Develop Reference

Dynamically change control color when hovered without changing back when hovering childs

I have a application that talks to the Database-API of a game and displays information about certain items. One part of the UI looks like this:
For the grey boxes I have created a control called 'ItemPreviewControl', which each show information about one specific found Item. I want the control to become red when hovered and return to gray when the mouse leaves the control. For this I have used the MouseEnter- and MouseLeave-Events of the ItemPreviewControl, and as you can see here it also works:
Here's the code I used:
private Color mainColor_MouseEnterLeave;
private void ItemPreviewControl_MouseEnter(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
mainColor_MouseEnterLeave = this.BackColor;
this.BackColor = Color.FromArgb(192, 0, 0);
}
private void ItemPreviewControl_MouseLeave(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
this.BackColor = mainColor_MouseEnterLeave;
}
Now the problem I have is the following: My 'ItemPreviewControl' also changes back to gray when I hovor above one of its child elemenets, so e.g. when I hover above the textboxes inside the control. But I want the control to stay red until I leave the actual control. Do you have any ideas of how to implement this?
The UI is a Windows Forms App. The UI as well as all the Backend-Libraries are in .NET Core 3.1.
Thank you for reading.
Edit: Solution for my problem:
It turns out I had to check whether the Mouse is still inside the UserControl's bounds. If yes, cancel the MouseLeave-Method with a return, and otherwise continue the method. Here's my updated code:
private void ItemPreviewControl_MouseEnter(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
this.BackColor = Color.FromArgb(192, 0, 0);
}
private void ItemPreviewControl_MouseLeave(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (this.ClientRectangle.Contains(this.PointToClient(MousePosition)))
return;
this.BackColor = Color.FromName("Gray");
}

C# Windows form new page

I'm trying to make a button on my windows form create a new page when clicked, something like when you are going through an installation of a program and you would click "Next" and it would take you to a new page but not bring up an entirely seperate window. I would also have another button that would be pressed to bring up the original form.
I've looked everywhere for a answer to this so any help on how I would create this would be greatly appreciated.
private void Cleaning_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// executes new page
}

What you want to do is to create a wizard. There are lot of samples on internet regarding that. Take a look;
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/31770/Wizard-Form-Implementation
Or
You can see that SO question
Creating Wizards for Windows Forms in C#

One simple way is to use panels in a single form. The only problem with panels is that it is hard to edit the layout and also your code would become very messy.
it IS simple BUT has a very bad downside

Simply we can add one groupbox and add your controls, in form load set groupbox visible to false and button click event visible to true something like....
private void Form3_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
groupBox1.Visible = false;
}
private void button1_Click_1(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (button1.Text == "&Show")
{
button1.Text = "&Hide";
groupBox1.Visible = true;
}
else if (button1.Text == "&Hide")
{
button1.Text = "&Show";
groupBox1.Visible = false;
}
}

Auto expand the window by pressing a button

I am using “Microsoft Visual Studio 2010” and C# language. My user interface look like this(before user click the Advance button):
If user click Advance button, I want it to show the rest of the window as shown in the picture bellow:
Can you please tell me how can have all these information hidden till the user click the Advance button? How can I have a smaller window first, as shown in the first figure. And when the user press the advance button, it will expand and show the rest.
If you can show me with details, I would really appreciate it

All WinForms controls, including the Form itself, have an AutoSize property. When set to true, it causes the control to automatically resize itself to fit its contents.
Therefore, you should place your "advanced" controls into a UserControl and add that UserControl to your form (or you can use a Panel if you're lazy). Then, when the "Advanced" button is clicked, toggle the visibility of your UserControl. The form should automatically adjust its size accordingly.
Alternatively, you could add SplitContainer to your form, which has the ability to collapse one of its two panels. The "Advanced" button would then toggle the state of the Panel2Collapsed property to expand/collapse the bottom panel.
Note: Grammatically, the caption of that button should be "Advanced", not "Advance". For an improved user experience, I recommend adding some kind of indicator that the button expands the available information on the window, rather than submitting it or opening a second window. Most "expander" buttons accomplish this using a downward-facing arrow, e.g.
You could use an image for this, or a Unicode glyph. For example, ▼, the black down-pointing triangle. Change it to an upward-pointing triangle when the panel is expanded.

1.Add a panel to bottom of your form and add all the controls that you need to display in the advanced button click.
2.change the following properties of both the panel and your form,
> AutoSize >> true
> AutoSizeMode >> GrowAndShrink
3.then in form load event you can use like following
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
panel1.Visible = false;
}
4. then in advanced button click event
private void button1_Click_1(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//panel1.Visible = true;
string value1 = button1.Text;
switch(value1)
{
case "Expand":
panel1.Visible = true;
break;
case "Reduce":
panel1.Visible = false;
break;
}
button1.Text = "Reduce";
if(panel1.Visible==true)
{
button1.Text = "Reduce";
}
else if(panel1.Visible==false)
{
button1.Text = "Expand";
}
}

At first set the following properties visible false
like all lebels and text boxs. then in the click event of the advanced button set all properties visible true.

