Drawing a line with a gradient color with VC++ & MFC

Question

My question is same as the following link

Drawing a line with a gradient color

I need to draw a curve with gradient color. Color should very from light blue to dark blue.I need to do it using VC++ and MFC. CPen class seems to provide only option of using LOGBRUSH. There are options to use various gradient brushes with closed shapes but not with lines or curves. I have plans to draw curve in small segments of lines with each segment of different shade thus forming a gradient. Is their any easier way?

Answer 1

You can do this with Gdi+

First you need to initialize Gdi+ See for example this link.

#include <Gdiplus.h>
using namespace Gdiplus;
...

struct GdiplusInit {
    GdiplusInit() {
        GdiplusStartupInput inp;
        GdiplusStartupOutput outp;
        GdiplusStartup(&token_, &inp, &outp);
    }
    ~GdiplusInit() {
        GdiplusShutdown(token_);
    }
private:
    ULONG_PTR token_;
} gdiplusInit; //This will initialize Gdi+ once, and shuts it down on exit

To duplicate the C# example in your question:

void CMyWnd::OnPaint()
{
    CPaintDC dc(this);

    Graphics gr(dc);

    Point x = Point(0, 0);
    Point y = Point(100, 100);

    LinearGradientBrush brush(x, y, Color(255, 255, 255), Color(255, 0, 0));
    Gdiplus::Pen pen(&brush, 2.0f);
    gr.DrawLine(&pen, x, y);

}