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.
Related
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.
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.
This is a .NET winform application question.
I come to this design from time to time. A simple form. On top of the form you have a list of options to select. According to different option chosen, the body of the form displays a unique panel of setting detail.
How to design this UI in Visual Studio neatly? I have two ideas. First idea is to have many panels, each panel contains setting controls. In runtime, hide all panels but the one according to the selection of option. In this solution, it is hard to organize the controls of the form in VS designer. You need to set the form big to hold all the panels. Panels are put one next to each other. There are many runtime loading code to write. For example, when loading the form, you need to hide panels, reset the form size. When you pick an option, you need to relocate the panels and show/hide them. Tedious!
Second idea is to use TabControl. TabControl is good because the tabs are well organized for you. You don't need to relocate panels and resize the form. All you need to do in runtime is to select the right tab according to options. One thing, you need to hide parts of the TabControl from user because after all it is not a real TabControl. Hiding the tab buttons of the TabControl is not hard but I find that after that there is always a big gap between the tab area and the following part on the form.
Dose anyone have a decent way of designing the UI? Maybe not using panels or TabControls but some smarter way? If TabControl is used most of the time, how to hide and show the tab parts of the TabControl and how to set the margin and border size of the TabControl so no big gap exists? Many thanks to any answer and suggestion.
When I need to do this, I put each group of controls in its own UserControl, and then I can use something else to switch between them. See, for example, Implementing a paged Options dialog on my blog.
I suggest you create UserControls for each of your "setting details" and when the user selects an option you load the accordant UserControl. You might have to adjust the forms size, but therefore you can easily manage all the "setting details" in your IDE.
Using user control is a good way to solve your problem. But you need set them probably in panels and play with properties "Visible" and "Dock".
You don't need to Dock them at "Fill" in design mode. You can set this property à runtime or when needed.
Hope this help.
Sounds like you need some design pattern.
Why not create a UI factory that returns your UI objects as needed/required?
I'd like to implement the prev/next page behaviour for a winforms app like the browser prev/next pages
any existing code samples or guidance on where to start ?
I'd assume this is something already implemented and would not like to reinvent the wheel if possible
If the sample uses scsf/cab, that would be even better
Use TabPane, Panel or any other container control. Show or hide them or use Zorder.
I did this when I wrote an Aero Wizard host. Basically the strategy was to keep a List<T> of Panels that contained each page's controls, and that page Panel would be docked to a fixed Panel in the wizard. When the back button was clicked, I just replaced the contents of the host Panel with the previous Panel from the List<T>. And as users move "forward", just add the current page Panel to the list.
I am attempting to create my own custom Autocomplete style dropdown control in c# .net2.0. For speed of development I have built my control as a UserControl but have hit on an issue of doing it this way.
When the custom drawn dropdown gets drawn I have to resize the UserControl area to be able to display the list of options.
Ideally I want to be able to mimic the drodpown list behaviour in that the list of options is drawn 'floating' and is not constrained by the UserControls height and width (nor even the parent forms boundaries). A tooltip is another example of the unconstrained 'floating' that I desire.
The only way I can think of achieving this is to create on the fly a new form with no border or title bar and display this when the popup is required.
Is there a better (but also quick) way of doing this?
TIA
You would need to use a Form or NativeWindow to allow the control to float correctly. To make a form follow the control is easy enough but it is more difficult to implement and handle all of the focusing/hiding issues especially if you need seamless tabbing/key navigation.
You can try creating a control that is based off the ToolStrip Drop Down Button control. I believe that this control has the functionality that you are looking for. I found this reference for creating controls based off the ToolStrip, you might try starting with this.
http://blogs.msdn.com/jfoscoding/attachment/1335869.ashx