Develop Reference

C# WindowForm How can I make line cursor in PictureBox?

You know, we can easily to make line cursor for Chart (ex: Fig). But with PictureBox, how can I do it? Is there anyone has the solution?

You can intercept the MouseMove and the Paint events. Just draw the cross on the paint.
The advantage of using the Paint method, is that the original image is not changed, so no need to restore the overwritten pixels by the crosshair.
Here's an example:
I dropped a picturebox on a winform and linked some events.
using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Windows.Forms;
namespace MouseCrosshair
{
public partial class Form1 : Form
{
// to store the latest mouse position
private Point? _mousePos;
// the pen to draw the crosshair.
private Pen _pen = new Pen(Brushes.Red);
public Form1()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
private void pictureBox1_MouseEnter(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// when the mouse enters the picturebox, we just hide it.
Cursor.Hide();
}
private void pictureBox1_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
var pictureBox = (PictureBox)sender;
// on a mouse move, save the current location (to be used when drawing the crosshair)
_mousePos = e.Location;
// force an update to the picturebox.
pictureBox.Invalidate();
}
private void pictureBox1_Paint(object sender, PaintEventArgs e)
{
// if the mousepos is assigned (meaning we have a mouse pos, draw the crosshair)
if (_mousePos.HasValue)
{
var pictureBox = (PictureBox)sender;
// draw a vertical line
e.Graphics.DrawLine(_pen, new Point(_mousePos.Value.X, 0), new Point(_mousePos.Value.X, pictureBox.Height));
// draw a horizontal line
e.Graphics.DrawLine(_pen, new Point(0, _mousePos.Value.Y), new Point(pictureBox.Width, _mousePos.Value.Y));
}
}
private void pictureBox1_MouseLeave(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// when the mouse is outside the picturebox, clear the mousepos
_mousePos = null;
// repaint the picturebox
pictureBox1.Invalidate();
// show the mouse cursor again.
Cursor.Show();
}
}
}
Because the events are using the sender, you can link multiple pictureboxes to these events.
It's also possible to inherit from the PictureBox, and write a new CrosshairPictureBox control, which has a crosshair by default.
If you want to draw charts in a PictureBox, use a Bitmap and draw on that using the Graphics.FromImage(bitmap) and put it in the PictureBox.Image. Don't forget to dispose the Graphics object.

You can achieve this by storing the position of the last point received, and then draw a line using the Graphics.DrawLine method between the old position and the new one.
Please also note, that when the mouse is moving, the Control.MouseMove event for every single pixel traveled by the mouse pointer isn't received for every single move. You do receive the Control.MouseMove events at a fairly consistent time interval. That means that the faster the mouse moves, the further apart the points you'll be actually receiving.
Check out this walkthrough for some examples - https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/mahesh/drawing-lines-in-gdi/

If I understand the question correctly, you are interested to draw x-axis and y-axis for a chart, but not using a chat control.
In this case, what you need to do is: Handle the Paint event of the PictureBox and draw the line from top middle to bottom middle and from left middle to right middle.
Here is the code which I write to produce above chart, y = Sin(x)
:
private void pictureBox1_Paint(object sender, PaintEventArgs e)
{
var axisWidth = 3;
var axisColor = Color.Red;
var chartLineWidth = 2;
var chartLineColor = Color.Blue;
var scale = 90;
var gridSize = 45;
var gridLineWidth = 1;
var gridLineColor = Color.LightGray;
var g = e.Graphics;
g.SmoothingMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.SmoothingMode.AntiAlias;
var w = pictureBox1.ClientRectangle.Width / 2;
var h = pictureBox1.ClientRectangle.Height / 2;
g.TranslateTransform(w, h);
g.ScaleTransform(1, -1);
//Draw grid
for (int i = -w / gridSize; i <= w / gridSize; i++)
using (var axisPen = new Pen(gridLineColor, gridLineWidth))
g.DrawLine(axisPen, i * gridSize, -h, i * gridSize, h);
for (int i = -h / gridSize; i <= h / gridSize; i++)
using (var axisPen = new Pen(gridLineColor, gridLineWidth))
g.DrawLine(axisPen, -w, i * gridSize, w, i * gridSize);
//Draw axis
using (var axisPen = new Pen(axisColor, axisWidth))
{
g.DrawLine(axisPen, -w, 0, w, 0); //X-Asxis
g.DrawLine(axisPen, 0, -h, 0, h); //Y-Asxis
}
//Draw y = Sin(x)
var points = new List<PointF>();
for (var x = -w; x < w; x++)
{
var y = System.Math.Sin(x * Math.PI / 180);
points.Add(new PointF(x, scale * (float)y));
}
using (var chartLinePen = new Pen(chartLineColor, chartLineWidth))
{
g.DrawCurve(chartLinePen, points.ToArray());
}
g.ResetTransform();
}
You also need the following piece of code to handle resizing of the picture box:
private void MyForm_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
this.pictureBox1.GetType().GetProperty("ResizeRedraw",
System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic |
System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Instance).SetValue(
this.pictureBox1, true);
}
You can also add a crosshair and rubber-band rectangle to the control, like the following image:

