Common Information and Testing Project
The custom skin created in these tutorials makes the dialogs look like the following:
Testing Application
- In Visual Studio, create a new WinForms application using the “Blank Application” template from the DevExpress Template Gallery. This template replaces the standard form with its DevExpress counterpart that supports skinning.
- Remove the Minimize, Maximize and Close form buttons by disabling the MinimizeBox, MaximizeBox and XtraForm.CloseBox properties.
- Add a Tab Pane control and set its Dock property to Fill.
- Set up the NavigationPageBase.PageText property for each NavigationPage owned by the Tab Pane. This property specifies the caption within page headers.
- Add a sample content to each page. For example, the “Recent Projects” tab in this example contains the RecentItemControl populated with pin items.
- Remove the outer Recent Item Control borders by setting the BaseControl.BorderStyle property to NoBorder and disable the RecentItemControl.ShowSplitter property to hide the splitter that delimits control in the main and content areas.
Launch the application to see your form with the default “DevExpress Style” skin applied.
Next Steps
To begin designing a sample custom skin, follow the steps below.