Windows Secrets for Visual Basic, Part 1

The Secrets!

Making your Form Transparent

You can give your Windows form a great transparent look by altering its Opacity property. Set this anywhere between 0% (completely transparent) and 100% (regular opaque) to see the windows underneath your application.

Who Stole the ToolTips?

If you haven't already noticed, someone stole the ToolTip property in .NET. If you want little popup messages to appear when you hover your mouse over a button or whatever, you'll need to figure out the ToolTip control.

Here's how it works. First, you add an instance of the ToolTip control to your form. This is an invisible component that actually displays the message. You can alter its properties through the Property window, such as whether it is "Active" or the popup delay.

Next, you need to add the actual ToolTip messages. Click on any of your controls and scroll down to the "Misc" section (presuming you order your property list by category). You'll see a property called something like "ToolTip on ToolTip1": This is a fresh property your ToolTip instance gave every control on your form.

Simply set this property to your ToolTip message—and that's a wrap!

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This article was originally published on January 21, 2003