Develop Reference

Keep the first tab always visible

I'm making a windows form application with tabs, and in my first tab I have a overview of the active tabs. Now when I add a new tab, the tabs are going in a sort of scroll bar and when the scrollbar is 'full', my first tab becomes 'out of sight'.
Is there an option to keep the first tab always visible? I've searched around the internet and couldn't find someone with the problem nor solution

I didn't see any property for it yet but you have two way:
1) Create a custom control yourself (long way)
2) Use Multiline property of tabControl and set it to TRUE (Short way)
// Allows more than one row of tabs.
this.tabControl1.Multiline = true;
Result:................................
When you set Multiline to TRUE, it keep all tabs always visible (include first Tab) ;)
Also you can set Appearance property to Bottom or FlatButtons to prevent tabs moving after click on them in different lines.
this.tabControl1.Appearance= TabAppearance.FlatButtons;

No there is not. You would need to design your own control to do this if that is what you want.

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.

DataGridView cannot be Focused, but one of them can

I've come across the strangest bug pertaining to DataGridViews in Windows Forms.
I have a TabControl, that is supposed to contain a docked DataGridView in each tab page. I thought it would be convenient that the grid is focused upon changing the tab page, so that the user could simply hover the mouse over the grid and start scrolling when he changes the page. So, I just put a grids[tabs.SelectedIndex].Focus() in the event handler for changing the tab page.
However, something really strange happened. In my test application, I have three tab pages. If I try scrolling the grid right after starting the application, it doesn't work; I have to click in the grid first. I was expecting this. However, if I change the tab page, I can't scroll in any of the other grids until I click, except for the first one!
So, if I switch pages to the second page, then back to the first, I can automatically scroll that grid without clicking, but if I then switch to the third, I have to click for the grid to focus.
I had a look at the CanFocus properties of the grids, and it seems that only the first grid has it set to True. They are all created programmatically, and all in the same way. I don't see why they would be different.
Any ideas?

Inactive tab pages have their Visible property set to false. The documentation for CanFocus says:
In order for a control to receive
input focus, the control must have a
handle assigned to it, and the Visible
and Enabled properties must both be
set to true for both the control and
all its parent controls

Well, I solved it. Stupid programming error on my part, I had grids[tabs.TabIndex].Focus() instead of grids[tabs.SelectedIndex].Focus().
Oh well.

What would be the best course of action for display different form in a single Winform?

Here's a screenshot of my application:
Basically, depending on what option is selected I'd like to show another 'content' which can be a buttons, or forms or whatever.
What would be the best choice for this? Using MDI? I'm really new to this type of thing.

This scenario lends itself well to tab pages, as you'd find on a TabControl.
However, since you already have a mechanism for switching between the content, you might prefer to create a series of Panels whose Dock property is set to DockStyle.Fill. When the user clicks the appropriate heading, you simply need to show the appropriate panel and call BringToFront() on it. This is essentially what the tab control does internally, anyway.
Don't forget to use SuspendLayout() and ResumeLayout() appropriately to reduce flicker, which can be a huge problem in WinForms applications, especially when there are lots of controls.

You can position a TabControl where the buttons are not visible and control it from your buttons.

c# winForms open forms inside mainform

I have programmed c# application i will post screenshot. In this main form is 3 buttons which opens different forms. Now i decided to modify this application I want to Make one main form with strip menu which will open this forms. I used this code but i don't like or i'm doing something wrong. I don't like because there is child controls(minimize, maximize, close) in parent (please see second picture ):
Please advice me something. Is MDI good for such job? Thanks!
Sell sell = new Sell();
sell.MdiParent = this;
sell.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
sell.Show();`
So my problem is that parent form is not filling when i open child form this is creen how to make that it parent form was filled with child form

Seeing your latest edit, I assume the reason that your child form's content doesn't fill the screen even when it's maximized is because your content/layout is not flexible.
Wherever you've placed the controls during Design Mode is where they're going to end up at run time, regardless of how big or small you make the window. If the window is too small to contain all of them, they'll either be covered up or you will see scrollbars. Alternatively, if the window is made larger than necessary, you'll see a lot of empty space.
The way around this is either to set the Dock and Anchor properties of your controls, which causes them to expand and compress to fit the layout of their containing form. You could also place your controls inside a TableLayoutPanel or FlowLayoutPanel control to help manage their layout.
As far as the question you appeared to be asking originally, I still can't tell if you're opposed to the way an MDI application looks, or if you simply don't understand how to correctly implement it. The clarification comment you offered actually makes things less clear to me—you posted a code snippet, but didn't explain what it means. As I wrote in a comment, there's no (non-hackish) way to show a form that doesn't have minimize, maximize, and close buttons (setting the FormBorderStyle property to "None" does this, but I think this is a silly solution that simply allows you to use the wrong control for the job—it won't behave like a form, the user won't be able to move it around like a form, etc. so why use a form?).
If you truly want to have a single application window with changing content in the center, you should create a series of UserControls. You can lay out each user control with the necessary child controls, just like you would with a form (using the fluid layout techniques I discussed above), add each user control to your main form, set each control's Dock property to "Fill" (so that they fill the entire viewing area), and then write code to simply swap out the currently visible user control in your main form's viewing area. The advantage of using a UserControl versus something like a Panel is that you consolidate all of your code into a single control, much like you would with a Form. You could use a tab control, but if you don't want to show any indication that there are multiple forms (which is what your aim appears to be), this would also be the wrong control for the job.
If you literally want to open child forms inside your main form, as your question title indicates, you should indeed be using MDI. If you don't understand how to do this, you'll need to clarify your question further.

Set MDI Container property to true for your parent form. It will help.

Set
FormBorderStyle = None
for your child forms