System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: 'Error creating window handle.'

My problem is:
System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: 'Error creating window handle'.
I know I can solve this problem with Dispose(), but when I use it in the program, I'm displaying another error:
System.ObjectDisposedException: 'Can not access a disposed object.
Object name: 'PictureBox'. '
I use the following code:
private void SetUpPuzzle_Click(int parts)
{
Panel P = new Panel
{
Size = new Size(200, 200),
Location = new Point(394, 62),
};
Controls.Add(P);
Control board = P;
int total = parts * parts;
var PB = new PictureBox[total];
var imgarray = new Image[total];
var img = User_Image.Image;
int W = img.Width / (int.Parse(Math.Sqrt(double.Parse(parts.ToString())).ToString()));
int H = img.Height / (int.Parse(Math.Sqrt(double.Parse(parts.ToString())).ToString()));
int size = 200 / (int.Parse(Math.Sqrt(double.Parse(parts.ToString())).ToString()));
for (int x = 0; x < parts; x++)
{
for (int y = 0; y < parts; y++)
{
var index = x * parts + y;
imgarray[index] = new Bitmap(W, H);
using (Graphics graphics = Graphics.FromImage(imgarray[index]))
graphics.DrawImage(img, new Rectangle(0, 0, W, H),
new Rectangle(x * W, y * H, W, H), GraphicsUnit.Pixel);
PB[index] = new PictureBox
{
Name = "P" + index,
Size = new Size(size, size),
Location = new Point(x * size, y * size),
Image = imgarray[index],
SizeMode = PictureBoxSizeMode.StretchImage
};
PB[index].MouseEnter += Images_M_E;
PB[index].MouseLeave += Images_M_L;
PB[index].MouseClick += Form_MouseClick;
*PB[index].Dispose();
*board.Controls.Add(PB[index]);
}
}
}
When I want to create 10,000 objects
This error is displayed.

My problem is:
System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: 'Error creating window handle'.
Indeed. You are creating way too many controls for a Winforms application.
And disposing of them doesn't really help because you can't use a disposed object any longer..
To have this kind of large puzzle (10k pieces) you need to change from using PictureBoxes (or any other Controls) to display the puzzle pieces to a different approach. This has been suggested in the original question but then you only wanted to have 100 pieces, remember?
The most common approach is this: Keep a list of images (when they are <= 256x256 pixels do put them into an ImageList!) and draw them in the board's Paint event. This will get rid of all the overhead involved with PictureBoxes.
(Aside: One may think this will not be performant with all the DrawImage calls. But all those PictureBoxes also need to draw all the pixels on all their surfaces, so that is no issue. But they also have to carry the overhead of being (under the hood) fully functional windows (see the error message!), which is why the system can only have a limited number of them; always try to keep the number of controls < 1k!)
You will have to move the placement logic to the board's Paint event and will also have to change the event model..:
Instead of having each PictureBox respond to its own events you will have to find a way to do all the work in the board's events. This will have to be diffenrent, depending on the event.
Since we don't know which event you have and what they do and which data they need for their work, it is hard to give all the necessary details, so I'll just point out a few things..:
There will not be a Enter or Leave event you can use. Instead you need to detect entering an area of a piece by testing for it in the MouseMove event. If you keep a List<Rectangle> you can use Rectangle.Contains(e.Location) for this test.
You can detect a MouseClick but then will have to find out which area was clicked. If your Enter and Leave logic from the MouseMove is working you can use its result to know where the Click went.
Similar ideas can be used for all other events; some are simple, some need a little calculation but they will all be fast and pretty easy to implement..
To optimize performance try to make the image n the right size and use Format32bppPArgb as the pixel format, because it is faster to display.
Another option is to pull the pixel data right from the original image in the Paint event with the same calculations you use now to create them. (There is a DrawImage overlay that uses two Rectangles, one to determine the target and one for the source area..) This saves GDI handles, at least if you can't use an ImageList.
Always plan for growth! For a better implementation do create a Piece class. It should hold a Rectangle and an integer index into the ImageList's Images collection. It could also have a method Switch(Piece otherPiece) which would either switch the Rectangles or the indices.
Good luck :-)

I met this exception because endless loop creating new UI control and set its properties. After looped many times, this excption was thrown when change control visible property. I found both User Object and GDI Object (From Task Manager) are quite large.
I guess your issue is similar reason that system resources are exhaust by those UI controls.

