[DevExpress Support Team: CLONED FROM K18488: Is it possible to apply DevExpress skins to standard or 3rd party components?]
For our old VB6 components, we used the Codejock skinning framework, which was also able to skin 3rd party controls (even our old cobol dialogs). Why isn't this possible with devexpress?
Our application is be a mix of DevExpress.Net components and old Vb6 and cobol dialogues. It would be great, if they looked alike.
Implement a capability to skin third-party components.
Answers approved by DevExpress Support
Hello Andreas,
The .Net framework does not provide an easy way to skin third-party components. To skin our controls, we implement our own logic of changes in appearance, which takes a lot of code.
Universal skinning cannot be implemented using our controls because it requires changing the standard .Net framework logic. Therefore, our controls do not support this functionality.
Feel free to contact us if you experience difficulties using our components. We will be happy to help you.
I don't think that the Codejock framework will work with our controls. But, I suggest you contact their team to clarify how this framework works.
We don't want Codejock to skin our DevExpress components. We want the DevExpress skin to be applied to our old dialogues, to make them look alike. If the user has a blue DevExpress skin, the cobol dialogues should be blue too.
Hi Andreas,
If it's possible to create custom controls in that dialog and override their painting mechanism to use our colors and images, you can do this. See the articles mentioned in the Is it possible to apply DevExpress skins to standard or 3rd party components? KB article for details on how to get our skin elements.