Fancy UI using standard windows gui

[svero]

Does anyone know of a way to simplify the process of making an app that uses standard windows GUI stuff look slick? Some utils like photoshop, softimages, etc... tend to use nice skins in places and look a lot better than the standard dialog you'd get if you just worked one up the default way with MFC. I know you can do ownerdrawn controls, but I'm wondering if there's a very good library or set of tools people generally use?

[smiles]

Are you developing in .Net? If so, check out http://www.sharplibrary.com

[princec]

Does anyone know of a way to simplify the process of making an app that uses standard windows GUI stuff look slick? Some utils like photoshop, softimages, etc... tend to use nice skins in places and look a lot better than the standard dialog you'd get if you just worked one up the default way with MFC. I know you can do ownerdrawn controls, but I'm wondering if there's a very good library or set of tools people generally use?
I use Java with the Alloy Look & Feel :)

Cas :)

[ZuluBoy]

Does anyone know of a way to simplify the process of making an app that uses standard windows GUI stuff look slick? Some utils like photoshop, softimages, etc... tend to use nice skins in places and look a lot better than the standard dialog you'd get if you just worked one up the default way with MFC. I know you can do ownerdrawn controls, but I'm wondering if there's a very good library or set of tools people generally use?

Have you tried GTK (http://www.gtk.org/) ?

[Leper]

check this out:

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=47927
http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=51146

scroll past the text and lookie at screen shots. This is what I'm using for my game in development. Its a fully customizeable lib!

[princec]

GTK is quite hideous though :(

Cas :)

[Kestral]

I used a bitmap and custom colors with a C++/MFC app a while back to "gussy up" the dialogs. See this screen shot:

http://indie.ods.org/screen.jpg

If this is what you want I can email you the source. It was just a matter of trapping the WM_ERASEBKGND, WM_CTLCOLOR, and WM_DRAWITEM messages.

[Leper]

http://www.blitz3dfr.com/iglass_projet/iglass_01.jpg
http://www.blitz3dfr.com/iglass_projet/iglass_02.jpg
http://www.blitz3dfr.com/iglass_projet/iglass_03.jpg
http://www.blitz3dfr.com/iglass_projet/iglass_04.jpg

http://www.blitz3dfr.com/iglass_projet/iglass_skin01.jpg
http://www.blitz3dfr.com/iglass_projet/iglass_skin02.jpg

http://bond357.free.fr/screen/ScreenIGLS02.jpg

[ZuluBoy]

GTK is quite hideous though :(

Cas :)

Well, you can always use themes (http://art.gnome.org/themes/gtk2/) to change the look & feel. :)