how to use a flash movie as a background image of a vb.net form

Question

I want to put a flash movie in my vb.net form as a form background. i want controls like buttons and labels on top of that flash movie. If this is possible then please provide a step by step answer. Thank you

Answer 1

If you have flash installed.

Right click on the visual studio toolbox > choose items .. when the dialog appears click on the COM components tab and scroll till you find the "Shockwave Flash Object" , tick the checkbox to add it to your toolbox.

Drag the control from your toolbox to your form ... set its "Movie" property to absolute url of your flash swf file.

you can now drop controls on top of the shockwave flash control (your flash movie host).

You might need to drag the control to fill up the available form size.

To disable the flash menu you could put a Panel above the Shockwave Flash Object and make the panel transparent ... but the usual way won't work properly. Code below is gotten from this link

   public class TransparentPanel : Panel
    {
        public TransparentPanel()
        {
        }

        protected override CreateParams CreateParams
        {
            get
            {
                CreateParams createParams = base.CreateParams;
                createParams.ExStyle |= 0x00000020; // WS_EX_TRANSPARENT
                return createParams;
            }
        }

        protected override void OnPaintBackground(PaintEventArgs e)
        {
            // Do not paint background.
        }
    }

Add that to your project and make the panel you add an instance of this class you'll get a transparent overlay on the shockwave flash object that disables the right click on any other mouse events.

Hope this helps.