I have a Windows Forms App.
I created a custom UserControl which extends Panel.
Inside one of my Forms, there is a button which should open that panel when clicked.
However, after clicking, I still don't see the panel displayed on the form.
Form code
public partial class IngredientMenu : Form
{
public IngredientMenu()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
private void btnOpenRegisterBasePanel_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
BaseIngredientPanel baseIngredientPanel = new BaseIngredientPanel();
baseIngredientPanel.Location = new Point(257, 63);
baseIngredientPanel.Show();
baseIngredientPanel.BringToFront();
Console.WriteLine("panel should open");
Console.WriteLine(baseIngredientPanel.Visible);
Console.WriteLine(baseIngredientPanel.Location);
}
}
Panel code
public partial class BaseIngredientPanel : UserControl
{
public BaseIngredientPanel()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
private void btnRegisterBaseIngredient_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
IngredientContext ingredientContext = new IngredientContext();
if (ingredientContext.RegisterIngredient(txtName, txtUnit, lblBaseIngredientNameValidation, lblBaseIngredientUnitValidation))
{
MessageBox.Show("Ingredient Registered."
, "Success", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Information);
txtName.Text = "";
txtUnit.Text = "";
}
else
{
MessageBox.Show("There are errors in the form fields."
, "ERROR", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error);
}
}
private void BaseIngredientPanel_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Console.WriteLine("I AM OPEN");
}
}
Additionally, the "I AM OPEN" message never appears, even after clicking, so it seems like in general it's not even loading the control.
How can I make the panel open after clicking a button? I'd rather not manually drag a panel into the designer since I need to have like 5 panels and designer is just gonna try to box them like a russian doll.
All UI controls need to have a parent to whom they belong via the Controls.Add() method.
The parent can be a Form or other controls (not all will accept children). e.g. Your panel can be the parent of textboxes, comboboxes, labels, etc.
private void btnOpenRegisterBasePanel_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
BaseIngredientPanel baseIngredientPanel = new BaseIngredientPanel();
baseIngredientPanel.Location = new Point(257, 63);
//Add user panel to form.
this.Controls.Add(baseIngredientPanel);
//You will probably not need these two rows any more. Try it out! But make sure your usercontrol has Visible = true.
baseIngredientPanel.Show();
baseIngredientPanel.BringToFront();
}
Edit:
to answer your questions in the comment below
If you need to make many UI changes at the same time then it is also best to use this.SuspendLayout() and this.ResumeLayout() to temporarily suspend the UI logic. This will help with performance in such cases. See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.windows.forms.control.suspendlayout?view=windowsdesktop-5.0 for more details
If you will need to remove the controls at some stage after adding them then you have two options.
Create a separate List<BaseIngredientPanel> to (also) store your
controls when adding them to the form. This use this list to find
and remove them via this.Controls.Remove() method
Give your BaseIngredientPanel a unique Name when creating it, and
use this to find and remove the control via the
this.Controls.Remove() method. All Controls already have a Name property so you can use this.
If you want to show a Form, the class should be derived from Form. Your BaseIngredientPanel is not a Form, it is a UserControl.
UserControls are similar to other Controls like Buttons, ComboBoxes, Menus, DataGridViews, etc. Usually you use Visual Studio Designer to show them on a Form. In rare occassions you do this programmatically.
I created a custom UserControl which extends Panel.
What do you really want:
I want to create a special kind of Panel, one that behaves like a standard Panel, with only small differences. Users of my class may use almost all Properties of my special Panel: Derive from class Panel
I want to create a special kind of Panel, one that behaves like a standard Panel. I want to control which methods users of my special Panel can call: Create a class derived from UserControl and put a Panel on it.
I want to create a Form, on which I want to put a Panel. This Panel has some behaviour which I only use on this Form.
If you want to create a special kind of Panel, one that is to be reused on several Forms, use derivation. Whether you derive from Panel or UserControl depends on how fool proof you want your class to be, and how many Panel methods users of your class may call.
If your special Panel is only to be used on one Form, don't bother to create a special Panel class. Create a Form that contains the Panel.
