How do I make a button invisible but still functional?

Question

I am currently trying to make a program where I have a picture of a calendar and when the user clicks on any given Friday a message box will appear. The current method I have been trying to do this is by placing a button over the dates, but I can't seem to find a way so that the button will be invisible and functional at the same time.

This is all in C# Windows Forms Application.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

There are several solutions:

1. Use an empty PictureBox instead of a Button . This is the nearest and quickest solution to what you say you want. Note that this secondary PictureBox needs to be a child of the calendar's one (with its background color set to Transparent ). Transparency in Windows.Forms only applies to direct parents (it's more complex than this, but let's simplify).

2. Use the MouseUp event on the PictureBox where you are showing the calendar, and use the MouseEventArgs supplied as arguments to the event handler to find the X and Y position of the mouse within that control when the button was clicked.

3. Use a decent calendar/datepicker control instead of showing an image of one

Matter of fact: I don't endorse #1, and just put it there since it's what you seem to be asking for. I'd rather go with #2 or #3 (specially #3)

PS: if you want to really simulate Click , you should need to handle both MouseDown and MouseUp (a click usually means pressing a mouse button down on a control then releasing it within the same control)