Develop Reference

bindingNavigator _Validating event not returning control to the form

I am trying to follow the MSDN example code for the Control.Validating Event and to apply it to a bindingNavigator item instead of the textbox as in the example.
The code provided for the textbox validation event is shown below.
private void textBox1_Validating(object sender,
System.ComponentModel.CancelEventArgs e)
{
string errorMsg;
if(!ValidEmailAddress(textBox1.Text, out errorMsg))
{
// Cancel the event and select the text to be corrected by the user.
e.Cancel = true;
textBox1.Select(0, textBox1.Text.Length);
// Set the ErrorProvider error with the text to display.
this.errorProvider1.SetError(textBox1, errorMsg);
}
}
I too intend on validating texboxes however I have several and have already written the validation methods for them which handle the error messages. I would like these methods to be tested when the user selects an item (Arrow buttons / Save button / Add button) on the bindingNavidator.
I therefore have the code below to attempt this,
private void myBindingNavigator_Validating(object sender, CancelEventArgs e)
{
if (!IsPostCodeValid())
{
PostCodeTextBox.Focus();
e.Cancel = true;
}
}
I have the ItemClicked event for the bindingNavigator set to bindingNavigator.Focus() with the hope of initiating the Validating event. (myBindingNavigator.CausesValidation = true; has been declared on formLoad). However I feel this is where an infinite loop of focusing the Navigation bar follows? I have stepped through and no code is executed once it has locked on to the Navigation bar it simply won't let the user interact with the rest of the form to change and correct the error after the navigation bar has been locked onto.
I can provide any extra information required and test any suggestions to discover what is going on.
Thanks

When you work with BindingNavigator and you have put your controls in details mode on the form, to ensure save only valid data, you should write validation rules for your controls and also you should handle your binding navigator items yourself.
This way you even don't need to set AutoValidate Property of your form to annoying EnablePreventFocusChange and you can set it to be the friendly EnableAllowFocusChange and because you can't navigate or save anything when there is validation errors, then you can be sure only valid data will save in database.
To do so, follow these steps:
Step 1
Handle Validating event of child controls and set e.cancel = true when the value is not valid.
private void nameTextBox_Validating(object sender, CancelEventArgs e)
{
//Put validation logic here
if (this.nameTextBox.Text.Length < 10)
{
e.Cancel = true;
this.errorProvider1.SetError(this.nameTextBox, "Some Error");
}
else
{
this.errorProvider1.SetError(this.nameTextBox, "");
}
}
Step 2
Go to BindingNavigator properties, and set MoveFirstItem, MovePreviousItem, MoveNextItem, MoveLastItem, AddNewItem, DeleteItem properties To (none). Also from designer click on the text box that shows record number, it is bindingNavigatorPositionItem, and then set its ReadOnly property to true.
Step 3
For all buttons, including navigation buttons, add button, delete button, save button and other custom buttons, handle Click event and call ValidateChildren method of the container of your text boxes and check if ValidateChildren() doesn't return true, exit the method, else do the task that the method should do, for example:
private void toolStripButton1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (!this.ValidateChildren())
return;
//Put the logic for this button here
//MoveFirstItem: `this.myBindingSource.MoveFirst();`
//MovePreviousItem: `this.myBindingSource.MovePrevious();`
//MoveNextItem: `this.myBindingSource.MoveNext();`
//MoveLastItem: `this.myBindingSource.MoveLast();`
//AddNewItem: `this.myBindingSource.AddNew();`
//DeleteItem: `this.myBindingSource.RemoveCurrent();`
}

Curious user presses key when application is in background process, how to ignore this type of additional key strokes

I am working in C# win form application 4.0, where on a form, I am using 3 text boxes, on each text-box, when user enters 'Tab' key then focus jump to next text box.
now on first text-box on validating event I have added some code to check data validity, it connects to database server and takes time of some nano seconds, meanwhile user presses more 'Tab' keys, so that's why my focus shifts on 3rd or 4th text box, it didn't jump on second text box.
Please guide me how resolve this problem. how to ignore this key strokes.
I need a solution where user interface will be suspended until validating event is not performed.

First, there is no reason to send the TAB key. Simply set Focus on the textbox you want to have focus.
What you want to do is listen to OnKeyDown for the textbox or control you have focus on at the time you want the enter key to be ignored. By setting e.Handled to true, the key press will be ignored.
private void textBox_KeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
if (bIgnoreInput)
e.Handled = true;
}
Edit:
I would suggest having a button press to trigger the validation instead of just when the text changes (if that is what you are doing as it is not very clear). That way you can handle the validation and provide user feedback (such as a progress bar or waiting animation).
If you don't want any input at all, set Enabled to false on the text boxes until you are done handling the code. When a control is not enabled, no events are triggered. Please be sure to also check InvokeRequired and Invoke if it is.
void ValidateInput()
{
SetisValidatingState(true);
System.Threading.Thread workThread = new System.Threading.Thread(delegate()
{
////
// Validate here
////
SetisValidatingState(false);
});
workThread.Start();
}
delegate void SetisValidatingStateDelegate(bool state);
void SetisValidatingState(bool state)
{
if (InvokeRequired)
{
Invoke(new SetisValidatingStateDelegate(SetisValidatingState), new object[] { state });
return;
}
textBox1.AcceptsTabs = textBox2.AcceptsTabs = textBox3.AcceptsTabs = textBox4.AcceptsTabs = !state; // Disable tab while validating = true
progressBar.visible = state; // show progress while validating = true
}