I comment PB[index].Dispose(); and it's work.
private void SetUpPuzzle(int parts)
{
// Comment ***********
//Panel P = new Panel
//{
// Size = new Size(200, 200),
// Location = new Point(394, 62),
//};
//Controls.Add(P);
//Control board = P; ***********
int total = parts * parts;
var PB = new PictureBox[total];
var imgarray = new Image[total];
var img = User_Image.Image;
int W =Convert.ToInt32(img.Width / Math.Sqrt(parts));
int H = Convert.ToInt32(img.Height / Math.Sqrt(parts));
int size = Convert.ToInt32(200 / Math.Sqrt(parts));
for (int x = 0; x < parts; x++)
{
for (int y = 0; y < parts; y++)
{
var index = x * parts + y;
imgarray[index] = new Bitmap(W, H);
using (Graphics graphics = Graphics.FromImage(imgarray[index]))
graphics.DrawImage(img, new Rectangle(0, 0, W, H),
new Rectangle(x * W, y * H, W, H), GraphicsUnit.Pixel);
PB[index] = new PictureBox
{
Name = "P" + index,
Size = new Size(size, size),
Location = new Point(x * size, y * size),
Image = imgarray[index],
SizeMode = PictureBoxSizeMode.StretchImage
};
PB[index].MouseEnter += Form1_MouseEnter;
PB[index].MouseLeave += Form1_MouseLeave;
PB[index].MouseClick += Form1_MouseClick;
//Comment
//PB[index].Dispose(); < -----------------
// Add PB in Panel in form
panel1.Controls.Add(PB[index]);
}
}
// after add all refresh panel
panel1.Refresh();
}
private void Form1_MouseClick(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
throw new NotImplementedException();
}
private void Form1_MouseLeave(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
throw new NotImplementedException();
}
private void Form1_MouseEnter(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
throw new NotImplementedException();
}
Then Call the SetUpPuzzle method in your button like :
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
SetUpPuzzle(10);
}

Make Panel scrollable

I am working on a simple Windows Forms application which consists of a Panel where I draw graphics with Graphic. Let's say, my panel is now of size 300x300 but the content inside is 500x500. Obviously, I need to add scrollbars to the Panel.
My code so far:
public CircuitControl()
{
// Initialize empty list of circuit objects
CircuitObjects = new List<CircuitObject>();
drawingAreaPanel.AutoScroll = true;
drawingAreaPanel.VerticalScroll.Enabled = true;
drawingAreaPanel.VerticalScroll.Visible = true;
drawingAreaPanel.HorizontalScroll.Enabled = true;
drawingAreaPanel.MaximumSize = new Size(300, 300);
drawingAreaPanel.Size = new Size(600, 600);
}
But none of these codes create actually a scroll bar. My question is: Where and how do I set the size of the Panel where I actually drew? I think this is the part which is missing. Thanks.

The scrollbars won't show up until there's actually something in the Panel that you can't see all of.
Try placing a larger control, such as a PictureBox, inside the Panel, and setting the PictureBox's initial size as larger than the Panel.

Just add:
drawingAreaPanel.AutoScroll = true;
And it will be done automatically.
€dit: Don't forget to set the anchors in order to get the scrollbars.

A clean and simple approach is to set AutoScrollMinSize. This shows the scrollbars (or just one if you leave the other value at 0).
Now drawing through the graphics object will not be scrolled automatically.
This can be easily achieved with a transformation matrix, which is set before painting and translates the drawing by the scroll offset.
A pretty example: (this flickers of course without further optimizations)
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
using(Form frm = new Form())
{
Panel pnl = new Panel();
pnl.Paint += delegate (Object snd, PaintEventArgs e2) {
Matrix mtx = new Matrix();
mtx.Translate(pnl.AutoScrollPosition.X, pnl.AutoScrollPosition.Y);
e2.Graphics.Transform = mtx;
e2.Graphics.Clear(Color.Black);
for(int i=0; i <= 125; i++)
for(int j=0; j <= 125; j++)
using(Brush b = new SolidBrush(Color.FromArgb(255, 255-i*2, j*2, (i*j) % 255)))
e2.Graphics.FillRectangle(b, new Rectangle(5+j*20, 5+i*20, 20, 20));
};
pnl.AutoScrollMinSize = new Size(126*20+10, 126*20+10);
pnl.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
frm.Controls.Add(pnl);
frm.Padding = new Padding(25);
frm.ShowDialog(this);
}
}

