How would I assign a control an order number? - c#

I have created a method which draws all the controls to the panel, but its draws them based on the order which I have listed them, which means PictureBox1 will always be behind all the other pictureboxes. Example:
e.Graphics.DrawImage(PictureBox1.BackgroundImage,
new Rectangle(PictureBox1.Location, PictureBox1.Size));
e.Graphics.DrawImage(PictureBox2.BackgroundImage,
new Rectangle(PictureBox2.Location, PictureBox2.Size));
it draws PictureBox1 first, then PictureBox2 second, then PictureBox3 third etc...
This means that PictureBox2 get drawn Over PictureBox1, and PictureBox3 gets Drawn over PictureBox2. Here's a pic to display overlapping images:
Now when I push a button when focus is on picturebox2 I would like the DrawImage order to be changed so that PictureBox2 is drawn last.
I'm sure one of you has a great solution to this, I would like to listen to any suggestions you may have.

In your question you haven't made it clear what determines the order for all the other picture boxes in the panel. However, you can achieve the same effect using SetChildIndex. To Swap the position of PictureBox1 with PictureBox2 for instance, you can do:
var p1ndex = panel.Controls.IndexOf(pBox1);
var p2ndex = panel.Controls.IndexOf(pBox2);
panel.Controls.SetChildIndex(pBox1, p1ndex);
panel.Controls.SetChildIndex(pBox2, p2ndex);
Here, pBox1 could be the last PictureBox you hovered on and pBox2 the current one you're hovering on...

Assuming this is WinForms, you can call
picturebox2.BringToFront()
before redrawing it.
If you need finer control than just "make me on top of all other controls" you can use GetChildIndex and SetChildIndex.

Related

How can I capture as bitmap only what a picturebox is displaying, without using "copy from screen"?

Specifically: I need to capture as a bitmap a specific region of what a picturebox is actually displaying. The coordinates of the region are specified by the bounds of a control that I have overlayed on top of the picturebox (but that belongs to the picturebox). The control is hidden when I make the "snapshot" of the region.
I tried using normal screen capture methods (CopyFromScreen), but you can't really control the timing there. So it was capturing "interstitial" states, like transitions between photos in my picturebox. Frequently it was only capturing purely black images (the background color of the picture box).
So I tried just converting the image (picturebox.image property) being displayed to a bitmap. The problem there is that the picture box is rarely showing exactly the image. It's displaying some PORTION of the image, scaled and clipped as appropriate to it's sizemode (which is zoom). So the I can't just take my control coordinates and clip them from the image as a whole.
So I tried to estimate what portion of the image was being displayed, and correcting my rectangle based on that. Turns out that I was basically re-creating the "zoom" code of the picturebox to do this (using aspect ratio of the picturebox, the aspect ratio of the image, guessing at what level of scaling is currently happening to the image if it's larger or smaller than the picturebox, etc). It was not pretty.
So: now I need a method of just capturing only the bitmap currently being displayed in the client area of the picturebox, including the photo and any black "letterboxing" currently being displayed around it. Anybody got one?
Remember that I can't rely on using CopyFromScreen. It's not reliable enough for my purposes. I think I need a method of getting picturebox to TELL me the bits it is displaying.
This will copy and save the currently shown content of the PictureBox including a BackgroundImage (if there is one and if it shines through) and also all Controls that belong to the PictureBox, like Labels etc.. Also included are elements drawn in the Paint event. Things drawn outside the Paint event are non-persistent and will not be included.
using (Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap(pictureBox1.ClientSize.Width,
pictureBox1.ClientSize.Height))
{
pictureBox1.DrawToBitmap(bmp, pictureBox1.ClientRectangle);
bmp.Save(yourfilename, ImageFormat.Png);
}
Note: On my test Form the PicureBox is sitting inside an AutoScroll Panel pan_PBscroll. The PictureBox is displaying pixels 1:1 and is therefore, with a photograph loaded, much bigger than the Panel, the Form or even the Screen. So to clip to the actually visible parts I could not use the pictureBox1.ClientSize and pictureBox1.ClientRectangle but used the dimensions of that Panel. This may well apply to you, too.
I'm not sure about your timing issues. But since you mentioned CopyFromScreen here are a few differences:
CopyFromScreen makes a 1:1 copy of each screen pixel
This includes non-persistent drawings and excludes anything covered or hidden
Control.DrawToBitmap makes the Control draw itself onto a Bitmap, just as it draws itself during Paint
This excludes anything that doesn't belong to the Control but includes all members of its Controls collection
This also excludes non-persistent drawings but includes the full Size of the Control, whether it fits on the Form or Screen or not and whether it is hidden or covered or not.
For Controls with active Scrollbars only the visible parts are copied. To copy all you need to resize it temporarily. Then you can get a complete image of a listbox even if it has a thousand items..
Since you're using a PictureBox I would say to take a look PictureBox.Image where you can get the Bitmap object.
Hope it helps.

