How do I autohide a form

Question

I have a very simple question i guess...for which i am not able to find an answer for. I am trying to add an autohide feature for a borderless WinForm which is located at (0,0) with a width of 150. I have the following code:

    private int dx;

    private void autohide()
    {
        for (dx = 0; dx > -150; dx--)
        {
            this.Width = dx;
            Thread.Sleep(2);
        }
    }

Even after, using Thread.Sleep(x), the Form just snaps off to final Width without giving/having any effect of delay. I am trying to put a bit of effect on to it .

Please help...

Answer 1

The issue you are facing is because the window is not re-drawing itself at any point because your code doesn't exit the autohide() routine until dx is 150, so it will just have a delay before re-drawing in the final position.

You probably also want to change the position rather than the width.

The better option would be to start up a Timer which then changes the position each time it fires, which would cause the change to be animated:

    private Timer t;
    private int step = 1;

    private void autohide()
    {
        t = new Timer();
        t.Interval = 2;
        t.Tick += T_Tick;
        t.Start();
    }

    private void T_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        if (this.Location.X > 0 - this.Width)
        {
            this.Location = new Point(this.Location.X - step, this.Location.Y);
        }
        else
        {
            t.Stop();
        }
    }