Adding panels to SplitContainer in Windows Forms - c#

I'm having trouble finding the documentation on how to add panels to a SplitContainer. I can create the SplitContainer fine, but I can't put the panels I've coded inside of the splitcontainer.
I've tried doing
sc.Container.Add(myPanel);
sc.Container.Add(myOtherPanel);
But Container is always null. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

The SplitContainer always contains two panels and you cannot change that! (And you don't need to add any panels yourself.)
You can access the two panels through the properties Panel1 and Panel2.
If you need more panels, you can however nest several SplitContainers.
UPDATE
You cannot replace the existing panels. What you can do, is to place your own controls on the existing split container panels (and your controls can also be System.Windows.Forms.Panels containing other controls or user defined controls):
sc.Panel1.Controls.Add(myPanel);
sc.Panel2.Controls.Add(myOtherPanel);
myPanel.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
myOtherPanel.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
Of course you can add them using the forms designer of Visual Studio of as well, if you don't have a scenario where you have to add controls dynamically. If you create your own controls, they will automatically appear in the Toolbox inside of the same project and you can just drag and drop them on the SplitContainer's panels.

The SplitContainer control already has two panels named Panel1 and Panel2. Select the panel you want to use:
sc.Panel1.Controls.Add(myPanel);
sc.Panel2.Controls.Add(myOtherPanel);

Related

C# Winform how to allow panel draw outside the panel's parent?

I have created a form that shows data and the filter that has checkbox in it
combobox
I have used a Button and a Panel to do this and found that the panel is only shown in the parent's panel not float like the combobox
or panel can't do like this?
Regards
You want something that cannot be done with parented components (like panels)
I see some options:
(1) owner draw a combobox to include checkboxes, see Codeprojects https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/31105/A-ComboBox-with-a-CheckedListBox-as-a-Dropdown
or
(2) Create a small floating popup form without system menu and a single pixel border. Inside the form, you could place a CheckListBox docked Fill to allow for filter checkboxes for each item.. you may have a look at this topic Is there a simple way to implement a Checked Combobox in WinForms
(3) Both solutions have drawbacks. Actually it may be better to avoid it, find another way to specify your filter options, redesign your UI.

How do I keep my winforms controls from overlapping when I expand the application?

I have a pretty simple winforms application. It contains a rich edit box, embedded browser, progress bar, a few buttons etc.
I have the anchors on the controls set to expand in all directions.
When expanding up and down, however, the controls will overlap one another. How do I prevent this from happening?
Thanks
Your best bet is to add a TableLayoutPanel to your form which contains the "layout grid" this should be docked to the form, then you can add your controls into the cells in the table (they can cover multiple rows and columns so you can get the layout you want).
You must set the property Autosize=true on every control, especially on the main form.
Note that some controls like TabControl have this property, but you can't see it with intellisense (Attribute Browseable=false).

How do I create a Tab Control with no Tab Header in Windows form?

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.

Adding to a Scrollable Panel with Location

I am using a Panel to hold a list of controls (user-defined). The way that I add the panels, I am setting the location of the control based on the Panel.Controls.Count before I add it to the panel.
comRec.Location = new Point(comRec.Location.X, panel1.Controls.Count * 25);
panel1.Controls.Add(comRec);
Now, this works nicely and looks exactly the way that I want it to. However, once we reach the limit on the window, the AutoScroll enables (which I do want). Now, if the user were to scroll to the bottom of the Panel, this ultimately changes the location of every control in the panel. Instead of my first comRec.Location being (0,0), it is something like (0,-219). So now, when the user adds another comRec object, it creates a HUGE gap between the objects.
My question is this, what is the best way to account for the changes of the location with the scrollbar and still using my adding system. I am assuming that will have to do something with checking the value of the scrollbar and using it to determine the location.
Also, is there a BETTER way to display a list of controls? Should I be using a Panel?
Look at the FlowLayoutPanel control, it's exactly what you what.
You could add an additional panel into the hierarchy:
Outer panel (scrollable)
Inner panel (not scrollable, resize it whenever you add a control)
User Defined Control 1
User Defined Control 2
User Defined Control 3
User Defined Control 4
...
This way, your additional controls' locations would be relative to their direct parent, the non-scrolling panel.
If you add several controls, try to suspend the layout of the panel while adding the controls:
panel1.SuspendLayout();
// Add controls ...
panel1.ResumeLayout();
This helped me in a similar situation where the user could change dynamically the visibility of existing controls.

How can I simulate a tab control?

I want to have buttons that kind of act like tabs - they switch between "pages" of the application. How can I achieve this effect? I'm thinking that I could just put the controls in some kind of container and toggle the visible attribute, but is that plausible?
I am using WinForms.
The reason I don't want to use a tab control is because some of the panels already have tab controls in them..I don't want to create a nested tab hell. I just want some kind of spiffy button based navigation.
You could "attach" button functionality to Panels, then use the panels as the "tabs". You could even create a UserControl that inherently ties them together.
However, a TabControl (for Winforms) already exists that does this. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.tabcontrol.aspx
If you're looking for something for ASP.Net 2.0 and above, you could try the following: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/custom-controls/TabControl.aspx
I think the best option is to use this WinForms TabStrip control -- a subclass of ToolStrip where the buttons are drawn as tabs, and you simply treat them as such programmatically by switching which panel is shown in your container as tabs are selected.

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