How to change the border color of a picturebox (winform)?

Question

I want to set the border color/style around the picturebox on and off according to different events.

Are there properties or functions that help me to achieve that aim?

Pierce

Answer 1

This has always been what I use for that:

To change the border color, call this from the Paint event handler of your Picturebox control:

private void pictureBox1_Paint_1(object sender, PaintEventArgs e)
    {
        ControlPaint.DrawBorder(e.Graphics, pictureBox1.ClientRectangle, Color.Red, ButtonBorderStyle.Solid);
    }

To change the border color dynamically, for instance from a mouseclick event, I use the Tag property of the picturebox to store the color and adjust the Click event of the picturebox to retrieve it from there. For example:

  if (pictureBox1.Tag == null) { pictureBox1.Tag = Color.Red; } //Sets a default color
  ControlPaint.DrawBorder(e.Graphics, pictureBox1.ClientRectangle, (Color)pictureBox1.Tag, ButtonBorderStyle.Solid);

The picturebox Click event, then, would go something like this:

private void pictureBox1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            if ((Color)pictureBox1.Tag == Color.Red) { pictureBox1.Tag = Color.Blue; }
            else {pictureBox1.Tag = Color.Red; }
            pictureBox1.Refresh();
        }

You'll need using System.Drawing; at the beginning and don't forget to call pictureBox1.Refresh() at the end. Enjoy!

Compartmentalize

how do we remove color if picturebox has color? – Bobstay

Answer 2

Winforms doesn't let you change the border color of controls, they are fixed by the theme selected by the user. The easiest way to get what you want that doesn't require writing your own control is to put the picture box inside of a Panel, making it slightly smaller. Then just change the BackColor of the panel.

The designer will fight you a bit since it tries to align controls to a grid, edit the Location and Size properties in the Properties window directly rather than mousing it.

Brandnew

but i want the square/frame of the picture box to be red as i press on the picture box, is it possible? or at least make the picture box seem selected somehow.. regarding your comment, i already put my picturebox inside a tablelayout and gave the cell a background color... :( – Pierce

Implement the MouseDown event handler, set the color. – Brandnew

Answer 3

If you are talking about mouse events then MouseEnter and MouseLeave or MouseHover events can be utilized to do this and OnPaint event can be used to do the actual drawing. just invalidate the PictureBox on Above mentioned Mouse events or any event you care about.

Juliajulian

I see, i need to use the mouse events – Pierce

Answer 4

Here is a simple example (in VB.NET, but it should be simple to convert it) that does this for you. You won't need to worry with using an extra Panel like with Passant's answer.

Sapphire