Call GetNextControl before calling the validation server to find out where you should move focus when validation completes. When validation completes, call Focus() on that control
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.control.getnextcontrol.aspx

You can introduce a flag (dbFlag) of type bool which you can set befor doing your database-stuff and reset it afterwards.
Your KeyDown-Code can than look like:
private void KeyDown(object sender, KeyDownEventArgs e)
{
//check the state of your flag
if(!dbFlag && e.KeyCode == Keys.Return)
SendKeys.Send("{Tab}");
}

Why the Parent form is responding to short-cut keys of its Child form?

C# WinForms: I have a MDI form and I have defined some short-cut keys for its menus for example "ALT+C" to open the Actions toolbar button. the problem is that if I open this child form inside the parent form but still I click my mouse somewhere inside the Parent form and press "ACLT+C" it is still responding to it and opening "Actions" menu of the child form. How can I prevent this?

Add a flag on your form
bool actionWindow = false
and then when the window opens set actionWindow to true. In your listener check for actionWindow. Then when the actionWindow closes, set the bool back to false.
try: in the child form put e.Handled = true; in the key press event.

There may be a better solution out there, but a quick way would be to test if the form has focus. So in your child event handler, add the following at the top:
if ( this.MdiParent.ActiveControl.Name != this.Name )
{
return;
}
Obviously this isn't preventing the event from firing, just preventing the subsequent code from running.
Edit: If there is no event handler for the menu item, the only other way I can think of to do this is to create handlers for the Enter and Leave events of the child form:
private void ChildForm_Leave( object sender, EventArgs e )
{
menuItem.Enabled = false;
}
private void ChildForm_Enter( object sender, EventArgs e )
{
menuItem.Enabled = true;
}

When to make a form flash and stop flashing?

I am writing an IM program, and I have the method to make a form flash and stop flashing... question is, how do I implement it?
When a message arrives, I can set the window flashing, but I need to make sure it doesn't have focus. Checking the focued method always seems to return false and so it flashes even when the form is open.
Also, which event to I need to handle to stop it flashing? When the user clicks the form to make it maximise, or switches focus to the form, I need a way of stopping it.
What's the best way?

You can handle the Activated and Deactivate events of your Form, and use them to change a Form-level boolean that will tell your code whether your form has the focus or not, like this:
private bool _IsActivated = false;
private void Form1_Activated(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
_IsActivated = true;
// turn off flashing, if necessary
}
private void Form1_Deactivate(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
_IsActivated = false;
}
When a message arrives, you check _IsActivated to determine if your Form is already the active window, and turn on flashing if it isn't. In the Activated event, you would turn off the flashing if it's on.
The Focused property of your form will always return false if it has any controls on it. This property refers to whether the control in question (the form, in this case) has the focus within your application's form, not whether the application itself has the focus within Windows.

Checking if the form is minimized or not:
if (this.WindowState == FormWindowState.Minimized)
{
MakeFormFlash();
}
else
{
MakeFormStopFlash();
}
Event to trigger when the form is activated by user or code:
this.Activated += new EventHandler(Form_Activated);

Well Focused should be the property to check, so you need to try and work out why that is always returning false.
As for what event to listen to, probably the GotFocus event, though that may not work until you can work out what is wrong with the Focused property.

There are a number of ways you can handle this. Probably the easiest would be to have a flag that you set whenever the form is flashing so this can be reset on re-activation of the form e.g.
Code for base IM window form
private bool IsFlashing;
....
// Code for IM windows
public void OnActivate(EventArgs e)
{
if (IsFlashing)
{
// stop flash
IsFlashing = false;
}
}
public void Flash()
{
// make flash
IsFlashing = true;
}
Then wherever you do your code to handle the new message you would just need to check that the particular conversation window (if you handle multiple ones) that the message is directed at is the current active one:
public void OnNewMessage(AMessage msg)
{
Form convoWindow = FindConvoWindow(msg.Sender);
if (Form.ActiveForm == convoWindow)
{
// update the conversation text
}
else
{
convoWindow.Flash();
}
}

How to skip Validating after clicking on a Form's Cancel button

I use C#.
I have a Windows Form with an edit box and a Cancel button. The edit box has code in validating event. The code is executed every time the edit box loses focus. When I click on the Cancel button I just want to close the form. I don't want any validation for the edit box to be executed. How can this be accomplished?
Here is an important detail: if the validation fails, then
e.Cancel = true;
prevents from leaving the control.
But when a user clicks Cancel button, then the form should be closed no matter what. how can this be implemented?