Display a Form in grayscale

Is it possible to Draw any Form (without overridding the Paint method) in grayscale.
If I show a Form in a Modal() Dialog, I wan't do show its parent as grayscale.
I noticed this in the Visual Studio Extension Manager. If a progressbar is downloading a package, the underlying window is grayed out.
I am thinking of this:
private void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
using (var dialog = new Form2())
{
SetGrayscale(this, true);
dialog.ShowDialog();
SetGrayscale(this, false);
}
}
Update
Just setting Form.Enabled = false; is not what I intended. That does not look as good as a grayscale representation of my form.
I think the compiz window decorator for Linux did this with apps that are unresponsive.

As has already been said the way to do this is to overlay another control / form on top of your existing form and have it render a grayscale version of this on top, you could either do this using an additional form placed exactly over the original form, or using something like a Panel positioned on top of all other controls.
Here is a working example of how you might do this when placing another form exactly over the client area of the first. How to use it
using (Grayscale(this))
{
MessageBox.Show("Test");
}
Implementation
public static Form Grayscale(Form tocover)
{
var frm = new Form
{
FormBorderStyle = FormBorderStyle.None,
ControlBox = false,
ShowInTaskbar = false,
StartPosition = FormStartPosition.Manual,
AutoScaleMode = AutoScaleMode.None,
Location = tocover.PointToScreen(tocover.ClientRectangle.Location),
Size = tocover.ClientSize
};
frm.Paint += (sender, args) =>
{
var bmp = GetFormImageWithoutBorders(tocover);
bmp = ConvertToGrayscale(bmp);
args.Graphics.DrawImage(bmp, args.ClipRectangle.Location);
};
frm.Show(tocover);
return frm;
}
private static Bitmap ConvertToGrayscale(Bitmap source)
{
var bm = new Bitmap(source.Width, source.Height);
for (int y = 0; y < bm.Height; y++)
{
for (int x = 0; x < bm.Width; x++)
{
Color c = source.GetPixel(x, y);
var luma = (int)(c.R * 0.3 + c.G * 0.59 + c.B * 0.11);
bm.SetPixel(x, y, Color.FromArgb(luma, luma, luma));
}
}
return bm;
}
private static Bitmap GetControlImage(Control ctl)
{
var bm = new Bitmap(ctl.Width, ctl.Height);
ctl.DrawToBitmap(bm, new Rectangle(0, 0, ctl.Width, ctl.Height));
return bm;
}
private static Bitmap GetFormImageWithoutBorders(Form frm)
{
// Get the form's whole image.
using (Bitmap wholeForm = GetControlImage(frm))
{
// See how far the form's upper left corner is
// from the upper left corner of its client area.
Point origin = frm.PointToScreen(new Point(0, 0));
int dx = origin.X - frm.Left;
int dy = origin.Y - frm.Top;
// Copy the client area into a new Bitmap.
int wid = frm.ClientSize.Width;
int hgt = frm.ClientSize.Height;
var bm = new Bitmap(wid, hgt);
using (Graphics gr = Graphics.FromImage(bm))
{
gr.DrawImage(wholeForm, 0, 0,
new Rectangle(dx, dy, wid, hgt),
GraphicsUnit.Pixel);
}
return bm;
}
}
Note that:
The implementation of Paint is fairly poor - really it should use double buffering so that the grayscale image is pre-rendered to a buffered graphics context so the Paint method just needs to paint the pre-drawn buffer contents. See Custom Drawing Controls in C# – Manual Double Buffering
ConvertToGrayscale is a tad on the slow side, but can probably be sped up
Things will go wrong if someone manages to move the original form for any reason
The image is static, if the base control gets redrawn then ideally the top form should redraw too. I'm not sure how best to detect when a portion of another form has been invalidated.
If I find the time I'll try and fix some of those problems, but the above at least gives you the general idea.
Note that in WPF this would be a lot easier.
Sources:
How to convert a colour image to grayscale
Get the image of a control or form, or a form's client area in C#

I don't think there is a way to do it directly - I think all forms are rendered with sRGB.
A hacky way could be to overlay the form with a copy of it as an image (this is simple to do with Control.DrawToBitMap) and then pass it through a simple GDI matrix to desaturate https://web.archive.org/web/20141230145627/http://bobpowell.net/grayscale.aspx.

