Chris Pietschmann

A few months ago I posted some code that I originally wrote back in about 2004… Well, I was looking through some more of my prototypes that I’ve written and I came across the following example of how to use the IProgressDialog Win32 Interface to harness the power of the Built-in Progress Dialog in Windows within your own .NET applications. I have test this on WIndows 7, but it should work as expected on Windows XP and Vista. The MSDN Documentation for IProgressDialog says it&rsquo... [More]

Win32API .net framework, win32, c#

I've been working on an application recently that needs to be able to communicate through a router/firewall using TCP. I've read/heard a bit of information about NAT Routers and UPnP; the technoligies used in almost every router sold commercially. So, I knew that you could use the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) features of the NAT Router to automatically open up the firewall via Port Forwarding to allow other computers on the Internet to connect directly to the one your application is running on... [More]

Win32API .net framework, networking, upnp, com, c#

The Windows API (Win32) has the FlashWindowEx method within the User32 library; this method allows you (the developer) to Flash a Window, signifying to the user that some major event occurred within the application that requires their attention. The most common use of this is to flash the window until the user returns focus to the application. However, you can also flash the window a specified number of times, or just keep flashing it until you decide when to stop. The use of the FlashWindowEx ... [More]

Win32API win32, .net framework, windows, c#

Here's the simple code necessary to add some custom menu items to your applications System Menu within a WPF application. If you're not familiar, the System Menu is the menu that shows up if you click on the apps icon in the upper left or if you right click the app in the taskbar. [More]

Win32API .net framework, win32, pinvoke, wpf, c#

This is something I used to have a code snippet for in VB6, but I haven't needed to do this in a while so I never wrote up an example in .NET. So, here's the simple code necessary to add some custom menu items to your applications System Menu. If you're not familiar, the System Menu is the menu that shows up if you click on the apps icon in the upper left or if you right click the app in the taskbar. [More]

Win32API .net framework, win32, pinvoke, c#

This last weekend I expirimented a little bit with extending the functionality of the RichTextBox control. Below you'll find an example of a small class that enherits from the RichTextBox control and allows you to implement syntax highlighting (with the use of a couple Win32 API call to smooth over the process of course.) The code pretty much speaks for itself.   Public Class SyntaxRTB    Inherits System.Windows.Forms.RichTextBox    Private Declar... [More]

vb.net, Win32API .net framework, vb.net, richtextbox, win32