Animated open/close of panels

[Edwin Knoppert]

In Visual Studio there are panels, these can be shown in animated way activated by mouse-over-area.

What would be a professional way to animate the open and close?
On close the back get's shown, don't want some greyed area's to be updated ever..

[Iain Johnstone]

Edwin - I use dialogs that expand and contract on the click of a button (would also work with a mouse-hover). Is this what you had in mind?

Iain Johnstone

[Edwin Knoppert]

Yes, but the animation should be as flawless as with MS Visual Studio.
No bad painting etc..

[Michael Mattias]

See AnimateWindow() winapi function.

[Edwin Knoppert]

Hmm, thought it was for the dumb rectangle animation (in win95 afaik).
I'll check

[Michael Mattias]

>thought [AnimateWindow] was for the dumb rectangle animation (in win95 afaik).

Nah, you can do wipes and dissolves and implode and explode, too.

[Edwin Knoppert]

Took a brief peek but i wonder how to set a maximum width and such.
Have to read more.. later..

[Edwin Knoppert]

It seems this api uses region stuff to hide or show the window.
Animations is also rather poor and certainly not the same as used with VS.