The capabilities of Win32 pens are encapsulated in the WFC Pen and PenStyle objects. The following code fragment demonstrates how to create a Pen object:
Pen p = new Pen(PenStyle.DASH);
The constant that you pass to the Pen object constructor is a pen style. The seven built-in pen styles supported on Windows are each represented by a constant defined in the PenStyle class. The PenStyle class is an enumeration class, which means that it defines a method (valid) that determines whether a value that you specify is a valid member of the PenStyle class.
The following table lists the PenStyle constants.
| Constant | Description |
| PenStyle.DASH | Represents a dashed pen. |
| PenStyle.DOT | Represents a dotted pen. |
| PenStyle.DASHDOT | Represents a pen of alternating dashes and dots. |
| PenStyle.DASHDOTDOT | Represents a pen of alternating dashes and double dots. |
| PenStyle.INSIDEFRAME | Represents a pen that draws a line inside the frame of closed shapes produced by the Graphics object’s output functions that specify a bounding rectangle (for example, drawRect, drawPie, and drawChord). |
| PenStyle.NULL | Represents a null pen. |
| PenStyle.SOLID | Represents a solid pen. |
In addition, the Pen object includes a group of public members that you can use to specify the kind of pen you want to create. Each of these members is a Pen object, and is designed to enable you to simulate various native features of the Windows user-interface.
For example, the Pen class defines a WINDOWFRAME member. When you create a Pen of type WINDOWFRAME, the lines that you draw using this pen look identical to the frame of an active window:
Pen pen = Pen.WINDOWFRAME;
The following table lists the Pen objects defined as public members of the Pen class.
| Object | Description |
| Pen.ACTIVECAPTIONTEXT | Creates a pen the color of the active window's caption text. |
| Pen.CONTROLTEXT | Represents a pen the color of the text on a control. |
| Pen.GRAYTEXT | Represents a pen the color of disabled text. |
| Pen.HIGHLIGHTTEXT | Represents a pen the color of highlighted text. |
| Pen.INACTIVECAPTIONTEXT | Represents a pen the color of the caption text of an inactive window. |
| Pen.INFOTEXT | Represents a pen the color of the information tooltip’s text. |
| Pen.MENUTEXT | Represents a pen the color of menu text. |
| Pen.NULL | Represents a null pen. A null pen does nothing. |
| Pen.WINDOWFRAME | Represents a pen the color of an active window’s frame. |
| Pen.WINDOWTEXT | Represents a pen the color of an active window’s text. |
Note that when you use a Pen based on a system constant, such as the color of an active window’s text, a change in the system setting that the Pen reflects results in a change to the pen.