Reasons for why a WinForms label does not want to be transparent?

c# winforms transparency
Svish picture Svish · Mar 3, 2009 · Viewed 29.7k times · Source

Why can't I set the BackColor of a Label to Transparent? I have done it before, but now it just don't want to...

I created a new UserControl, added a progressbar and a label to it. When I set the BackColor of the label to transparent it is still gray =/ Why is this?

What I wanted was to have the label on top of the progressbar so that its text was "in" the progressbar...

Answer

Hans Passant picture Hans Passant · Mar 3, 2009

Add a new class to your project and post the code shown below. Build. Drop the new control from the top of the toolbox onto your form.

using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;

public class TransparentLabel : Label {
  public TransparentLabel() {
    this.SetStyle(ControlStyles.Opaque, true);
    this.SetStyle(ControlStyles.OptimizedDoubleBuffer, false);
  }
  protected override CreateParams CreateParams {
    get {
      CreateParams parms = base.CreateParams;
      parms.ExStyle |= 0x20;  // Turn on WS_EX_TRANSPARENT
      return parms;
    }
  }
}

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