Extended MessageBox Library (assembly) for .NET

Apr 30, 2010.

Summary: With this library .NET applications can control a wide variety of MessageBox dialog settings.

That includes adjusting initial position and size of the dialog, selecting message font and font color, filling dialog background with solid colors or bitmap files, modifying button captions & fonts, loading dialog icons from external files, accepting text input, opening web pages, dialog timeout and more.

Once configured, the extended features are persistent through the application's session affecting each regular MessageBox.Show call.


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Contents

A picture is worth a thousand words

Features

Download Help file

Best practices

Quick start with a sample code

Quick start with more advanced sample code

Quick start with XMsg configuration utility

Contact Information

Full version includes complete source code (VS2005 C# Class Library project).

A download link will be automatically emailed to the email address you provide on PayPal page for the purchase transaction.

A picture is worth a thousand words ..top

Features ..top

Adjustable message font and font color. The dialog resizes automatically to accomodate messages in fonts larger than regular.
Dialog background can be painted with solid colors, hatch patterns, bitmap files
Dialog icon can be loaded from ICO file, resource file (EXE, DLL), or a file type (e.g. *.pdf)
Dialog's width and height can be either restricted or forced to specified values
Dialog window can be positioned at a specified point, or aligned with monitor border
A click on the message opens a web page in default browser
A click on the icon opens a web page in default browser
Button captions and fonts can be user-defined
Buttons can be disabled
Buttons can have tooltips
Three additional buttons available
Additional controls available: Text Input, CheckBox, WebLink
The dialog can be closed on timeout
OS supported: Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista / 7

Download Help file ..top

Depending on PC's security settings, the Help File may need to be unblocked after downloading.

Download Help File for the Extended MessageBox .NET Assembly

Best practices ..top

Add XMsgLib reference to your .NET Windows Application project.

Style MessageBoxes in your application in unique and creative way

Add code configuring extended MessageBox features to the Init section of the application.
When application runs, all MessageBox dialogs appear on screen having extended features configured uniformly: dimensions, position, fonts, backgrounds etc.

Present user with more than 3 choices

Adjust dialog button captions (for example [Yes, No and Cancel] becomes [Forward, Back and Stop] )
Activate up to 3 additional buttons
Draw user attention to a button by choosing a different font.
Add tooltips to some buttons.
Disable some of dialog buttons optionally.
Enable CheckBox control. Its Checked status can be retrieved after the dialog returns control to the application.

Use wide variety of icons and backgrounds

Display dialog icons contained in ICO files, in resource files, and linked to file types.
Paint dialog background with solid colors, hatch patterns, and with bitmap files.

Use MessageBox for collecting user input

Enable Text Input control each time a text input from user is expected: password, error description, and so on.

Automatically close MessageBox after a specified amount of time

Assign Timeout parameter (milliseconds). This can make a difference for an application running in occasionally unattended mode.

Link MessageBox dialog to the Web

Enable Web Link control
Assign web link to the dialog icon.
Assign web link to the dialog message.

Quick start with a sample code ..top

�
private void TestXMsgDialog()
{
�
    //Message settings
    DlgMgr.AssignMessageFont("Arial", 27, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0);
    DlgMgr.MessageFontColor = Color.Navy;
�
    //Turning dialog extended features on
    //will affect all consecutive MessageBox.Show calls
    DlgMgr.DlgMonitorEnabled = true;
�
    MessageBox.Show("This is a test!",
        "Extended MessageBox .NET Assembly",
        MessageBoxButtons.OKCancel,
        MessageBoxIcon.Information);
�
}
�

A dialog produced by a sample code above:

Quick start with more advanced sample code ..top

�
private void TestXMsgDialog()
{
�
    //Dialog Dimension settings
    DlgMgr.AssignDlgMaxSize(570, 0);
�
    //Dialog Position settings
    DlgMgr.AssignDlgPosition(100, 200,
        XMessageBoxPositionMode.AbsolutePosition);
�
    //Dialog Button settings
    DlgMgr.AssignButtonCaption(XMessageBoxButton.ButtonAux01, "Download");
    DlgMgr.AssignButtonCaption(XMessageBoxButton.ButtonCancel, "Exit");
    DlgMgr.AssignButtonCaption(XMessageBoxButton.ButtonOk, "Next");
    DlgMgr.AssignButtonFont(XMessageBoxButton.ButtonOk,
        "", 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0);
�
    //Dialog Background settings
    DlgMgr.UdfBackcolorsEnabled = true;
    DlgMgr.LoadBackColorFromSolidColor(XMessageBoxBackground.DlgWindow,
        Color.FromArgb(-399668));
    DlgMgr.LoadBackColorFromSolidColor(XMessageBoxBackground.ToolBarWindow,
        Color.FromArgb(-4082785));
�
    //Dialog Icon settings
    DlgMgr.UdfIconsEnabled = true;
    DlgMgr.LoadIconFromFileType(XMessageBoxIcon.UserIcon, "*.cs");
�
    //Web Link Control settings
    DlgMgr.EnableHrefCtrl(
        "http://www.news2news.com/vfp/?solution=5",
        "Extended MessageBox .NET web page",
        Color.FromArgb(-16776961));
�
    //CheckBox Control settings
    DlgMgr.EnableCheckBoxCtrl("Skip Intro", false);
�
    //Message settings
    DlgMgr.AssignMessageFont("Segoe UI", 14, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0);
    DlgMgr.MessageFontColor = Color.FromArgb(0x32, 0x32, 0x32);
�
    //Turning dialog extended features on
    //will affect all consecutive MessageBox.Show calls
    DlgMgr.DlgMonitorEnabled = true;
�
    MessageBox.Show("MessageBox Class displays a message box " +
        "that can contain text, buttons, and symbols " +
        "that inform and instruct the user.",
        "Extended MessageBox .NET Assembly",
        MessageBoxButtons.OKCancel,
        MessageBoxIcon.Information);
�
    //DlgMgr members populated upon dialog closing:
�
    //DlgMgr.ClosedOnTimeout
        //returns True when the dialog gets closed on a timeout;
        //otherwise returns False
�
    //DlgMgr.AuxButtonPressed
        //returns aux.button ID (11, 12, or 13) if that closed the dialog;
        //otherwise returns zero
�
    //DlgMgr.CheckBoxState
        //returns CheckBox control's Checked state;
        //returns False when the control was not shown
�
    //DlgMgr.TextInputValue
        //returns text entered in the Text Input control;
        //returns empty string when the control not shown
�
}
�

A dialog produced by a sample code above: