Develop Reference

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.

Adding child components to parent's panel?

m developing a sort of project which I needed a cool customizable interface, so I designed a 'parent-form' from which all childs would get 'stylized', according to XML customization options.
I added a TableLayoutPanel to draw borders and a Panel in the middle, where child forms would supposedly add their components and make their jobs.
The problem I face is, even though I set that 'content panel' to 'public', the designer wont let me add controls to it from the child forms.
Is there any different way I can make designable forms deriving from a 'customizable' superclass?
Edit: The parent class is public, every container containing the Content-Panel are also set to public.

I manually added to child's designer.cs a new Panel inside the parent's content pane, set it to DockStyle.Fill. When I came back to the Designer, it will now let me add components to child's content Panel.
A bit messy and I'm pretty sure there shall be another way around...
But I'll work along like this until i can figure out a better workaround.

I have added a new public Panel from code other than designer in the parent's class scope, Then in the parent constructor I added it to the TableLayoutPanel, configured docking and colspan from constructor code, below InitializeComponents() call and BAM!
public Panel contentPane = new Panel();
public Dialogo()
{
InitializeComponent();
Content.Controls.Add(contentPane);
contentPane.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
// More code
}
So its a contentPane inside 'Content' which is another panel in the second line of the table ocupying 5 columns (so the table surrounds it and allows me to draw the borders around.
I don't know why, but having added the content-panel in code other than on the designer allowed me to directly add components to the panel from the Designer in child forms.

User Control that acts like a standard Window, only confined to a pane

I'm making a program to generate code for me, and I'm fashioning the UI after Game Maker due to how easy the interface is. It has a SplitContainer with Panel1 containing a TreeView and Panel2 containing an arbitrary amount of self-contained windows (real windows, not some hacky workaround). I wanted to use user-controls to store the controls I use to modify things, but I can't figure out any way to put it in a window inside the splitContainer's Panel2. Can anyone help me?
Here's a good example:
http://i.stack.imgur.com/CG6kO.png
Those two sprite property windows are what I'm trying to do.

i think what you are looking for is called mdi-container
however the only real mdi container i've seen so far (in .NET) is a form ... sadly no panel or something similar...
but if you just want the "window in a window" effect: simply create your new form, set the TopLevel property of that instance to false, and add the instance to your form/panel/splitcontainer/whatever like any other usual control

You could try using an MDI form and to implement your TreeView control, check out some sort of docking panel. I've used this one in the past (http://sourceforge.net/projects/dockpanelsuite/).
It is very flexible. You set up one of these dockpanel forms, docked to the left of your MDI form. It will always be "on top" and the user can resize it exactly like the splitter control on a form. If you like, it can also has an "autohide" feature which may or may not be desirable in your case.
It can then contain you treeview, which can load all the MDI Child forms you like.
You'll find you're not fighting how "Windows" really want to behave and things will run a lot more smoothly.

Put it into the Panel2's Control collection via the Add() method, apply coordinates, anchor and docking programmaticaly.

I did similar thing once, and for that reason, I have ReplaceControl method, which I paste below:
static public void ReplaceControl(Control ToReplace, Form ReplaceWith) {
ReplaceWith.TopLevel=false;
ReplaceWith.FormBorderStyle=FormBorderStyle.None;
ReplaceWith.Show();
ReplaceWith.Anchor=ToReplace.Anchor;
ReplaceWith.Dock=ToReplace.Dock;
ReplaceWith.Font=ToReplace.Font;
ReplaceWith.Size=ToReplace.Size;
ReplaceWith.Location=ToReplace.Location;
ToReplace.Parent.Controls.Add(ReplaceWith);
ToReplace.Visible=false;
}
Only thing left to do is to create some control manually on the form, as the placeholder for your Form. Use label, for example.
From How to implement a-form-inside-a-form with runtime embedded forms switching?

Sizing issues while adding a .Net UserControl to a TabPage

I have a complex Windows Forms GUI program that has a lot of automated control generation and manipulation. One thing that I need to be able to do is add a custom UserControl to a newly instatiated TabPage. However, when my code does this I get automatic resizing events that cause the formatting to get ugly. Without detailing all of the different Containers that could possibly be involved, the basic issue is this:
At a certain point in the code I create a new tab page:
TabPage tempTabPage = new TabPage("A New Tab Page");
Then I set it to a certain size that I want it to maintain:
tempTabPage.Width = 1008;
tempTabPage.Height = 621;
Then I add it to a TabControl:
tabControl.TabPages.Add(tempTabPage);
Then I create a user control that I want to appear in the newly added TabPage:
CustomView customView = new CustomView("A new custom control");
Here is where the problem comes in. At this point both the tempTabPage and the customView are the same size with no padding or margin and they are the size I want them to be. I now try to add this new custom UserControl to the tab page like this:
tempTabPage.Controls.Add(customView);
When making this call the customView and it's children controls get resized to be larger and so parts of the customView are hidden.
Can anyone give me any direction on what to look for or what could be causing this kind of issue?
Thanks ahead of time.

The UserControl's "AutoScaleMode" property should be set to "None".

If you want the customView to fill the TabPage.
Use Dock like this:
tempTabPage.Controls.Add(customView);
customView.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
Then the customView will fill out the space in the TabPage, but you have to handle resizing of the customView so child controls will be shown properly.

I had the same issue.
The UserControl's "AutoScaleMode" set to "None" works for me.

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.