Develop Reference

Switching between forms (closing one form, then opening another)

So I'm trying to learn a thing or two about coding with c# and something i find quite annoying is the way to switch between forms.
Lets say for a game you want to go to the options panel and when you click the button to get there it closes that window(form1) and opens a new window(form2) for my app.
It doesn't look very nice having windows opening and closing like that so I'm wondering what i can do in order to make it switch from form1 to form2 without closing form1 and not open form2 in a new window (Everything switched on the main window(form1).
Might sound a bit confusing but hopefully you understand what i mean.
The code I'm using so far to switch between forms:
ChangeOptions optionchanger = new ChangeOptions ();
this.Hide();
optionchanger.Show();

You could add two panels to a single form, each of which contains the controls you would otherwise have added to one of the two forms. Then switch between the panels by changing their visibility or Z-order. This is slightly tricky in the Windows Forms Designer because you'll have to design the two panels, then position them in the same spot on the containing form.
As #ryanyuyu points out, you can set the Dock property to DockStyle.Fill and switch which panel is on top using Control.BringToFront or Control.SendToBack(). This is also a decent way to interact with the two panels in the designer, as you can switch which is on top from a context menu option.

To truly have two forms, your only option is to show a dialog. Hiding your current window is of course optional.
However, you can:
Group all the controls on a given "form" into a Panel or GroupBox, then show/hide the container control.
Put all the controls into UserControls and have an instance of each UserControl on the main form. You can then show/hide the control.
I prefer the second method as it keeps the encapsulation tighter. Since you already have two forms, its easy to convert to user controls.

How to make changing "screens" in c#

I'm new in C#, and I wanted to know if there was any way to show a screen with certain elements, and then with the click of a button, switch to another screen, similar to an installer.
From my experience in Java, I would just use a few JPanels and then hide only the one i want visible.
However, I'm new to C# forms and it's very different from Java swing. Anyone understand my problem and can tell me pretty much how this works? Thanks.

Simple approach
Just use a Grid with multiple Grids inside of it. Set the Visibility property of each internal Grid (except the first one you want to show) to Hidden or Collapsed, and then set them to Visible when you want to display them.
Better approach
Create a class for each section, each of which derives from the same parent class. Create a DataTemplate for the parent class, then just have instances of the template load into the original Grid through a ContentPresenter.

You can try this creating new forms. From my experience I've tried this:
Form2 formTwo = new Form2(); // creates instance
formTwo.Show(); // displays the new form
this.WindowState = FormWindowState.Minimized; // minimizes previous form
this.ShowInTaskbar = false; // hides it from taskbar
Keep in mind that this does not close the previous form. I would recommend setting ShowIntaskbar as True if you don't mind the user seeing the form minimized.
EDIT: If you want to show new elements I suggest you can try adding a new Form class to the project then using the designer.

Add a form to a MDI child

In Form1 I'm enabling IsMdiContainer and I added a MenuStrip. In Form1_Load I "new" Form2 and I'm assiging Form2.MdiParent to this which is Form1. I'm also maximizing Form2 and this operation works well.
In Form2 I have a treeView on the left side of the form and on the right side of the form I would like to display a number of different forms with various editing capabilities which will be dependent upon the node or level selected in the treeView.
I would like to create a number of different forms for editing data that would be displayed in Form2 depending on the selection from the treeView. I can't seem to add a form to the MdiChild and I've been seeing some posts where adding a form to a form may create some programming problems which I'm not sure about.
I really don't have any code to paste into this post because nothing seemed to work except for the Mdi Parent and Child relationship which was pretty simple.
Thanks in advance for any help.

