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How to: Change the Windows Forms MonthCalendar Control's Appearance

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The Windows Forms MonthCalendar control allows you to customize the calendar's appearance in many ways. For example, you can set the color scheme and choose to display or hide week numbers and the current date.

To change the month calendar's color scheme

  • Set properties such as TitleBackColor, TitleForeColor and TrailingForeColor. The TitleBackColor property also determines the font color for the days of the week. The TrailingForeColor property determines the color of the dates that precede and follow the displayed month or months.

    MonthCalendar1.TitleBackColor = System.Drawing.Color.Blue  
MonthCalendar1.TrailingForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Red  
MonthCalendar1.TitleForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Yellow  

    monthCalendar1.TitleBackColor = System.Drawing.Color.Blue;  
monthCalendar1.TrailingForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Red;  
monthCalendar1.TitleForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Yellow;  

    monthCalendar1->TitleBackColor = System::Drawing::Color::Blue;  
monthCalendar1->TrailingForeColor = System::Drawing::Color::Red;  
monthCalendar1->TitleForeColor = System::Drawing::Color::Yellow;

    Note

    Starting with Windows Vista and depending on the theme, setting some properties might not change the appearance of the calendar. For example, if Windows is set to use the Aero theme, setting the BackColor, TitleBackColor, TitleForeColor, or TrailingForeColor properties has no effect. This is because an updated version of the calendar is rendered with an appearance that is derived at run time from the current operating system theme. If you want to use these properties and enable the earlier version of the calendar, you can disable visual styles for your application. Disabling visual styles might affect the appearance and behavior of other controls in your application. To disable visual styles in Visual Basic, open the Project Designer and uncheck the Enable XP visual styles check box. To disable visual styles in C#, open Program.cs and comment out Application.EnableVisualStyles();. For more information about visual styles, see Enabling Visual Styles.

To display the current date at the bottom of the control

  • Set the ShowToday property to true. The example below toggles between displaying and omitting today's date when the form is double-clicked.

    Private Sub Form1_DoubleClick(ByVal sender As Object, _  
ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.DoubleClick  
   ' Toggle between True and False.  
   MonthCalendar1.ShowToday = Not MonthCalendar1.ShowToday  
End Sub  

    private void Form1_DoubleClick(object sender, System.EventArgs e)  
{  
   // Toggle between True and False.  
   monthCalendar1.ShowToday = !monthCalendar1.ShowToday;  
}  

    private:  
   System::Void Form1_DoubleClick(System::Object ^  sender,  
      System::EventArgs ^  e)  
   {  
      // Toggle between True and False.  
      monthCalendar1->ShowToday = !monthCalendar1->ShowToday;  
   }

    (Visual C#, Visual C++) Place the following code in the form's constructor to register the event handler.

    this.DoubleClick += new System.EventHandler(this.Form1_DoubleClick);  

    this->DoubleClick += gcnew System::EventHandler(this,  
   &Form1::Form1_DoubleClick);

To display week numbers

  • Set the ShowWeekNumbers property to true. You can set this property either in code or in the Properties window.

    Week numbers appear in a separate column to the left of the first day of the week.

    MonthCalendar1.ShowWeekNumbers = True  

    monthCalendar1.ShowWeekNumbers = true;  

    monthCalendar1->ShowWeekNumbers = true;

See also