CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#formswinformsflicker
Yash Saraiya
Yash Saraiya

Reputation: 1055

Eliminate Flickering in C# WinForms Application

I am creating a C# WinForm Application (for a touch device "MS Surface Hub") using Visual Studio 2013.
I have created two forms:

  1. First form contains Introduction video (axWindowsMediaPlayer) which runs on form load
  2. Second form contains Menu (Flash file)

If a user interrupts by touching the screen on Form 1, the Introduction video stops playing and moves to Form 2. Here is my code to achieve this:

private void axWindowsMediaPlayer_ClickEvent(object sender, AxWMPLib._WMPOCXEvents_ClickEvent e)
    {
        Player.close();
        var menu = new Menu();
        menu.Closed += (s, args) => this.Close();
        menu.Show();
        this.Hide();
    }

However when I checked the Transition from Form 1 to Form 2, I observed a flicker effect (i.e. I observed the back screen being displayed for a fraction of a second). How do I eliminate this effect?

I went through a lot of questions on Stack Forums and also read a lot of blogs, but didn't found a working solution. I was suggested to use a DoubleBuffered property in my form, but it gave me the following Error:

Only assignment, call, increment, decrement, await, and new object expressions can be used as a statement

Another suggestion was to use WS_EX_COMPOSITED 0x02000000L, But I didn't found enough notes on how to accurately implement this in my code. A quote on this on MSDN:

Paints all descendants of a window in bottom-to-top painting order using double-buffering. For more information, see Remarks. This cannot be used if the window has a class style of either CS_OWNDC or CS_CLASSDC.

I would like to know if there is a workaround for eliminating flicker effect.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1689

Answers (1)

Yash Saraiya
Yash Saraiya

Reputation: 1055

I achieved zero flickering by using sendToBack and bringToFront property of the form. I initially loaded both my forms in InitializeForm() function and then simply set these properties on my form on Touch event. By doing so the time to load a form i.e. using .show() and .hide() is eliminated.

Note: Both my forms are static and thus I can apply these properties. In a scenario where which form is to be loaded is decided dynamically, I am not sure whether this will give the desired result. Any better solutions are welcomed.

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions