Skins and LookAndFeel
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Like any other DevExpress WinForms control, you can customize a Tree List control’s look and feel, applying one of the predefined paint schemes to it. You can choose one of the Skinning paint schemes, or the Office2003, WindowsXP, Flat, UltraFlat scheme, etc.
A paint scheme defines the overall appearance of a control’s elements. It specifies how the control’s buttons, headers, borders, etc are painted. See the following image, where Tree List controls are painted using different schemes:
When applying a paint scheme to a control, you can still change the appearance (background and foreground colors, font settings, etc) of some elements. However, in Skinning, Office2003 and WindowsXP schemes, the background of some elements (for instance, column headers and expand buttons) are solely controlled by the paint scheme, and cannot be changed via a corresponding appearance option.
You can choose one of the following scenarios to customize a Tree List control’s look and feel:
Customize the control’s look and feel settings via the TreeList.LookAndFeel property. Use this approach, if you need to provide different paint schemes for the Tree List control and other controls within your form,
By default, look and feel settings provided by the TreeList.LookAndFeel object are ignored. To ensure that this object’s settings are in effect set the LookAndFeel.UseDefaultLookAndFeel property to false. Otherwise the control will use the look and feel settings exposed by the Default LookAndFeel object.
Customize the look and feel settings of all the controls within the form - via the XtraForm form.
When using the XtraForm form, it’s easy to provide centralized management of the look and feel settings for all the controls residing within this form.
Customize the look and feel settings of all the controls within your application - via the Default LookAndFeel object.
This approach can be used to provide centralized control over the look and feel settings of the controls in your applications. It implies accessing the static UserLookAndFeel.Default property at runtime or using the DefaultLookAndFeel component at design time.
For additional information on the Look And Feel mechanism, and solutions to common tasks for customizing the look and feel of controls, refer to the Look And Feel and Skinning document.