Siticone Empty Form

The SiticoneEmptyForm is a foundational component for building modern, borderless Windows Forms applications. Inheriting directly from the standard System.Windows.Forms.Form, it provides a streamlined canvas that automatically manages system shadow composition and rendering optimizations.

By using this base class, developers can bypass the complexity of manually configuring borderless windows, allowing them to focus immediately on UI/UX design while the component handles the underlying window styles and performance tuning.

Public Features

Key capabilities available immediately upon inheritance.

Getting Started

To use SiticoneEmptyForm, simply modify your Form class to inherit from it instead of the standard library Form.

using SiticoneNetFrameworkUI;

// Standard WinForms inheritance:
// public partial class MainForm : Form

// Updated Siticone inheritance:
public partial class MainForm : SiticoneEmptyForm
{
                public MainForm()
    {
                InitializeComponent();
        
                // The form is now borderless, double-buffered,
                // and features a native drop shadow automatically.
                this.StartPosition = FormStartPosition.CenterScreen;
                this.Size = new Size(800, 600);
    }
}

Public Properties

As a subclass of Form, all standard Form properties are available. The following properties are pre-configured or specifically relevant to borderless design.

Common Implementation Patterns

Since SiticoneEmptyForm removes the standard title bar, developers often need to reimplement basic window behaviors like dragging and shaping. Below are standard patterns for achieving this.

1. Implementing Window Dragging

Because the native caption bar is removed, users cannot move the window by default. You can use standard Windows messages to restore this functionality on a custom panel or the form itself.

// Standard Win32 constants for window dragging
public const int WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN = 0xA1;
public const int HT_CAPTION = 0x2;

[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern int SendMessage(IntPtr hWnd, int Msg, int wParam, int lParam);
[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern bool ReleaseCapture();

// Attach this event handler to your custom TitleBar Panel or the Form itself
private void TitleBar_MouseDown(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
                if (e.Button == MouseButtons.Left)
    {
                ReleaseCapture();
                SendMessage(Handle, WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN, HT_CAPTION, 0);
    }
}

2. Creating Rounded Forms

To create a rounded window appearance, you can manipulate the Form's Region. The SiticoneEmptyForm shadow engine automatically adapts to these custom regions.

[DllImport("Gdi32.dll", EntryPoint = "CreateRoundRectRgn")]
private static extern IntPtr CreateRoundRectRgn(
                int nLeftRect, int nTopRect, 
                int nRightRect, int nBottomRect, 
                int nWidthEllipse, int nHeightEllipse
);

public MyRoundedForm()
{
                InitializeComponent();
    
                // Define a region with 20px rounded corners
                this.Region = Region.FromHrgn(CreateRoundRectRgn(0, 0, Width, Height, 20, 20));
}

System Compatibility

The SiticoneEmptyForm includes an intelligent internal engine that detects the host Operating System to ensure consistent rendering across different environments.