ProgressBar style in WinForm

UriF 1

I tried to use ProgressBar in VS 2015 (VB.NET & C#) Community. It works OK except Style. Doesn't matter if I use "Continuous" or "Blocks" style I get "Continuous" style. I also tried in VS 2017 Community and I got the same behavior. It is strange. I downloaded one sample C# project and I am able to select between "Continuous"and "Blocks" styles. I use Windows 10 x64 20H2. I understand if "Blocks" would be disabled but I was able to run a project where everything works OK.

You understand that I use absolutely simple code. I can use "Continuous" style but I like I prefer "Blocks" style.

UriF 1 Reputation point

2021-06-03T18:29:35.703+00:00

After I posted this question I tried to comment out the EnableVisualStyles line and got "fragmented" ProgressBar style instead of "Continuous". I just ask if I can do it without this trick. You understand that I write my application just for myself. I use Progress Bar in tandem with Background Worker for long running processes and visual style is not critical. I tried different samples but i was not satisfied their behavior. I also not interested in third party controls. I thought that it is any trick to go around of this behavior. That's it.
Michael Taylor 53,406 Reputation points

2021-06-03T18:36:53.753+00:00

With visual styles disabled then Blocks works, otherwise it is not supported. Continuous is the same as documented in msdn.

With visual styles enabled only Marquee works correctly in Winforms. However there are some folks who say that setting the window theme for the control will allow continuous to work. I've never tried it myself but here's a sample post.
UriF 1 Reputation point

2021-06-03T19:18:45.663+00:00

I read this trick and instead of "Continuous" set "Blocks". As a result I got typical "Continuous" BUT instead of green color I got blue color. That's it.
Daniel Zhang-MSFT 9,626 Reputation points

2021-06-04T03:23:54.1+00:00
Hi @UriF ,
As cooldadtx said that you need to disable the use of visual styles.
And you can change the color of the ProgressBar to green through the ForeColor property.

progressBar1.ForeColor = Color.Green;

Best Regards,
Daniel Zhang

1 answer

Michael Taylor 53,406 Reputation points

2021-06-03T15:07:26.297+00:00

ProgressBar is backed by the OS, like most Winforms controls. When visual styles are enabled, the default, then it uses the OS theming and blocks is not supported as shown here. To disable this you'd need to go to your Program.Main function and comment out the EnableVisualStyles line. However that reverts your app to the "Win95" look which is probably not what you want.
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Mark Alberi 0 Reputation points

2023-09-21T17:53:53.5933333+00:00

To change the styles to your custom, such as changing the default solid green bar to a blocked blue, you should either disable "Enable Application Framework" or disable "Enable XP visual styles" check boxes in the My Project Application tab. You should not manually enable or disable global project properties. Visual Studio could error and either corrupt your project or itself. In the case of the latter this may require a Microsoft support phone call becasue sometimes even if you uninstall visual studio and reinstall it, it remembers all of its previous settings and causes of errors.

I tested your segregation, and it worked as setting EnableVisualStyles to false in the Application.Designer.vb file. However after looking at the Program.Main code in the Application.Designer.vb file, it was enabled for global VS project handling and should not be manually altered. I disabled "Application Framework" checkbox for my app instead. Disabling Application Framework will delete all the script handing in the Program.Main which is OK for non frame work apps. Disabling XP visual styles will set false EnableVisualStyles same as a setting along with changing any other not apparent to the programmer project styles affecting the forms object & any other legacy XP styles, so it should not be manually altered. I did not exit my project so I was not worried and any VS error handling of it would have warned me to change it back, which is something all VS developers should be sensitive too.

The choice of words should have been to set EnableVisualStyles to false, not disable. Disable means in coding to commit out. Its strongly advised that you do not do this.

regards,

Mark L. Alberi

Owner of SoftGlue & https://softglue.net, Software Tools & Virtual Network Company
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ProgressBar style in WinForm

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