Create an effect of magnifying glass for a picturebox

I would like to know how to create an effect of a magnifying glass for a picturebox.
Not zooming the picturebox but magnifying a part of the the image in the PictureBox control (circle or rectangle) and setting the size of the glass and the magnification factor.
It may only work within the picturebox control.
Language: C#
Thanks in advance !
Basically, you'd need two pictureboxes. One for the whole image and another for the magnified section. Also, you have to place the magnified picturebox according to user's mouse position.
You'll find a good article about it at http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/21097/PictureBox-Zoom. Just change the source to show the second picturebox in appropriate place (under user's cursor position).
You need 2 picturebox objects, one for picture itself and second for magnified area.
Next load picture into memory, you haven't specified source of the picture but in any case I recommend using streams.
Then create bitmap image in memory.
Using Image method set property of a picturebox.
To create source image for magnifying picturebox you need to clone selected part (calculating dimensions of a new picture area). Whole thing is not as trivial as you may expect as clone method accepts Rectangle objects as an area selector and generally works on rectangles rather than circles to copy selection. I also recommend to Dispose() unused bitmap objects as soon as possible.
Hope this helps.

Make image slideshow in wpf

I'm trying to create an image slideshow just like this one on this page: http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1914
If you mouseover the image of the tablet, two arrows appear and you may slide through these images.
How to achieve this with wpf?
I want to create it just like on the page, I press the right arrow and the current image moves left out of sight and the new image comes to the center from the right.
The application should be resolution independet, so working with a canvas isn't possible I guess.
To give a general answer to that question without writing the code for you(, which is your task):
Create a Grid with the size of one image. Create a Canvas with the HeightProperty set to the height of the images and the WidthProperty to the sum of the width*amount of images.
Next thing, add two images for the arrows and the canvas as children to your grid and position them correctly.
Second last thing. Create an event for the grid MouseEnter to change the IsVisible property of the arrows to true and one for MouseLeave where it is set to false.
Last thing. Create events for LeftMouseButtonDown for the two arrow images that will trigger a animation that changes the Margin.Left property of the canvas by the width of one image.

How to realize with WinForms in C# something like an image with map areas in a homepage (at hoovering cover areas with semi transparent rectangle)?

