After the substance comes image (or at least ot should?!)

[kdm3]

Hello everybody...

As is often the case, I have an application in development, and want it to look b!tchin'. Looking round there are many examples of how to add custom buttons and drop the background and toolbar (very useful) - however. I do have a habit of flattening everything (textboxes, labels, buttons etc) since I think it looks better than have recesses and ridges - but hey its personal taste.

The main thrust of this posting is to ask about:
a) combo/list boxes - the scroll arrows are seriously awful, and look terrible of a sleek, pastel (I like soft colours) window - is there any way of writing one's own scroll arrows?
b) animations - of late I've started doing lots of gif animations, and was wondering whether it would be possible (without requiring huge amounts of memory) to include animations in forms - especially the main form on startup?
c) Finally, mouse pointer - the standard arrow is incredibly dull, so was wondering if anyone knew how to customise this.

Maybe these are all just superficial details, but presentation is an increasingly important aspect of design, and something which might detract from some deficiencies with the functionality of my application...

Thanks in advance, and...
Let's see what materialises?!