There is a lot of information on this subject, but some documentation can be difficult to understand for some new developers. Follow these steps:
Open Visual Studio
Create a Windows Form Application
Click your Form
Go to Properties for that Form
Minimum Size : 1366 pixels by 768 pixels.
Launch Maximized
The important element is IsMdiContainer
Open your Toolbox.
Go to Menus
Drag FileMenu onto your Form
Build your Menu
Then go to Solution Explorer
Right-Click Add Item
Add another Form
I left mine as Form2 (In a real program, not a good name).
So within those fifteen steps, we have all that we need to accomplish our goal. So what we will do to finish our task is:
Go back to our First Form
Go to our FileMenu
Double Click on the menu button you wish to link.
It will load a code view, inside the area put this:
Form2 newFrm = new Form2();
newFrm.MdiParent = this;
newFrm.Show();
What this code is doing is three distinct things:
Line 1: It is actually calling our object, in this case a second form. It is actually building our object for us.
Line 2: Is actually linking our second form to our current form, this is physically turning our second form into a Child Form.
Line 3: This is actually physically showing our second form when the button is clicked.
That is all you need to physically show a Form.
In regards to your second question, I'm not entirely sure what your attempting to accomplish. It sounds like your trying to have a tree, then as a Node is selected the right hand side of the Form changes to specific context.
Now this isn't the nicest example, but do you mean something like this?
TreeNode node = treeView1.SelectedNode;
if (node.Text.Contains("XP"))
{
TextBox one = new TextBox();
Panel i = new Panel();
i.Dock = DockStyle.Right;
i.BackColor = Color.Black;
i.Controls.Add(one);
i.Show();
TreeFrm.ActiveForm.Controls.Add(i);
}
Not sure if that is what you are seeking. Obviously you'd want to implement a FlowLayoutPanel to make the positioning not a pain for you. Keep in mind an MDI Parent, with a Child Form acting as a MDI Parent will not work very well. As most things will default to MDI Parent Forms Docking / Positioning. This example is not pretty, but I'm not entirely sure of what your asking.
Are you trying to dock other forms or components on the same form?

"Clear" window to make room for new user controls?

I'm usually working with Windows Forms Applications, but I'm currently needing Windows Presentation Foundation for design purposes.
What I am needing to do is clear out the current open window and fill it with new user controls as though a new window has been opened. In short, open a new window without actually opening a new window, similar to navigating to a new page in a web browser. (Still the same window open in the Taskbar, no extras.)
I was unsure if there was a specific class or control that made this easy to do. If someone could enlighten me on the way to do this in WPF, I would be very pleased.
Thanks.

There are a number of possible ways - here are a few that come to mind:
Navigation
In WPF, you can actually navigate to different xaml pages. In this scenario, you would define a number of pages that a main page could navigate to.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms750478.aspx
Programmatic
You can do it the old school way and just clear out all of the controls in a window. For example (in the context of a window):
StackPanel stackPanel = new StackPanel();
stackPanel.Children.Add(new MyUserControl1());
stackPanel.Children.Add(new MyUserControl2());
this.Content = stackPanel;

winforms panels vs java swing panels

In java swing I can insert panels into panels and so on, and not have to build a brand new window for every view of my applicaiton, or mess around removing and adding controls.
Theres a panel clas sin C# however I cant see any way of creating a 'panel form' or basically just a form in form designer thats a panel and its contents.
How do I do this then and work the way I did with java swing?

Usually i just dock different forms within eachother setting the IsMdiContainer Property to true on the parent window. Then i create subforms that i dock using the following function:
static class FormUtil
{
static public void showForm(Form sender, Control reciever)
{
sender.ControlBox = false;
sender.FormBorderStyle = FormBorderStyle.None;
sender.ShowInTaskbar = false;
sender.TopLevel = false;
sender.Visible = true;
sender.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
reciever.Controls.Clear(); //clear panel first
reciever.Controls.Add(sender);
}
}
then whenever i need to dock a form inside a panel on the parents form i just do:
FormUtil.showForm(new SomeForm(), this.splitContainer1.Panel1);
This allows me to delegate some of the form creation to different designers. Works like a charm for me, love to hear if theres a better way of doing it.

Actually, you can use the panel control and set it's Dock property to Fill. That way, your panel will be the entire canvas of the form. Then, you can add child panels as needed either through code behind or through forms designer.

There's the concept of user controls which basicly provides you with a panel like designer surface , not to mention that you can create atomic forms (which can be reused) and register them as inheritable, that way you can provide inheritance too.