Tutorials > How to change the control appearance

The simplest way to change the button appearance is to open, at Design-time, the 3D Button Visual Editor application from inside the Visual Studio.NET IDE as described inside the chapter Editing control properties through the 3D Button Visual Editor application contained inside the How to use the product in your projects section and selecting the editor "Shape" tab; as you will see on the table below the image, you can reach all of these settings at runtime using the corresponding property.

Click over the image in order to be taken to every available setting explanation:

Note: The images below have hot links to take you to explanations of the various button settings.

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Item name	Description	Corresponding property
Shape and orientation	Button's shape and orientation	Shape and Orientation
Surface type	Type of surface associated with the button	Surface
Special Effect	Special effect applied to the button border	SpecialEffect
Special Effect factor	Special effect factor applied to the button border	SpecialEffectFactor
Shadow Mode	Specifies the kind of shadow that will be displayed under the button	ShadowMode
Rectangle hard edges	Specifies if a rectangle shaped button will have hard edges	RectHardEdges
Flat pillow factor	Changes the aspect of a Flat Pillow surface	FlatPillowFactor
Smoothing factor	The amount of smoothing applied to the button surface	SmoothEdges
Corner factor	The corner factor applied to Rounded Rectangle and Gem shapes	CornerFactor
Raise factor	Changes the 3D height of the button	ButtonRaiseFactor
Slant factor	The kind of slant applied to parallelogram and trapeze shaped buttons	Slant
Shape head size factor	The head factor for certain kind of shapes like arrow and keyhole	ShapeHeadFactor
Shape line size factor	The line factor for certain kind of shapes like arrow and keyhole	ShapeLineFactor
Transparent factor	The level of alpha channel transparency applied to the button surface	SurfaceTransparentFactor
Transparent zone	The zone affected by alpha channel transparency when a special effect is applied	SurfaceTransparentZone
Shape mask preview	Preview of the picture that will be used as a mask for determining the shape for Custom shaped buttons	PictureCustom
Browse button	Browses the current PC folders for a picture that will be used as a mask for determining the shape for Custom shaped buttons
Delete button	Deletes the current picture used as a mask for determining the shape for Custom shaped buttons

Starting from version 2.0.1.0 of the control, there is the possibility, at runtime, to provide further custom drawing directly from your application code: see the How to perform custom graphic rendering over the control surface section for details.