. The main reason i want to do this (as i know some of you will wonder why i want to do it this way) is because, a button relates to an instance of a class, and i want to monitor these classes. when a class (and therefore button) goes into an “alarmed” state, i wish i use these animated gif. i’ve tried;

mainUI.Controls["btn" + device.deviceButtonNumber].BackgroundImage = (System.Drawing.Image)Properties.Resources.red_orange;

But it is to my understanding that .BackgroundImage does not support animated gifs. i’ve tried a few suggestions throughout stackoverflow and non of these seem to work for me, such as setting BackgroundImageLayout to center and such.

I suppose as a last resort i could get it to cycle through the images manually as if it were a gif, but this would create more work and i’d like to keep things simple. Any suggestions?

edit: sorry, forgot to add, this is in Winforms.

edit 2:

for example. when i create my buttons dynamically, like so;

  Button btnAdd = new Button();
  btnAdd.Text = mDevices[i].deviceDescription;
  btnAdd.Location = new Point(mDevices[i].deviceXPos.Value, mDevices[i].deviceYPos.Value);

I can still access:

 btnAdd.Image  <- note i can access image.

then when i come to modify them later from another thread, i find them like so;

 mainUI.Controls["btn" + device.deviceButtonNumber].text = blah blah
 mainUI.Controls["btn" + device.deviceButtonNumber].Location = blah blah

however i CANNOT access;

 mainUI.Controls["btn" + device.deviceButtonNumber].Image

Answer 1

/// <summary>
        /// Required method for Designer support - do not modify
        /// the contents of this method with the code editor.
        /// </summary>
        private void InitializeComponent()
        {
            System.ComponentModel.ComponentResourceManager resources = new System.ComponentModel.ComponentResourceManager(typeof(Form1));
            this.button1 = new System.Windows.Forms.Button();
            this.SuspendLayout();

            //  this.button1.Image = new Bitmap(@"C:\images\dance.gif");

            // if you import the local resource 
            this.button1.Image = ((System.Drawing.Image)(resources.GetObject("button1.Image")));
            this.button1.ImageAlign = System.Drawing.ContentAlignment.TopRight;
            this.button1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(109, 73);
            this.button1.Name = "button1";
            this.button1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(523, 437);
            this.button1.TabIndex = 1;
            this.button1.TextAlign = System.Drawing.ContentAlignment.MiddleLeft;
            this.button1.UseVisualStyleBackColor = true;
            // 
            // Form1
            // 
            this.AutoScaleDimensions = new System.Drawing.SizeF(8F, 17F);
            this.AutoScaleMode = System.Windows.Forms.AutoScaleMode.Font;
            this.ClientSize = new System.Drawing.Size(807, 640);
            this.Controls.Add(this.button1);
            this.Font = new System.Drawing.Font("Tahoma", 8.25F, System.Drawing.FontStyle.Regular, System.Drawing.GraphicsUnit.Point, ((byte)(0)));
            this.Name = "Form1";
            this.Text = "Image In Button Control";
            this.ResumeLayout(false);

        }