SkinFramework Articles and Tutorials

Applying the Office 2007 Skin

Author: Mike Palmatier
Platform: Visual Basic 6.0

First a skin must be loaded before it can be applied to your application. The LoadSkin method loads a skin from a .cjstyles or .msstyles file.

The Office 2007 skin is located in the Office2007.cjstyles skin file and is loaded using the NormalOffice2007.ini file name.

    'Loads the NormalBlue.ini skin
    SkinFramework.LoadSkin App.Path + _
       "..\..\..\Styles\Office2007.cjstyles", "NormalBlue.ini"

To actually apply the skin, the ApplyWindow method must be called. ApplyWindow only needs to be called one time in the Load event of the window a skin will be applied. This tells the SkinFramework which window to apply skins to. The skin will be applied to all child windows as well.

    'Applies the currently loaded skin to the specified window
    'ApplyWindow tells the SkinFramework which window's appearance 
    'to skin.  This can be called before or after a skin has been 
    'loaded, but the skin will not be applied until ApplyWindow is 
    'called.  Skins are loaded using the LoadSkin method.
    SkinFramework.ApplyWindow Me.hWnd

Skin Controls

Here are some additional styles that are available:

Office2007.cjstyles:
  • NORMALAQUA.INI
  • NORMALBLUE.INI
Vista.cjstyles:
  • NORMALBLACK.INI
  • NORMALBLUE.INI
  • NORMALSILVER.INI
WinXP.Luna.cjstyles:
  • EXTRALARGEBLUE.INI
  • EXTRALARGEHOMESTEAD.INI
  • EXTRALARGEMETALLIC.INI
  • LARGEBLUE.INI
  • LARGEHOMESTEAD.INI
  • LARGEMETALLIC.INI
  • NORMALBLUE.INI
  • NORMALHOMESTEAD.INI
  • NORMALMETALLIC.INI
WinXP.Royale.cjstyles:
  • EXTRALARGEFONTSROYALE.INI
  • LARGEFONTSROYALE.INI
  • NORMALROYALE.INI