OnLoad event of your first form set every control or groupbox (whichever you are using) visibility as false.
And on advance buttonclick event make its visibility true.
Code as follows:
private void FirstForm_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
controlName.Visible=false;
}
private void btnAdvance_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
controlName.Visible=true;
}
MSDN For Visibility Property:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-IN/library/system.windows.uielement.visibility.aspx
Hope its helpful.

you can simply do it like this,
1.Add a panel to bottom of your form and add all the controls that
you need to display in the advanced button click.
2.change the following properties of both the panel and your form,
> AutoSize >> true
> AutoSizeMode >> GrowAndShrink
3.then in form load event you can use like following
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
panel1.Visible = false;
}
4. then in advanced button click event
private void button1_Click_1(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
panel1.Visible = true;
}
Hope this will help you and any other need this in future...!

C# Tabless Control Previous/Back/Return Button failing?

I am hoping someone here can help me, i have a Tabless Control on my windows forms application and basically because the tabs are purposely hidden i have added 2 buttons to each tab "Next" and "Back".
This is the code snippet i have for my "Next" button:
private void nextbutton1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
tabControl1.SelectedTab = tabPage3;
this.toolStripStatusLabel8.Text = System.DateTime.Now.ToString();
}
Which works fine, however when i use the exact same theory on the "Back" button it does not work:
private void backbutton1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
tabControl1.SelectedTab = tabmain;
this.toolStripStatusLabel1.Text = System.DateTime.Now.ToString();
}
So my question is how does one go to a previous tabpage from a button? I have looked through here and tried all of the links that came up but nothing has worked any ideas?

You should use the SelectedIndex property instead of using concrete TabPage instances. This way it will still work when you decide to change the order of the pab pages or add new pages:
private void previousButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (tabControl1.SelectedIndex > 0)
{
tabControl1.SelectedIndex--;
}
}
private void nextButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (tabControl1.SelectedIndex < tabControl1.TabCount - 1)
{
tabControl1.SelectedIndex++;
}
}
Since there is no "Tabless" tab control in .NET Framework I can only assume that it works similar to the standard TabControl. If the solution doesn't work you should give us some information about the actual class you use.
BTW: There is no need to repeat the buttons on each page. Why don't you just put the buttons outside the TabControl?
Also: I see that you use a ToolStripStatusLabel to show the current time. Instead of updating it each time the user clicks somewhere add a Timer to your form. Set its Interval to 1000 and handle its Tick event. Update the label there:
private void timer1_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
toolStripStatusLabel1.Text = DateTime.Now.ToLongTimeString();
}
This way it updates constantly and again there is no need to repeat anything. You need to call timer1.Start() in the form's constructor.

Designing a dynamic panel

I am new to C# and I want to design a GUI for a image processing application in c#. I have a very basic rudimentary layout designed as shown below
Here, the image plane is fixed and it will show a live stream video. I have designed all the buttons frame and the side panel. But I do not know how to dynamically change the side panel for each button I click. For example, If I click button1_1, I want some things in the side panel and for button1_2, some other things in it. How do I go about doing it.
EDIT:
Thanks for the answers. I see tab controls is an option. But I want a new panel evertime a click a button. which can further open forms. Is it possible?

OK, let's see. It's easy to do with "TabControl" or array of "Panel"s.
1.Do it with TabControl.
You can design GUI in TabControl in multiple subTabs(if you don't know how please ask.). Then you change it in button click event, to make subTab you wanna show(which means make it visiable and not visiable for other subTabs.)
2.Do it with array of panel.
You can use panel[] panels. In button click event, you hide other panels and show the one you want.
Hope answer helps you!
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
tabControl1.SelectedIndex = 0;
tabControl1.TabPages[0].Text = "First";
}
private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
tabControl1.SelectedIndex = 1;
}
private void button3_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
tabControl1.SelectedIndex = 2;
}

you may want to add split container in your form.
Create UserControl for each buttons.
Code for the button click event
//Button1Click Event
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
UserControl1 m_UserControl = new UserControl1();
splitContainer1.Panel2.Controls.Clear();
splitContainer1.Panel2.Controls.Add(m_UserControl);
}
//Button2Click Event
private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
UserControl2 m_Usercontrol2 = new UserControl2();
splitContainer1.Panel2.Controls.Clear();
splitContainer1.Panel2.Controls.Add(m_Usercontrol2);
}
you can do this if you want to change what usercontrol display in a panel at run time.
Correct me if i misunderstood your question.

In WinForms, you could use a tab control and just change the selected tabs index when a button is pressed. More specifically, when its click event is fired. Here is a good tutorial on using the TabControl and here is a tutorial on wiring up click events.
EDIT:
This is a better tutorial.
Since you can't hide the tabs of a tabcontrol without using WPF, you may need to use something else, if you don't like the way they look. A good workaround if you only have a couple of buttons and thus views, would be to use panels. When button one is clicked show panel one and hide panel two, etc. Here would be the code:
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
pane2.visible = false;
pane1.visible = true;
}
private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
pane1.visible = false;
pane2.visible = true;
}
Hope this helps you!