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C# User Control (with sequences). Navigate within WinForms

I'm looking for the best, most effecient way of implimenting user controls navigation based on events, below is the intended use.
I also don't know what is best, to have the next back button on the control or form.
Lastly, the next button may sometimes change and initially be validate on some controls and then if validated change to next if the validate is ok.
Ok the concept:
I have 1 primary user control with 3 checkboxes, behind each checkbox is a sequence of more user forms therefore, if all three are selected it should then load all three sequences one after another.
Regardless of how many are selected, all sequences end with the same final user control.
Basically I need to understand the best and most practicle way approach this (examples welcome).
There are lots of topics that cover winforms / user control navigation but I cannot seem to see a solution which pops out to me and fits my needs.
For compatibility with some systems, I have decided to use .net 3.5; should this make a difference in suggestions.
Feedback, links, code etc all welcome :)

I ran into a similar scenario some years ago. If memory serves, I approached it as follows:
Separate the navigation buttons into their own control that groups
the buttons together. Design this control to support docking.
In this control, provide distinct buttons for Back, Next, Finish and
Cancel. Provide separate properties on the control that determine
what the user can do: CanMoveBack, CanMoveForward, CanFinish, and
CanCancel. The container should be able to set these.
In the setter for the navigation properties, you want to be able to
adjust the visibility/disabled status of each of the navigation
buttons. Don't hot-swap text. That way, each button does one thing,
and only one thing. This keeps their event handlers nice and clean.
The user control itself should raise events: OnBackClicked,
OnNextClicked, OnFinishClicked, and OnCancelClicked. Your button
event handlers should raise these. The container should decide what
to do when they are clicked.

Switching between to Forms within a single window

I want to change my form 1 into form 2. I don't want it to open a new window but keep it in the same window and then be able to go back and forth when I press the Next key or back key. Is the only way to do this by Individually hiding each button and picture?

You might want to consider a different approach.
You can't change one type of form into a different type of form. The closest option would be to close or hide the first and show the second at the same location on the screen.
However, you could approach this differently. Instead of putting your buttons and logic into a form, you could place everything into two UserControl instances, and just change which user control is visible within a single form.

You can use panels, group boxes, TabControls, etc. to group common controls together. When you want to switch between different "screens", you can hide or show the group control by setting the visible property and calling BringToFront(), and it will hide/show all the controls on that group control.

How do I create a Tab Control with no Tab Header in Windows form?

I have created a Windows form using a Tab Control, but it has a header with it. I want to hide it. I am not able to do it using any properties of the Tab Control. Is there any property defined for hiding the tab header for the Tab Control without going through the code?

Use following code to hide the tabs or set these properties in design.
tabControl.Appearance = TabAppearance.FlatButtons;
tabControl.ItemSize = new Size(0, 1);
tabControl.SizeMode = TabSizeMode.Fixed;

You want the tab panels without the feature allowing a user to switch between them, so I suppose you want to create few separate sets of controls to be shown to the user one at a time. You can achieve this in several ways (you can choose one of them if you find it appropriate in your case):
Use several Panel controls instead of several tabs in the TabControl, however, it would be hard to work in the designer, because all the controls would be visible
Use different Forms instead of tabs to keep the layout parts separated. It can be ok, but you may not want to use multiple Forms, so it depends on a specific case.
and finally, the suggested solution:
Encapsulate each set of controls in a UserControl. This allows you to keep each layout separately, so you can easily design each of them without the other controls getting in the way ;). The the code handling each of the layouts would also be separated. Then just drag those controls in the Form and use set their visibilities appropriately to show the one you want.
If none of those suggestions work for you, let me know, so I can look for other possible solutions.

It's more easy as you think, you just drag the panel's window upper, so will be outside of the form.

Use DrawMode: OwnerDrawFixed will hide TabPage header text DrawMode : OwnerDrawFixed

Another way to achieve the same (or similar) is: You can remove tabs from TabControl.TabPages collection and then add the tab you want to show.
During the Form initialization I remove tabs (so into the designer I can easily manage them) and in some control event (as button click) I show the tab the user has to see.
Something like that:
// During form load:
ctrTab.TabPages.Clear();
// ......
// During button click or some other event:
if(rbSend.Checked)
ctrTab.TabPages.Add(pgSend);
else
ctrTab.TabPages.Add(pgReceive);
In this way the user can still see the header tab but just as title of controls group, he can't change/switch the current active tab.

