Transparency for windows forms textbox

Question

I'm using windows forms in C# and I need to make a textbox's background color transparent. I have a trackbar that goes from 0 to 255 that is supposed to control it, but I'm having some trouble. I created a question earlier today asking the exact same thing, but no success.

Here is the code I currently have:

private void trackAlpha_ValueChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    newColor = Color.FromArgb(trackAlpha.Value, colorDialog.Color.R, colorDialog.Color.G, colorDialog.Color.B);
    colorDialog.Color = newColor; // The Windows dialog used to pick the colors
    colorPreview.BackColor = newColor; // Textbox that I'm setting the background color
}

The problem is that absolutely nothing happens. Any ideas on why this is not working?

On the previous question, this nice guy said something about SetStyle(ControlStyles.SupportsTransparentBackColor, true);, but I have no idea on where I should put this.

Answer 1

You need to try out something like this.

Add a new user control , say CustomTextBox and change

public partial class CustomTextBox : UserControl

to

public partial class CustomTextBox : TextBox

You will then get the following error saying that the 'AutoScaleMode' is not defined. Delete the following line in the Designer.cs class.

this.AutoScaleMode = System.Windows.Forms.AutoScaleMode.Font;

Make changes to the constructor of your newly added control as follows.

public partial class CustomTextBox : TextBox
{
    public CustomTextBox()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        SetStyle(ControlStyles.SupportsTransparentBackColor |
                 ControlStyles.OptimizedDoubleBuffer |
                 ControlStyles.AllPaintingInWmPaint |
                 ControlStyles.ResizeRedraw |
                 ControlStyles.UserPaint, true);
        BackColor = Color.Transparent;
    }
}

Build, close the custom control designer if open and you will be able to use this control on any other control or form.

Drop it from the toolbox as shown below