Initial toolbar drawing causes screen flashing

[Mick Speake]

Although I pre-register all MDI child types the intial drawing of the menus/toolbars causes the screen to flash. This effect is exacerbated when the screen background is set to a bit map. It looks like the following happens :- - backdrop is painted - menus/toolbar painted - backdrop repainted Can you suggest a way to avoid this? I enclose the XPmenusMDI example with the following changes :- - application opens maximised - backdrop is set to logo.jpg I know it is only a small point but I would like to achieve the same slick look as in for example starting Word. Thanks, Mick XPMenusMDI2_9651.zip

[Administrator]

Hi Mick,

There were some issues with flickering in v3.0 of XPMenus. There are some workarounds/hacks that can be done to reduce the flickering, you could wait for our next release, or you could create a DirectTrac incident and request the build that the XPMenu flicker was fixed in.

If you prefer the former, please let me know and I''ll provide you the list of workarounds.

Regards,
Gregory Austin
Syncfusion Inc.

[Mick Speake]

Thanks for the feedback, Gregory.

I''ll try the workarounds, first, if you could let me have the details.

Regards,
Mick

[Administrator]

Hi Mick,

After reviewing your application, there are two things that cause the flickering. The first is that the background image is set (and therefore sized) before the Toolbars have been loaded. This can be prevented by adding a call to SuspendLayout() before setting the background image in the constructor. You can then start a short Timer at the end of your Form.Load event handler, that calls ResumeLayout(true) when it''s done. This will prevent the background image from being sized until after the Toolbars are loaded.

The second problem is that your application is being immediately Maximized after loading. This effectively doubles the flickering you experience. This can be avoided by not maximizing your window and setting the Form size to the WorkingArea of the Primary Screen.

public MainForm()
{
//Majority of Constructor

this.Size = System.Windows.Forms.Screen.PrimaryScreen.WorkingArea.Size;

this.SuspendLayout();

//Set background image
}

private void Form1_Load(sender, e)
{
//Current Code

this.timer1.Start()
}

private void timer1_Start(sender, e)
{
this.ResumeLayout(true);
}

These changes should make your application look much better.

Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns.

Regards,
Gregory Austin
Syncfusion Inc.

[Mick Speake]

Thanks, Gregory,

That''s a big improvement.

Regards,
Mick