CommonControls

A small library of custom Windows Forms controls for .NET Framework 4.8.

Each control derives from a stock WinForms control — inheriting its behavior, state, and data binding — and replaces only the rendering, so it drops into the designer and behaves exactly like the control it extends.

Controls

ToggleButton

An iOS-style sliding toggle switch. It derives from CheckBox, so Checked, CheckedChanged, click handling, and data binding all work as usual — it just draws as a pill-shaped track with a sliding knob instead of a box and a label.

Properties

Property	Type	Default	Description
OnBackground	Color	Black	Track color when checked
OnToggle	Color	White	Knob color when checked
OffBackground	Color	Black	Track color when unchecked
OffToggle	Color	White	Knob color when unchecked
DisabledBackground	Color	Gray	Track color when disabled
DisabledToggle	Color	LightGray	Knob color when disabled
Style	DrawingStyles	Solid	Solid fills the track; Hollow draws only its outline

Setting any of these repaints the control immediately, in the designer as well as at runtime.

Notes

• Text is read-only — the control draws no caption.
• A MinimumSize of 50 × 25 is enforced so the knob geometry stays correct.
• The control clears itself with its parent's BackColor, so it must be placed on a container before it paints.

Usage

using CommonControls;

var toggle = new ToggleButton
{
    Location      = new Point(20, 20),
    Size          = new Size(60, 30),
    OnBackground  = Color.SeaGreen,
    OnToggle      = Color.White,
    OffBackground = Color.LightGray,
    OffToggle     = Color.DimGray,
    Style         = ToggleButton.DrawingStyles.Solid,
};

toggle.CheckedChanged += (s, e) => Console.WriteLine($"Toggle is {(toggle.Checked ? "on" : "off")}");
Controls.Add(toggle);

Requirements

• .NET Framework 4.8
• Windows, with either the .NET SDK or Visual Studio (any edition with the .NET desktop development workload)

Building

dotnet build CommonControls.sln -p:Configuration=Release

Or open CommonControls.sln in Visual Studio and build.

The resulting CommonControls.dll is written to bin\Release\, alongside a CommonControls.xml documentation file, and a post-build step also copies the DLL to bin\ so consumers can reference a single path regardless of configuration.

Using the library

1. Download CommonControls-<version>.zip from the latest release and unpack it, or build the solution yourself.
2. In your WinForms project, add a reference to CommonControls.dll. Keep CommonControls.xml beside it to get IntelliSense for the control's properties.
3. Build your project once — the controls then appear in the Visual Studio toolbox and can be dragged onto a form and configured from the Properties window. Or create them in code, as shown above.

Releasing

Releases are built and published by the Release workflow whenever a version tag is pushed:

1. On develop, update AssemblyVersion, AssemblyFileVersion, and AssemblyInformationalVersion in Properties\AssemblyInfo.cs, then commit.
2. Merge develop into master, which is the branch releases are cut from.
3. Tag the merged commit on master and push the tag:

git switch master
git merge develop
git push origin master
git tag -a v1.0.1 -m "CommonControls 1.0.1"
git push origin v1.0.1

Before it builds anything, the workflow refuses to go on unless the tag matches the assembly version and the tagged commit is reachable from master, so a tag on unmerged develop work cannot become a release. It then builds the Release configuration and packages the DLL, the documentation file, LICENSE, and README.md into a zip.

Publishing happens in a separate job gated by the release environment, which requires a manual approval and only accepts v* tags. Running the workflow manually from the Actions tab builds and packages without publishing, and needs no approval.

License

Released under the MIT License. See LICENSE for the full text.

Copyright © 2023 Mike Pullen