If the validation occurs when the edit box loses focus, nothing about the the cancel button is going to stop that from happening.
However, if the failing validation is preventing the cancel button from doing its thing, set the CausesValidation property of the button to false.
Reference: Button.CausesValidation property

Obviously CausesValidation property of the button has to be set to false and then the validating event will never happen on its click. But this can fail if the parent control of the button has its CausesValidation Property set to true. Most of the time developers misses/forgets to change the CausesValidation property of the container control (like the panel control). Set that also to False. And that should do the trick.

I was having problems getting my form to close, since the validation of certain controls was stopping it. I had set the control.CausesValidation = false for the cancel button and all the parents of the cancel button. But still was having problems.
It seemed that if the user was in the middle of editing a field that was using validation and just decided to give up (leaving the field with an invalid input), the cancel button event was being fired but the window would not close down.
This was fixed by the following in the cancel button click event:
private void btnCancel_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// Stop the validation of any controls so the form can close.
AutoValidate = AutoValidate.Disable;
Close();
}

Set the CausesValidation property of the Cancel button to false.

Set the CausesValidation property to false.

None of these answers quite did the job, but the last answer from this thread does. Basically, you need to:
Insure that the Cancel button (if any) has .CausesValidation set to false
Override this virtual method.
protected override bool ProcessDialogKey(Keys keyData) {
if (keyData == Keys.Escape) {
this.AutoValidate = AutoValidate.Disable;
CancelButton.PerformClick();
this.AutoValidate = AutoValidate.Inherit;
return true;
}
return base.ProcessDialogKey(keyData);
}
I didn't really answer this, just pointing to the two guys who actually did.

Setting CausesValidation to false is the key, however this alone is not enough. If the buttons parent has CausesValidation set to true, the validating event will still get called. In one of my cases I had a cancel button on a panel on a form, so I had to set CausesValidation = false on the panel as well as the form. In the end I did this programatically as it was simpler than going through all the forms...
Control control = cancelButton;
while(control != null)
{
control.CausesValidation = false;
control = control.Parent;
}

In my case, in the form I set the property AutoValidate to EnableAllowFocusChange

By using Visual Studio wizard you can do it like that:

Judicious use of the Control.CausesValidation property will help you achieve what you want.

Just above the validation code on the edit box add:
if (btnCancel.focused)
{
return;
}
That should do it.

In complement of the answer of Daniel Schaffer: if the validation occurs when the edit box loses focus, you can forbid the button to activate to bypass local validation and exit anyway.
public class UnselectableButton : Button
{
public UnselectableButton()
{
this.SetStyle(ControlStyles.Selectable, false);
}
}
or if you use DevExpress:
this.simpleButtonCancel.AllowFocus = false;
Note that doing so will change the keyboard experience: the tab will focus anymore on the cancel button.

Maybe you want to use BackgroundWorker to give little bit delay, so you can decide whether validation should run or not. Here's the example of avoiding validation on form closing.
// The flag
private bool _isClosing = false;
// Action that avoids validation
protected override void OnClosing(CancelEventArgs e) {
_isClosing = true;
base.OnClosing(e);
}
// Validated event handler
private void txtControlToValidate_Validated(object sender, EventArgs e) {
_isClosing = false;
var worker = new BackgroundWorker();
worker.DoWork += worker_DoWork;
worker.RunWorkerAsync();
worker.RunWorkerCompleted += worker_RunWorkerCompleted;
}
// Do validation on complete so you'll remain on same thread
void worker_RunWorkerCompleted(object sender, RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs e) {
if (!_isClosing)
DoValidationHere();
}
// Give a delay, I'm not sure this is necessary cause I tried to remove the Thread.Sleep and it was still working fine.
void worker_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e) {
Thread.Sleep(100);
}

This is an old question however I recently ran into this issue and solved it this way:
1st, we are loading a UserControl into a 'shell' Form that has a save and cancel button. The UserControl inherit an interface (like IEditView) that has functions for Save, Cancel, Validate and ToggleValidate.
In the shell form we used the mouse enter and mouse leave like so:
private void utbCancel_MouseEnter(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
((Interface.IEdit)tlpMain.Controls[1]).ToggleValidate();
}
private void utbCancel_MouseLeave(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
((Interface.IEdit)tlpMain.Controls[1]).ToggleValidate();
}
Then in ToggleValidate (Say a simple form with two controls...you can always just loop through a list if you want) we set the CausesValidation
public bool ToggleValidate()
{
uneCalcValue.CausesValidation = !uneCalcValue.CausesValidation;
txtDescription.CausesValidation = !txtDescription.CausesValidation;
return txtDescription.CausesValidation;
}
Hope this helps.

I found this thread today while investigating why my form would not close when a validation error occurred.
I tried the CausesValidation = false on the close button and on the form itself (X to close).
Nothing was working with this complex form.
While reading through the comments I spotted one that appears to work perfectly
on the form close event , not the close button (so it will fire when X is clicked also)
This did the trick.
AutoValidate = AutoValidate.Disable;

Create a bool:
bool doOnce;
Set it to false in your function and then:
if (doOnce == false)
{
e.cancel = true;
doOnce = true;
}
This means it will only run once and you should be able to cancel it. This worked for me anyways.

This work for me.
private void btnCancelar_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
foreach (Control item in Form.ActiveForm.Controls)
{
item.CausesValidation = false;
}
}