C# need advice on a simple issue on form navigation

I need to simulate a form that is similar to the interface seen during installation of any software. There are next and back buttons and the all the information entered by the user is processed only when he/she clicks the finish button. When the user clicks the back button, the previous entered information is showed to him/her. When the user clicks the next button the next screen is show to him/her. All displayed information is shown in one form.
There are 3 section which I need to show the user.
Section 1 - pressing the next button will show section 2
Section 2 - pressing the back button will show section 1 and pressing the next button will show section 3
Section 3 - pressing the previous button will show section 2 and pressing the finish button will process all the information entered in section 1,2 and 3.
Currently planning to implement the solution listed below :
Create one form
Add all the element for section 1 and create a next button event that will hide all the element shown in section 1 including the button and show all the elements section 2.
Create button event for the back button for section 2 such that it hides all the elements in section 2 including the button and displays all the elements in section 1 and the next button to hide all the element in section 2 including the button and show all the element in section 3
Create similar button event for section 3
Are there any better solution than the one describe above. If yes, please describe the approach. Any help provided will be greatly appreciated.

One way to achieve this is using a tab control and hiding the tabs so that the user can't navigate between them and instead you control moving from one tab to the next programatically.
I use the KryptonNavigator control as it provides many different modes that make it simple to hide tabs so that only tab content is visible, etc. However, it should be possible to hide the tabs of the standard tab control.
KryptonNavigator

Sounds like you need a wizard control. Try one of these:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/miscctrl/ak_wizard.aspx
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/195255/best-wizard-control-for-net-windows-forms

You can use usercontrol structure to achieve this kind of behaviour. You can add a simple panel control and change the content of the panel according to the buttons pressed. You can simply change the content of the panel by using yourPanel.Controls.Add(your_user_control).
So different control sets can be implemented on a winform.
Thanks

You could create custom controls for the three different screens, then you could just add those 3 controls to the form, making it easier to hide/show the appropriate controls.
Or alternatively, you can create three separate forms, and then show your forms in order and perform the actions in the programs Main() function rather than using a form as your startup object. Like
static void Main()
{
Form1 f1 = new Form1();
if (f1.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
{
// do actions
// show next form
// etc.
}
}

Yeah, like iain said, the wizard control is probably your best bet, but if that doesn't work, try looking for MultiView or Accordian controls. They make controls that are specifically for hiding/showing sections on a form, so you don't have to go from form to form, and thus you stay in the same scope the whole time. Makes keeping the fields populated a lot easier.

WinForms TabOrder tool: Broken or just confusing?

I have a form with a bunch of panels, and some panels inside groupboxes. When using the TabOrder tool in Vs2005, the controls outside of containers are given integers (0), the controls inside panels are given decimals (72.0), and the controls within panels within groupboxes are given three-part values (73.73.0). Unfortunately the resulting tab order has nothing to do with the order I clicked my controls.
Does this tool simply not support nested containers? Am I doing something wrong? Perhaps holding Shift- or Ctrl- when I click (I've tried these with no success)?
Am I going to be forced to manually type in three-part tab orders for all my controls? That would be a bummer.

The tab order tool is not designed for you to enter values manually; it is designed for you to click on controls in the order that you'd like them to progress as the user tabs.
The numbers are not decimals; they represent the tab order of the control within its parent container. For example, if you have a Form with a Panel named panel1 and a Button inside of it named button1, then button1 would display a number like:
X.Y
X is the tab order of panel1
Y is the tab order of button1 within panel1.
I will acknowledge that the designer isn't as intuitive (or transparent) as it probably should be, but it does work.

I had the same problem with textboxes and buttons within group box in VS2010. TabOrder tool was just useless: Tab orders were broken no matter how I re-ordered the tab stops. In order to make the correct tab order I had to re-order of how controls are added to the group box in form designer initialization code:
this.groupBox2.Controls.Add(this.startTimeTextBox);
this.groupBox2.Controls.Add(this.endTimeTextBox);
this.groupBox2.Controls.Add(this.exitButton);
This way tab order would be startTimeTextBox -> endTimeTextBox -> exitButton and so on.

I think I figured out the way to do it in the designer: the trick is apparently that you have to click the panels/groupboxes as well in order to assign the different parts of the full ordering; in this way, it seems that a bredth-first clicking method needs to be used as opposed to clicking the child controls themselves.
Kinda sad, since it forces you to know the full structure of the whole form instead of just what the user sees.

I had this same problem and discovered this tool: http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/cdstabindex
I had to change the manifest to make it work with VS2010 though. Also, I've modified the source code for myself to make the UI a little better, but even as it is, I would recommend having a look at this tool.

Remove Group-boxes from Controls and try again this works for me :)