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How to: Change the Windows Forms MonthCalendar Control's Appearance

The Windows Forms MonthCalendar control allows you to customize the calendar's appearance in many ways. For example, you can set the color scheme and choose to display or hide week numbers and the current date.

To change the month calendar's color scheme

  • Set properties such as TitleBackColor, TitleForeColor and TrailingForeColor. The TitleBackColor property also determines the font color for the days of the week. The TrailingForeColor property determines the color of the dates that precede and follow the displayed month or months.

    MonthCalendar1.TitleBackColor = System.Drawing.Color.Blue
    MonthCalendar1.TrailingForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Red
    MonthCalendar1.TitleForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Yellow
    
    monthCalendar1.TitleBackColor = System.Drawing.Color.Blue;
    monthCalendar1.TrailingForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Red;
    monthCalendar1.TitleForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Yellow;
    
    monthCalendar1->TitleBackColor = System::Drawing::Color::Blue;
    monthCalendar1->TrailingForeColor = System::Drawing::Color::Red;
    monthCalendar1->TitleForeColor = System::Drawing::Color::Yellow;
    

    Note

    Starting with Windows Vista and depending on the theme, setting some properties might not change the appearance of the calendar. For example, if Windows is set to use the Aero theme, setting the BackColor, TitleBackColor, TitleForeColor, or TrailingForeColor properties has no effect. This is because an updated version of the calendar is rendered with an appearance that is derived at run time from the current operating system theme. If you want to use these properties and enable the earlier version of the calendar, you can disable visual styles for your application. Disabling visual styles might affect the appearance and behavior of other controls in your application. To disable visual styles in Visual Basic, open the Project Designer and uncheck the Enable XP visual styles check box. To disable visual styles in C#, open Program.cs and comment out Application.EnableVisualStyles();. For more information about visual styles, see How to: Enable Windows XP Visual Styles.

To display the current date at the bottom of the control

  • Set the ShowToday property to true. The example below toggles between displaying and omitting today's date when the form is double-clicked.

    Private Sub Form1_DoubleClick(ByVal sender As Object, _
    ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.DoubleClick
       ' Toggle between True and False.
       MonthCalendar1.ShowToday = Not MonthCalendar1.ShowToday
    End Sub
    
    private void Form1_DoubleClick(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
    {
       // Toggle between True and False.
       monthCalendar1.ShowToday = !monthCalendar1.ShowToday;
    }
    
    private:
       System::Void Form1_DoubleClick(System::Object ^  sender,
          System::EventArgs ^  e)
       {
          // Toggle between True and False.
          monthCalendar1->ShowToday = !monthCalendar1->ShowToday;
       }
    

    (Visual C#, Visual C+) Place the following code in the form's constructor to register the event handler.

    this.DoubleClick += new System.EventHandler(this.Form1_DoubleClick);
    
    this->DoubleClick += gcnew System::EventHandler(this,
       &Form1::Form1_DoubleClick);
    

To display week numbers

  • Set the ShowWeekNumbers property to true. You can set this property either in code or in the Properties window.

    Week numbers appear in a separate column to the left of the first day of the week.

    MonthCalendar1.ShowWeekNumbers = True
    
    monthCalendar1.ShowWeekNumbers = true;
    
    monthCalendar1->ShowWeekNumbers = true;
    

See Also

Tasks

How to: Select a Range of Dates in the Windows Forms MonthCalendar Control

How to: Display Specific Days in Bold with the Windows Forms MonthCalendar Control

How to: Display More than One Month in the Windows Forms MonthCalendar Control

Other Resources

MonthCalendar Control (Windows Forms)

Change History

Date

History

Reason

September 2010

Removed J#. Added note about visual styles.

Information enhancement.