Material3.WinForms

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Material 3 (Material You) controls and design tokens for Windows Forms — dynamic color, runtime light/dark switching, the full M3 type scale, elevation, state layers and motion, plus Visual Studio designer support. No mandatory base form, no native dependencies. Built on Material3.Core.

dotnet add package Material3.WinForms

Features

• Dynamic color — full light + dark ColorScheme generated from one seed color through a C# port of the HCT/CAM16 pipeline (no native dependencies). Three variants: TonalSpot (M3 default), Neutral (near-monochrome), Vibrant.
• Runtime theme switching — ThemeManager.IsDark = false repaints every subscribed control; no restart, no per-control wiring.
• Color roles — all M3 roles including the six surface containers, inverse roles, outline pair, plus shared Success/Warning extensions.
• Type scale — all 15 styles (Display → Label) on Segoe UI with letter-spacing and line-height metadata GDI fonts can't carry.
• Elevation 0–5 — painted soft shadows (WinForms has no compositor) + per-level surface tint.
• State layers — spec opacities for hover / focus / pressed / dragged, used consistently by every control.
• Motion tokens — M3 duration scale and cubic-bezier easings (standard + emphasized) evaluated exactly like CSS timing functions.
• Material Symbols — 30+ icons embedded as SVG, rasterized with caching and tinted to any role color.
• Designer support — controls drop from the toolbox with their M3 properties grouped under a Material Design category, and a non-visual MaterialThemeManager component drives the theme from the property grid — no ThemeManager.Apply in Main — while previewing it live on the design surface. SmartTags and a glyph picker on key controls (.NET Framework designer).

Controls

Family	Included
Actions	MaterialButton (5 variants), MaterialIconButton (4 styles + toggle), MaterialFab (small / standard / large / extended), MaterialSegmentedButton
Text inputs	MaterialTextField (filled + outlined, floating label, error state, icons), MaterialSearchBar
Selection	MaterialSwitch, MaterialCheckBox (incl. indeterminate), MaterialRadioButton, MaterialChip (assist / filter / input / suggestion), MaterialSlider, MaterialOptionCard, DropdownSelect
Navigation	MaterialTabs (primary / secondary), MaterialNavigationBar, MaterialNavigationRail, MaterialNavigationDrawer
Communication	MaterialProgressBar (linear), MaterialCircularProgress (determinate + indeterminate), MaterialSnackbar, MaterialBadge, MaterialTooltip (plain + rich), MaterialSkeleton (compose any shimmer placeholder) + SkeletonCard preset, StepChecklist
Containment	MaterialCard (elevated / filled / outlined), MaterialListItem, MaterialDivider, RoundedPanel, MaterialScrollPanel (overlay scrollbar), MaterialMenu
Dialogs	MaterialDialog, MaterialMessageBox (themed info / error / confirm), MaterialDatePickerDialog (calendar grid), MaterialTimePickerDialog (time input)
Window	BorderlessForm (native resize/snap without chrome), MaterialTitleBar (minimize / maximize / close, each hideable), WindowChrome (DWM caption theming), FormDragAnywhere, TaskbarProgress, FormAnimation
Text	SoftLabel (consistent GDI+ rendering)

Quickstart

using Material3.WinForms.Theming;

[STAThread]
static void Main() {
    Application.EnableVisualStyles();

    // One line of theming: every Material control follows this scheme.
    ThemeManager.Apply(MaterialTheme.FromSeed(Color.FromArgb(0x67, 0x50, 0xA4)), isDark: true);

    Application.Run(new MainForm());
}

Prefer the designer? Drop a MaterialThemeManager onto your form and set Seed / Variant / IsDark in the property grid — it applies the theme at run time (so you can skip the Main call above) and previews it on the design surface.

// Switch mode at runtime — all controls repaint themselves.
ThemeManager.IsDark = !ThemeManager.IsDark;

// Or swap the whole palette.
ThemeManager.Theme = MaterialTheme.FromSeed(Color.SeaGreen, SchemeVariant.Vibrant);

var save = new MaterialButton {
    Text = "Save",
    Variant = MaterialButtonVariant.Filled,
    IconGlyph = MaterialIcons.Check,
};

Custom drawing uses the same tokens the stock controls do:

using Material3.WinForms.Theming;   // MaterialColors — current scheme roles
using Material3.WinForms.Tokens;    // Shape, Spacing, StateLayers, Motion, Elevation
using Material3.WinForms.Typography; // MaterialType — the 15-style type scale

Designer support

The controls are built for the Visual Studio designer, not just code:

• Toolbox & property grid — every control is a [ToolboxItem]; its M3 properties sit under a Material Design category with descriptions and defaults, and the design surface paints with the live theme instead of a blank rectangle.
• MaterialThemeManager component — drop it on a form and pick Seed / Variant / IsDark in the grid; it applies the theme at run time (no manual ThemeManager.Apply) and repaints the preview so design-time matches the running app.
• SmartTags & editors (.NET Framework designer) — quick Variant / glyph actions on MaterialButton and MaterialTextField, plus a Material Symbols picker for IconGlyph.

On .NET 8 the toolbox, property grid and live preview work the same; the SmartTag/editor extras are .NET Framework-only for now (the out-of-process .NET designer would need a separate design-time assembly).

High-DPI

The controls scale their owner-drawn geometry to the monitor DPI (via Control.DeviceDpi), so they stay crisp at 125/150/200%. DPI awareness is a process-level setting that the host application must opt into — a referenced DLL cannot set it. In your app:

• declare awareness in your app.manifest: <dpiAware>true</dpiAware> (System-DPI) is enough for Control.DeviceDpi to report the real DPI. For Per-Monitor V2, add <dpiAwareness>PerMonitorV2</dpiAwareness> to the manifest — or, on .NET Framework, an app.config <System.Windows.Forms.ApplicationConfigurationSection> with <add key="DpiAwareness" value="PerMonitorV2" />. On .NET 8 you can instead call Application.SetHighDpiMode(...).
• set AutoScaleMode = AutoScaleMode.Dpi on your forms.

That's all — the Material controls then render crisply with no extra code. See samples/Material3.WinForms.Gallery/app.manifest for a working example. If you do your own owner-drawing with the shared tokens, Material3.WinForms.Dpi.Scale(control, px) is the same helper the controls use.