I spent some time recently going through some of my older projects and consolidating different button styles I’ve designed over time into a single project.

You can see the results in this Silverlight sample application.

Introduction

Initially, this article was intended as a tutorial for the creation of ActiveX controls. However, this subject is well covered by articles in magazines and on the Internet. So, instead, I have decided to concentrate on one aspect of control creation, which can make your control look and interact with the user better.

What is Hot Tracking?

For the purposes of this article, hot tracking will be the process when a UI element reacts to the cursor, entering or leaving its extent, by changing it appearance. Hot tracking is not a new concept; it has been used in computer games for years. For example, a game I made five years ago for Windows 3.1 had support for hot tracking built-in as a standard feature. Recently, with help from Internet Explorer, MS Office and other software, hot tracking is becoming a standard in user interfaces. In fact, many UI and non-UI concepts made their first appearance in computer games, but this is a separate discussion. Considering the abovementioned, supporting hot tracking in your control may sound like a good idea. So, without further delay, let's get to the point.