Working with Pens

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A pen is an object that defines line-drawing characteristics. Pens are used to define color , line width, and line style (solid, dashed, and so on), and pens are used with almost all the drawing methods you'll learn about in this hour .

C# supplies a number of predefined pens, and you can also create your own. To create your own pen, use the following syntax:

 Pen  variable  = new Pen(  color,   width  ); 

After a pen is created, you can set its properties to adjust its appearance. For example, all Pen objects have a DashStyle property that determines the appearance of lines drawn with the pen. Table 10.2 lists the possible values for DashStyle.

Table 10.2. Possible Values for DashStyle

Value	Description
Dash	Specifies a line consisting of dashes.
DashDot	Specifies a line consisting of a pattern of dashes and dots.
DashDotDot	Specifies a line consisting of alternating dashes and double dots.
Dot	Specifies a line consisting of dots.
Solid	Specifies a solid line.
Custom	Specifies a custom dash style. The Pen object contains properties that can be used to define the custom line.

The enumeration for DashStyle is part of the Drawing.Drawing2D object. Therefore, to create a new pen and use it to draw an ellipse, for example, you could use the following code:

 Pen objMyPen = new Pen(System.Drawing.Color.DarkBlue, 3); objMyPen.DashStyle = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.DashStyle.Dot; 

C# includes many standard pens, which are available via the System.Drawing.Pens class, as in the following:

 objPen = System.Drawing.Pens.DarkBlue; 

When drawing using the techniques discussed shortly, you can use custom pens or system-defined pens ”it's your choice.

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