Outlook To-Do bar, How-to

Question

I have looked around the internets  for the last couple of days now for anything I can get on this, but to no avail.  I am trying to create an application that has an interface similar to the To-Do bar in Outlook, specifically the upcoming events that show below the calendar.

I've tried a couple of different approaches but cannot achieve the same results.  Does anyone know of a way to duplicate this?

I am not using my program as an add in to outlook, I just want a similar look for my program.

Answer 1

It seems like this could be reproduced pretty easily with a MonthCalendar and Buttons... what part is giving you problems?  If Button controls don't give you the right "look" you could always create a simple custom control instead.

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Reed Kimble - "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all"

Answer 2

I figured buttons would be the way to go and tried to use buttons, but I just can't seem to wrap my mind around formatting the text; i.e. making some text bold while other text is regular, inserting new lines into the buttons text, etc.

I'm using the GData Calendar API to interface with my application, and I have code which programmatically creates the buttons and places them into a Flow Layout Panel.  I'm just not sure how to make it look like the Outlook equivalent.  The code block that does this is below:

For Each gFeedEntry As Google.GData.Calendar.EventEntry In gCalFeed.Entries
            Dim item As New Button
            With item
                .Text = gFeedEntry.Title.Text
                .Width = flpAppointments.Width - 2
                .Height = 50
                .TextAlign = ContentAlignment.TopLeft
            End With
            flpAppointments.Controls.Add(item)
        Next

Answer 3

You could customize a button to make your own control with the custom text formatting.

Something like the following might work for you (though you may want to further customize the text rendering):

Public Class CalendarEventButton
    Inherits Button

    Private _Caption As String
    Public Property Caption As String
        Get
            Return _Caption
        End Get
        Set(value As String)
            _Caption = value
            Invalidate()
        End Set
    End Property

    Private _Description As String
    Public Property Description As String
        Get
            Return _Description
        End Get
        Set(value As String)
            _Description = value
            Invalidate()
        End Set
    End Property

    Private _BoldFont As Font
    Public Overrides Property Font As System.Drawing.Font
        Get
            Return MyBase.Font
        End Get
        Set(value As System.Drawing.Font)
            _BoldFont = New Font(value, FontStyle.Bold)
            MyBase.Font = value
        End Set
    End Property

    Private _TextBrush As Brush
    Public Overrides Property ForeColor As System.Drawing.Color
        Get
            Return MyBase.ForeColor
        End Get
        Set(value As System.Drawing.Color)
            _TextBrush = New SolidBrush(value)
            MyBase.ForeColor = value
        End Set
    End Property

    Public Overrides Property Text As String
        Get
            Return String.Empty
        End Get
        Set(value As String)
            MyBase.Text = value
        End Set
    End Property

    Public Sub New()
        Size = New Size(124, 38)
        Text = String.Empty
        _BoldFont = New Font(Font, FontStyle.Bold)
        _Caption = "New Event"
        _Description = "(no event information)"
        _TextBrush = New SolidBrush(ForeColor)
    End Sub

    Protected Overrides Sub OnPaint(pevent As System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs)
        MyBase.OnPaint(pevent)
        pevent.Graphics.DrawString(_Caption, _BoldFont, _TextBrush, New Point(4, 2))
        pevent.Graphics.DrawString(_Description, Font, _TextBrush, New Point(4, 2 + Font.Height * 1.25))
    End Sub
End Class

You would use this CalendarEventButton instead of regular Buttons, setting the Caption and Description and ignoring the Text property.

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Reed Kimble - "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all"

Answer 4

Nice!  Thanks so much, this is what I was looking for!