Use standard Panel on special Form
If you decided that you don't have to reuse the behaviour of this Panel, you can just put it on a new Form. Use visual studio designer to Create the form and put a Panel on it. Subscribe to the Panel events that you want to react on.
If you want that the form also has a Button, also use visual studio designer to add the Button and subscribe to event Button_Clicked.
To show the PanelForm, you have to decide whether the PanelForm is model or modeless.
Modal: the operator can only use this Form until it is closed. He can't use other forms of this application. This is by far the most used kind of Form: on menu selection, or button click: show the PanelForm, use the PanelForm, close the PanelForm, after which the parent form can read the results of the PanelForm and act accordingly. Modal Dialog boxes are shown using Form.ShowDialog.
Modeless: while the PanelForm is shown, the operator can switch back to the parent form and interact with it. This is not used very often. You can use it to show some extra information about the status of the parent window or application, for instance the position of the mouse, or the selected Shape that you will draw. A modeless Dialog box is shown using Form.Show(). Keep in mind, that before you close the parent form, you will have to close the modeless dialog box
Show Modal
A good example is the OpenFileDialog form
In your parent form:
using (var form = new OpenFileDialog())
{
// set properties of the OpenFileDialog before showing
form.InitialDirectory = this.GetInitialDirectory();
form.DefaultExt = ".txt";
...
// Show the Form as a modal box and wait until it is Closed
DialogResult dialogResult = form.ShowDialog(this);
// the operator has closed the form. Interpret the result:
if (dialogResult == DialogResult.OK)
{
string fileName = form.FileName();
this.OpenFile(fileName);
}
}
Modeless: operator can switch back to this form
private MyPanel PanelForm {get; set;} = null;
private void ShowMyPanel()
{
if (this.PanelForm != null) return; // panel already shown
this.PanelForm = new MyPanel();
// set properties:
this.PanelForm.DisplayedItems = ...
// show the PanelForm
this.PanelForm.Show();
}
The operator can switch back to this form, and probably close this form. In that case you will have to Close the PanelForm:
private void CloseMyPanel()
{
if (this.MyPanel != null)
{
this.MyPanel.Close();
this.MyPanel.Dispose();
this.MyPanel = null;
}
}
private void OnFormClosing(object sender, ...)
{
// if MyPanel is shown, is it allowed to Close this form AND myPanel
// or should you warn the operator to close MyPanel first?
if (this.MyPanel != null)
{
this.CloseMyPanel(); // close immediately
// or:
MessageBox.Show(..., "Please close Panelbox first");
}
}
Of course you should also react if the operator closes the panelbox. Before showing the panel box:
this.MyPane.Closed += OnMyPanelClosed;
private void OnMyPanelClosed(object sender, ...)
{
if (object.ReferenceEquals(sender, this.MyPanel)
{
// my panel is closed
this.MyPanel = null;
You can't dispose the Panel, because it is still being used. The Panel show Dispose itself when Closed.
Special Panel Class
If you have a Special Panel Class (derived from either Panel, or UserControl), then after compiling, the panel control is visible in the toolbox of visual studio designer.
You should use use visual studio designer to create a Form and put the panel on the Form:
class MyPanelForm : Form
{
public MyPanelForm()
{
InitializeComponent();
If you have used visual studio designer to add the special Panel, then you will find it in InitializeComponent. You can also add it yourself in the constructor. In that case, don't forget to add it to this.components, so your panel will be disposed when MyPanelForm is disposed.
To show MyPanelForm, use either ShowDialog or Show, as described in the previous section.
Well, I'm writing a simple application which will have multiple forms inside it. Now say one form will be the base window i.e. the parent and all other will be child of it. So for this I'm trying to opening the child window by below method.
//Inside class FormBaseWindow
private void linkLabelReservation_LinkClicked(object sender, LinkLabelLinkClickedEventArgs e)
{
Point childLocation = new Point(this.Location.X + 100, this.Location.Y + 120);
FormReservation formReserve = new FormReservation();
formReserve.Location = childLocation;
formReserve.MdiParent = this.MdiParent;
formReserve.Show();
}
And also set the IsMdiContainer attribute of FormBaseWindow class to true. Now the things is, I want to have feel like dragging the FormBaseWindow window will drag the whole thing including the child window inside it. Currently once I click on the FormBaseWindow window its coming foreground and the child is going behind it.
