Non-Square Icon on Windows Form?

Question

Is it possible to display an icon in the top left corner of a Windows Form that is a different shape than the standard 16X16 pixel icon?

It appears that Skype has an icon that is much wider than standard:

Is it possible in a Windows Forms app?

Answer 1

You can do this but it's probably more effort than it's worth just to have a larger icon.

Hans has posted an article that roughly points to the information needed to figure out an answer this question, but hasn't posted an answer itself and so I'll clarify.

The old (pre Vista) way to do this is to override the WndProc method on your form and handle the WM_NCPAINT message. Note that this means that you are now responsible for drawing the entire window frame (the window border, title, close / restore icons etc...), not just the icon - i.e. this is a lot of effort to do a relatively minor thing.

The newer (post Vista) way to do this is to use the DWM API - note that this API is not directly exposed through the .Net Framework and so you need to use P/Invoke for this in C#. The bit that you want to do is the section titled "Drawing in the Extended Frame Window", where you extend the area that you are responsible for drawing outside of the normal client area and into the window frame. This is less hassle than it used to be (you don't have to draw things like the close buttons), however still means that you take responsibility for a lot of things that you wouldn't normally, like hit-box testing for resizing and moving.

Basically its nowhere near as simple as providing a larger icon and for most applications its probably way more effort than its worth, however you can do this in C# and that article should get you started if you really want to give it a try.

Answer 2

I know your looking for a plain code way to do this, but I invite you to check out DevExpress manged (yes it's third party forgive me), just google it.. I seen this thread and I started asking questions at devexpress with support and got some impressive results that you might be interested in.

Here is the ticket I put in... http://www.devexpress.com/Support/Center/Issues/ViewIssue.aspx?issueid=Q399941

Here is the result... http://www.devexpress.com/Support/Center/GetSCAttachment.ashx?id=684270b5-faed-415e-9010-64338523f8cf

So Far I used this on Xp, Vista and Windows 7 without problems using winforms only.

I hope this helps or gives you another option if the windows API don't pan out like you want on different versions of windows.

Thanks, David