I have a panel (here called parent), where I draw a calculated picture.
Some rectangular areas of this picture shall higlight by hoovering over.
It is the same behaviour like on a web page using , and , e. g.
the german map on the right upper side.
At hoovering the according rectangle shall be covered by a half transparent blue .
(And depending on keys like Alt, Ctrl and/or Shift in other colors, and clickable).
The first solution was a single instance of a transparent Panel - inherited from the Panel class.
In the hoovering event of the parent I moved and resized the single instance to the right place, changing the color.
This had some problems:
* moving and resizing (SetBounds()) fired MouseLeave event of the parent and a MouseEnter event of the single panel. The events had to be adapted accordingly to get it working correctly, I did it, but it is was very slow, due to finding the right map area from the list.
The second solution was to generate dynamically an instance of a transparent panel for each map area.
Each transparent panel had to set the e. g. Color.FromArgb(50, Color.Blue) at entering, and
remove it at leaving the panel.
But it seems to be even slower than before.
If the mouse hurries over several maps, they are all drawn like hoovered, and slowly get transparent again.
Does anybody know a good solution for this requirements:
at picture resize in parent panel, map etc. has to be changed as well
partly transparent highlight hoovered rectangle area.
detection of Ctrl/Shift/Alt as events for an area and change of the color.
detect click events there
Are there other controls I better use for this purpose?
Thanks for on practice based ideas.
PS: The world map with satellite pictures shows better what I want to do:
At hoovering the background is still visible more or less.
But in my case the parent image, its size and the maps are calculated at runtime
(after settings are completed by the user).
Solution
Description
I found now a solution, that reacts sufficiently fast to hoovering areas with the mouse.
The Main pictures is drawn in a PictureBox instance, in more detail its property Image is assigned.
The SizeMode property is set to Zoom, that automatically centers and resizes the image with keeping the aspect ratio of the assigned image.
I use a dynamically created Picturebox instance for each map area (childs), that is invisible, if the mouse does not hoover over it.
At hoovering over the map area the child shall appear - this is done in the mouse move event of the parent PictureBox,
where I iterate over the children, detecting whether the mouse position is in the bounds of a child.
The found child is set visible. Therefore the mouse enters this child control.
In the leave event of the child control I set it invisible again.
I experienced losses of mouse leave events for the child controls, if the mouse is moved too fast over all map areas.
I assume, if the mouse pointer already left the area before it has been set visible, the event is never raised.
The solution is, that all (other) child controls are set invisible, if in the mouse move event handler of the parent control does find no (a) child control.
Steps to implement
What to do, to implement my solution:
Use a designed parent PictureBox instance.
Assign the (dynamically) drawn picture to the Image property
Set SizeMode to Zoom
a list of Picturebox instances as form field
At assignment of a newly calculated image to the parent Picturebox instance:
remove all child controls, its event handler, its entry from the list, if they already exist.
create dynamically a PictureBox instance for each map area and add it to a list.
add it to the parent PictureBox instance as a child control.
set its Tag property points to a data object containing the origin map bounds and the object represented by the rectangular map area.
set the bounds to the map area scaled and centered according to the bounds of the parent Picturebox instance, that it suits the automatically zoomed image.
register a mouse click event
register a mouse leave event
set background color to e. g. semi transparent green
set Visible to false
In the parent Picturebox instance the mouse over event handler does:
finding the child Picturebox instance, where the mouse points at
if found it sets the found child visible
set all (other) child Picturebox invisible
In the parent Picturebox instance the resize event handler does:
scale/move all the map area Picturebox instances according to the bounds of the parent image and the bounds of the parent Picturebox instance.
The mouse leave event of each map area Picturebox instance set itself invisible (losses of events previously mentionned).
The mouse click event of each map area Picturebox instance makes whatever shall be done by clicking the map area.
Here playing a sine tone of the right chromatic pitch.
Pictures
The pictures below show the prototype with the map areas (not yet correctly aligned, some offset):
The first picture is for illustration of parent picture and all map areas.
The main picture (scale) and all map areas (dynamically created child Picturebox instances) are drawn in the first picture (by disabling the invisible action for map areas).
The second image is productive, where the mouse hoovers over tone G4.
In the second image the form has been resized - therefore the parent image is automatically been centered and resized.
The map areas were simply changed in their Bound property in the resize event handler of the parent PictureBox.
And the invisible action has been enabled for the map areas.
I checked the ImageMap:
It is a user control, that contains a static image, that was drawn before compile time.
At runtime the clickable areas are added – rectangle, polygon, ellipse are possible.
It uses a PictureBox, that is created as child of the ImageMap (that is inherited from UserControl).
It registers a Click, a Move and a Leave event to its event handlers.
In these event handlers it checks the current position against the list of paths in a GraphicsPath instance and returns an index (int).
The ImageMap keeps track of the last selected index (-1 = no object selected), sets the cursor accordingly (hand or default), sets or removes the tooltip.
But it has no hoover event, it does not change the area at hoovering, like I need it too.
Therefore I can need ImageMap it for proper detection of area,
but my picture is drawn at runtime!
And still I have to switch on and off the rectangles with its semi transparent layer.
I got the idea to use the property Visible to switch on and off the controls for the areas.
That it is easier to draw, I will set the background to the part of the parent image,
covered with the semi transparent color - this is a workaround, that is possible,
because the maps are relatively fixed to the parent picture.
If I have time, I will test this solution idea - it is a private project, therefore I can not work fulltime :-).

How can I select a part of an image in C#?

Lets say I have a picturebox and I want to crop the image. I know how to crop by rectangles.
I want to be able to select a part of the image with mouse and crop it.
I think its called Free Form Selecting.
It really is simply tracking one corner of your selection rectangle (usually captured with the MouseDown event) and also the opposing corner for your selection rectangle (usually captured with the MouseUp event). These two coordinate pairs give you the region that the user selected.

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