In MFC I was able to do it by setting the window style Child and set it as a child window, but here the story is bit different.
I'm using C# Winforms with VS 2012.
Change :
formReserve.MdiParent = this.MdiParent;
to
formReserve.MdiParent = this;
NB: You should use
formReserve.MdiParent = this.MdiParent;
when you open a child form from another child form to make it under the same MdiParent.
How can I navigate to a new page or Window from a page in a desktop WPF application. I have tried the following to call the windows page, but I get the error:
Window must be the root of the tree. Cannot add Window as a child of Visual
private void btCode_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
CodeView window = new CodeView(cbRe.Text, txtID.Text);
this.Content = window;
}
When I alter code to call a new page I get a similar error saying page must be called from a Window.
Page opening a Window
myWindow w = new myWindow();
w.Show();
Navigating to a new page
myPage p = new myPage();
myFrameInCurrentWindow.Navigate(p);
Take a look at the navigation features of wpf: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms750478.aspx
As the error states, the Windowelement must be the root element - it cannot be a child of another control. You can open a window from another control, but you cannot make a window the content of another control.
To preface this question, I am working on coding the back end of an application whose UI was put together by someone else (I believe using Blend). The application consists of a series of "Screens," whose root element in XAML is "UserControl". There is no use of the "Window" tag anywhere in the source.
What I want to do is remove the Windows border that is added to the outside edge of the application when I run the program. The border currently consists of forward/backward buttons like a web browser, and an X button to close.
All I can find from searches are instructions to add
WindowStyle="None"
to the
<Window>
element. But of course, I don't have one of those, and WindowStyle is not a property of UserControl. Anyone know how to accomplish this with UserControl root elements?
Edit: The StartupUri for the application is
this.StartupUri = new Uri(#"pack://application:,,,/WpfPrototype1.Screens;Component/Screen_1.xaml");
the file it points to does not have a Window tag.
Based on the comments above it seems your MainWindow is created dynamically somewhere, however you can use the Application class to get the applications MainWindow.
var mainWindow = Application.Current.MainWindow;
And you can then set your border style from there
Example:
private void RemoveBorder()
{
var mainWindow = Application.Current.MainWindow;
if (mainWindow != null)//should never be
{
mainWindow.WindowStyle = System.Windows.WindowStyle.None; // removes top bar (icon, title, close buttons etc)
mainWindow.AllowsTransparency = true; //removes the border around the outside
}
}
I'm building a small tabbed c# Form and I'd like each tab page to have some common features, notably, an OK button and an error message and to have a space for the specific form fields.
Has anyone else done something similar and how did you approach it?
This is easy to do without extending either TabControl/TabPage.
Define one UserControl, and put the common elements on it you want on every TabPage.
On the Form: go ahead and design the TabPage specific controls you want for each TabPage : make sure they are not going to visually overlap with the common controls once the UserControl has been added.
In the Form Load Event of your main Form do something like this :
// form scoped variable to hold a referece to the current UserControl
private UserControl1 currentUserControl;
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
foreach(TabPage theTabPage in tabControl1.TabPages)
{
currentUserControl = new UserControl1();
theTabPage.Margin = new Padding(0);
theTabPage.Padding = new Padding(0);
theTabPage.Controls.Add(currentUserControl);
currentUserControl.Location = new Point(0,0);
currentUserControl.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
currentUserControl.SendToBack();
}
}
Even though the 'SendToBack isn't really required here it is "insurance" that your UserControl with the 'Okay button and TextBox for an error message are placed behind the individual controls you have assigned to each TabPage.
Several ideas:
Keep the common controls outside the tabpanel;
Extend the TabPage/TabControl
Create a base UserControl with the common buttons and make usercontrols that inherit from it. Then place one inherited usercontrol per TabPage.