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.
Related
I'm designing a small helper utility with a simple UI. I'm working off the following mockup:
The execution flow is meant to be as follows:
User clicks "Other" radio button.
A textbox is presented and user is prompted to write in a response.
My question is: What is the "correct" way to achieve the UI change from the picture on the left to the picture on the right? My options seem to be either create a unique window for each, or have all of the controls on the same window and just play with the visibility of the controls.
There is no "correct" way really. It all depends on your requirements.
If you want the new screen to show up in a new window, then create a new window. If you want it to show up in the same window and simply replace the previous screen with the radiobuttons, then toggle the Visibility property of the individual controls or the parent Panel, preferably using a view model that has either bool or Visibility source properties that you have bound to in your view.
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.
I have a user control that consists of some textboxes and checkboxes. Once the user is finished filling the first one, they should be able to add one more form by clicking an "add another record" link button.
How can I repeat this usercontrol as the user clicks?
I am supposed to use C# only.
So, we are talking of UserControl where your fields are located (I mean, that this is a one class inherited from UserControl or Control. )
There are a lot of ways to do it. But, I think, to be mode 'code concise' is to use FlowLayoutPanel
a) Create this panel. (through visual designer i.e.)
b) When user clicks, create your control
c) add your control to layout panel.
var myControl = new MyControlWithForm();
flowLayoutPanel1.Controls.Add(myControl);
One could use flowLayoutPanel1.Controls array to process all filled forms afterwards.
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.
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 :)