Siticone Form

The SiticoneForm is a comprehensive replacement for the standard Windows Form. It creates a modern, borderless window experience with built-in animations, an enhanced control box, and a sophisticated styling engine.

Standard WinForms often suffer from flickering resizing, rigid title bars, and outdated aesthetics. SiticoneForm solves this by implementing a custom title bar system, hardware-accelerated drop shadows, and automatic fade-in/fade-out transitions, all while remaining fully compatible with the Visual Studio Designer.

Key Features

Features activated immediately upon inheritance or property configuration.

Feature	Description
`Borderless Shadow`	Automatically renders a professional, native-feeling drop shadow behind the form without requiring standard Windows borders. This supports both Light and Dark themes natively.
`Enhanced Control Box`	Beyond standard Minimize/Maximize/Close, this form includes optional Help, Settings, and Pin-to-Top buttons directly in the title bar.
`Animations`	Built-in logic for smooth Fade In on load and Fade Out on close. Includes interactive animations like the Close button icon rotation on hover.
`Smart Behaviors`	Includes safety features like Close Countdown timers (to prevent accidental closing) and optional Close Confirmation dialogs.

Getting Started

To use SiticoneForm, simply change your form to inherit from this class instead of the standard Form. The form will automatically adopt the borderless style and shadow.

C# - Inheritance

using SiticoneNetFrameworkUI;

// Switch inheritance from 'Form' to 'SiticoneForm'
public partial class MainApplication : SiticoneForm
{
                public MainApplication()
    {
                InitializeComponent();
        
                // The form now supports borderless dragging, shadows, and animations.
                this.Text = "My Modern App";
                this.StartPosition = FormStartPosition.CenterScreen;
        
                // Optional: Enable the "Pin to Top" button in the header
                this.ShowPinToTopBox = true;
    }
}

Visual Customization

The form exposes extensive properties to style the Title Bar and Control Box buttons (Close, Maximize, Minimize, etc.) for every state (Normal, Hover, Pressed).

C# - Customizing Colors

public ApplyDarkTheme()
{
                // 1. Base Form Colors
                this.BackColor = Color.FromArgb(30, 30, 30);
    
                // 2. Title Bar Styling
                this.TitleBarBackColor = Color.FromArgb(40, 40, 40);
                this.TitleBarForeColor = Color.White;
                this.FormTitleFont = new Font("Segoe UI", 10f, FontStyle.Bold);
    
                // 3. Customize Control Box Buttons (e.g., Close Button)
                this.CloseButtonBackColor = Color.Transparent;
                this.CloseButtonForeColor = Color.White;
    
                // Set distinct colors for hover state
                this.CloseButtonHoverBackColor = Color.Red;
                this.CloseButtonHoverForeColor = Color.White;
    
                // 4. Enable visual flair
                this.RotateCloseIconOnHover = true;
}

Advanced Behaviors

SiticoneForm includes built-in logic for scenarios often required in kiosk or critical applications.

Safe Closing (Countdown)

Prevents accidental closure by enforcing a countdown on the close button.

C# - Close Countdown

public SetupSafeClose()
{
                // When the user clicks 'X', it starts a timer instead of closing immediately.
                this.EnableCloseCountdown = true;
    
                // Set countdown to 3 seconds
                this.CloseCountdownDuration = 3;
    
                // Customize the font used for the countdown number overlay
                this.CloseCountdownFont = new Font("Arial", 12f, FontStyle.Bold);
}

Pin to Top

Allows the user to keep the window floating above all others using a built-in button.

C# - Pin to Top Logic

// 1. Show the Pin button in the title bar
this.ShowPinToTopBox = true;

// 2. Customize the color of the icon when it is actively pinned
this.PinToTopPinnedIconColor = Color.DodgerBlue;

// 3. Handle the event (optional, logic is handled internally but you might want to save state)
this.PinToTopClicked += (s, e) => 
{
                Console.WriteLine($"Form Pinned State: {this.IsPinned}");
                // Save 'this.IsPinned' to user settings...
};

API Reference

Appearance & Title Bar

Property	Type	Description
`FormTitle`	string	Sets the text displayed in the custom title bar. Maps to the standard `Text` property.
`TitleBarBackColor`	Color	Background color of the title bar area.
`TitleBarHeight`	int	Height of the title bar in pixels. Default is 36.
`ForceDropshadow`	bool	If true, the form renders a shadow even when not focused.
`ThemeVariant`	Enum	Quickly applies a preset color scheme (Light/Dark variants).

Control Box Visibility

Property	Type	Description
`ShowCloseBox`	bool	Toggles visibility of the Close (X) button.
`ShowMaximizeBox`	bool	Toggles visibility of the Maximize/Restore button.
`ShowMinimizeBox`	bool	Toggles visibility of the Minimize button.
`ShowPinToTopBox`	bool	Toggles visibility of the Pin button (sets TopMost).
`ShowSettingsBox`	bool	Toggles visibility of the Settings (Gear) button. Fires `SettingsClicked`.
`ShowHelpBox`	bool	Toggles visibility of the Help (?) button. Fires `HelpButtonClicked`.

Window Behavior

Property	Type	Description
`DragTitleBar`	bool	If true, the user can move the window by clicking and holding the title bar.
`DragEntireForm`	bool	If true, the user can move the window by clicking anywhere on the form background.
`EnableCloseCountdown`	bool	Enables the 3-2-1 countdown logic on the close button.
`EnableCloseConfirmation`	bool	If true, shows a Yes/No MessageBox before allowing the form to close.
`PreventFormClosing`	bool	If true, disables the closing mechanism entirely (useful for critical processes).

Events

Events Wiring

// Fired when the settings (gear) icon is clicked
this.SettingsClicked += (s, e) => OpenSettingsMenu();

// Fired when the help (?) icon is clicked
this.HelpButtonClicked += (s, e) => ShowHelpDocs();

// Fired when the pin state toggles
this.IsPinnedChanged += (s, e) => 
{
                // e is IsPinnedChangedEventArgs
                Debug.WriteLine("Pinned: " + e.IsPinned);
};

// Fired when user toggles maximize/restore
this.MaximizeStateChanged += (s, e) => AdjustLayout();