How to implement Windows left-to-right-moving loading dots? - vb.net

Question

I have seen a loading animation for many Windows programs and apps, where a set of 5 dots start coming in to the centre of the screen from off the screen on the left, decelerating at an exponential rate but not stopping, and then move on uniformly right for about half a second, then start accelerating exponentially again and run off the screen on the right.
Is there a native, inbuilt way of using this in VB.NET? If not, is there a library or .dll I could use to emulate this effect? And if that's not possible, can anyone give an example of how to use e.Graphics or a similar method under the MyBase.Paint event to emulate it?
Please comment and ask me if you do not know which loading animation I am referring to. Here's a link to a very bad quality version of it (I don't want to use this one): https://www.dropbox.com/s/3vruzrkf8o3dzuy/294.GIF

Answer 1

The default ProgressBar doesn't support this for windows forms application.
Try the below code
Dim AreaHeight As Integer
Dim AreaWidth As Integer
Dim NumberOfItems As Integer
Dim DistanceBetweenItems As Integer
Dim ItemLength As Integer
Dim ItemX() As Decimal
Dim ItemIndex As Integer
Dim Bmp As Bitmap
Dim G1 As Graphics
Dim Stage As Integer
Dim dx1 As Integer
Dim dx2 As Decimal
Dim PictureBox1 As PictureBox
Dim WithEvents Timer1 As Timer
Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
Me.Size = New Size(235, 95)
Me.Text = "ProgressBar"
Me.Location = New Point(CInt((Screen.PrimaryScreen.WorkingArea.Width - Me.Width) / 2), CInt((Screen.PrimaryScreen.WorkingArea.Height - Me.Height) / 2))
Me.FormBorderStyle = Windows.Forms.FormBorderStyle.FixedToolWindow
PictureBox1 = New PictureBox
PictureBox1.Size = New Size(175, 15)
PictureBox1.Location = New Point(20, 20)
Me.Controls.Add(PictureBox1)
AreaHeight = PictureBox1.Height
AreaWidth = PictureBox1.Width
NumberOfItems = 4
DistanceBetweenItems = 5
ItemLength = 6
ItemIndex = 0
Stage = 1
dx1 = 10
dx2 = CDec(0.4)
ReDim ItemX(NumberOfItems - 1)
InitializePositions()
Bmp = New Bitmap(AreaWidth, AreaHeight)
G1 = Graphics.FromImage(Bmp)
PictureBox1.Image = Bmp
Timer1 = New Timer
Timer1.Interval = 30
Timer1.Enabled = True
End Sub
Private Sub AnimateProgressBar()
G1.Clear(Color.White)
If ItemIndex >= NumberOfItems Then
ItemIndex = 0
Stage += 1
If Stage = 3 Then
Stage = 1
InitializePositions()
End If
End If
Dim Distance As Integer = CInt(((AreaWidth / 2) * Stage) - (ItemLength * (ItemIndex + 1)) - (DistanceBetweenItems * ItemIndex) + (NumberOfItems * (ItemLength + DistanceBetweenItems)))
If ItemX(ItemIndex) + dx1 > Distance Then
ItemX(ItemIndex) = Distance
ItemIndex += 1
Else
ItemX(ItemIndex) += dx1
End If
Dim i As Integer
For i = 0 To NumberOfItems - 1
G1.FillEllipse(Brushes.Red, ItemX(i), CInt((AreaHeight - ItemLength) / 2), ItemLength, ItemLength)
G1.DrawEllipse(Pens.Black, ItemX(i), CInt((AreaHeight - ItemLength) / 2), ItemLength, ItemLength)
ItemX(i) += dx2
Next
Me.PictureBox1.Invalidate()
End Sub
Private Sub InitializePositions()
Dim i As Integer
For i = 0 To NumberOfItems - 1
ItemX(i) = -ItemLength * (i + 1) - (DistanceBetweenItems * i)
Next
End Sub
Private Sub Timer1_Tick(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Timer1.Tick
AnimateProgressBar()
End Sub
If you tweak its parameters a little bit I think you will get the desired behavior.