Try something like this which would work for most simple controls (you would need to recurse into containers to switch all controls correctly).
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
using (var dialog = new Form())
{
Dictionary<Control, Tuple<Color, Color>> oldcolors = new Dictionary<Control, Tuple<Color, Color>>();
foreach (Control ctl in this.Controls)
{
oldcolors.Add(ctl, Tuple.Create(ctl.BackColor, ctl.ForeColor));
// get rough avg intensity of color
int bg = (ctl.BackColor.R + ctl.BackColor.G + ctl.BackColor.B) / 3;
int fg = (ctl.ForeColor.R + ctl.ForeColor.G + ctl.ForeColor.B) / 3;
ctl.BackColor = Color.FromArgb(bg, bg, bg);
ctl.ForeColor = Color.FromArgb(fg, fg, fg);
}
dialog.ShowDialog();
foreach (Control ctl in this.Controls)
{
ctl.BackColor = oldcolors[ctl].Item1;
ctl.ForeColor = oldcolors[ctl].Item2;
}
}
}

Printing chart in c#

I am able to print a chart from my c# project using:
chart1.Printing.PrintDocument.DocumentName = "Graph of data";
But is it possible to add a title to this? I was hoping the document name would achieve this, but apparently not!

You can print whatever you want directly to the page and then invoke the chart PrintPaint(). Note that if you don't switch the PageUnit to Pixels that the chart scaling gets confused.
void PrintChart(object sender, PrintPageEventArgs ev)
{
using (var f = new System.Drawing.Font("Arial", 10))
{
var size = ev.Graphics.MeasureString(Text, f);
ev.Graphics.DrawString("Whatever text you want", f, Brushes.Black, ev.PageBounds.X + (ev.PageBounds.Width - size.Width) / 2, ev.PageBounds.Y);
}
//Note, the chart printing code wants to print in pixels.
Rectangle marginBounds = ev.MarginBounds;
if (ev.Graphics.PageUnit != GraphicsUnit.Pixel)
{
ev.Graphics.PageUnit = GraphicsUnit.Pixel;
marginBounds.X = (int)(marginBounds.X * (ev.Graphics.DpiX / 100f));
marginBounds.Y = (int)(marginBounds.Y * (ev.Graphics.DpiY / 100f));
marginBounds.Width = (int)(marginBounds.Width * (ev.Graphics.DpiX / 100f));
marginBounds.Height = (int)(marginBounds.Height * (ev.Graphics.DpiY / 100f));
}
chart1.Printing.PrintPaint(ev.Graphics, marginBounds);
}
This menu handler opens a PrintDialog(). If you don't want a dialog you can just call pd.Print().
private void printToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
var pd = new System.Drawing.Printing.PrintDocument();
pd.PrintPage += new PrintPageEventHandler(PrintChart);
PrintDialog pdi = new PrintDialog();
pdi.Document = pd;
if (pdi.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
pdi.Document.Print();
}

Here is a workaround solution to your problem, if you place the ChartingControl inside a Panel control on the Windows Form. You can then print the panel, inside the panel you can add the document heading as a label and whatever other stuff you want to add.
Firstly from the toolbox add a PrintDocument control and call it MyPrintDocument
Then add a Panel control and put your chart inside it.
Make sure you have imported the System.Drawing namespace, then you can print the panel like this.
Bitmap MyChartPanel = new Bitmap(panel1.Width, panel1.Height);
panel1.DrawToBitmap(MyChartPanel, new Rectangle(0, 0, panel1.Width, panel1.Height));
PrintDialog MyPrintDialog = new PrintDialog();
if (MyPrintDialog.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
{
System.Drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings values;
values = MyPrintDialog.PrinterSettings;
MyPrintDialog.Document = MyPrintDocument;
MyPrintDocument.PrintController = new System.Drawing.Printing.StandardPrintController();
MyPrintDocument.Print();
}
MyPrintDocument.Dispose();
This code converts the panel into a Bitmap and then prints that Bitmap.
You could condense this into a function like:
public void PrintPanel(Panel MyPanel)
{
// Add code from above in here, changing panel1 to MyPanel...
}