Need a nice versatile container

You could do this with markup...the lines between items might be a bit tricky to calculate, but it could be done. Here's a basic example that fulfils the following:

1) Multiple lines via word wrap or line-breaks
2) Rounded corners
3) Drop shadow

Screenshot:



Here's the markup that you can add to a Label (with EnableMarkup = True set) or MarkupLabel control:

<Border Background='#c0c0d0'>   <Grid Margin='10px'>     <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>     <ColumnDefinition Width='Auto'/>     </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>     <Grid.RowDefinitions>     <RowDefinition Height='Auto'/>     </Grid.RowDefinitions>     <Border Margin='3,3,0,0' BorderThickness='5' CornerRadius='10' BorderBrush='#50000000'></Border>     <Border Margin='0,0,4,4'BorderThickness='1' CornerRadius='10' BorderBrush='Black' Background='White'></Border>     <StackPanel Orientation='Vertical' MaxWidth='140px'>        <TextBlock Margin='10,10,12,0' TextWrapping='Wrap'><Bold>Edwin Payson Marvin</Bold></TextBlock>        <TextBlock Margin='10,0,12,10' TextWrapping='Wrap'><Italic>14 Jan 1968&#8211;</Italic></TextBlock>        <TextBlock Margin='10,0,12,10' TextWrapping='Wrap'>Test of multiple lines with word-wrapping<LineBreak/>and line-breaks.</TextBlock>     </StackPanel>   </Grid> </Border>

If you are using the MarkupLabel control, you can use the markup objects to create a set of reusable classes...check out my chart example for how this could work.

Wow, that's great.  I am going to have to learn to use markup...

Hi Dave,

You can change the background colour of the label area as follows:

Set mo_Page.Background = UserControl.MarkupLabel1.MarkupContext.CreateSolidBrush(GetActualColor(X))

Where X is the colour (or system colour) that you want to use.

Unfortunately, the Image object is broken in the current release of the MarkupLabel, so we'll have to wait for the next version to add that feature.

The more I work with this AdvancedLabel control, the more it seems to be missing.

I had a chance to try out a few more things with the MarkupLabel control.

MouseMove & Click events were fairly straight forward, although getting the cursor position required API calls. DblClick proves to be more elusive. The MarkupLabel doesn't expose a DblClick handler, so you would have to calculate the time between clicks and register a double-click if they were close enough together. This is enough of a pain in the butt that I don't feel like doing it. Here's the latest sample though (also adds PageColor property):

uploads/20090519_170904_AdvancedLabel.zip

Some questions for Codejock:

1) Is the MarkupLabel a windowless control, or is the Hwnd property just not exposed? If we could have access to the Hwnd property for subclassing, that would very useful.
2) Any chance of adding a MouseDblClick event handler for all of the markup objects?
3) Any chance of having access to the Mouse coordinates in the appropriate scalemode units without having to resort to API calls?
4) Any chance of control level Mouse events for the MarkupLabel control (MouseMove, MouseUp, MouseDown, Click, DblClick, etc...) rather than having to resort to markup object level handlers?

Thanks in advance for any answers to the above questions.

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Actually, I'm glad to help a bit with this (as I find time), because I am also interested in the capabilities and limitations of the new markup objects.

You do have complete control over the fonts for the MarkupTextBlock objects. In the supplied UserControl, those objects are stored in the mo_Caption, mo_SubCaption and mo_Body object variables, so you can change their Font* properties at any time. Because everything is wrapped in a UserControl, you can create your own public font property/properties to mirror the MarkupTextBlock font properties (FontFamily, FontSize, FontStyle, etc...they aren't identically named to the standard VB font properties), or you can just change the font size in the UserControl_Resize event.

My best advice would be to look over the supplied Usercontrol code closely and play around with it to see what results you can get. If you get stumped, get back to me and I will try to help.