I'm working on an application, and I have a screen that in my mind, looks a lot like the Wireless Network List in Windows Vista. For those who are unaware, its basically a listview, but in each row, instead of a line of text, there's a large 'panel' that contains all sorts of useful information. Does anyone know if that's an actual UI control available on windows, or should I roll my own with some sort of autosizing table layout panel hosting a collection of custom controls?
I know this is pretty easy to make using WPF using the stackpanel layout along with a series of user controls containing grid controls for internal layout. Or are you using windows forms?
The wireless network dialog isn't using a standard Win32 control, it's using a custom control (effectively).
If you want to emulate that behavior, you're going to have to use WPF or roll your own.
Not an exact answer but you may want to look at the various Vista TaskDialog libraries and dialogs that have been based on that. You may be able to borrow some of the code since they share some UI functionality. I need to do the something similar with WPF.
Related
WPF and Windows Forms Interoperation
Description on MSDN:
In a WPF user interface, you can change the z-order of elements to control overlapping behavior. A hosted Windows Forms control is drawn in a separate HWND, so it is always drawn on top of WPF elements.
*But I would like to know there is no private way to solve it?
No, this is known as the airspace problem (because WinForms elements take all of it).
There was supposed to be a fix around .NET 4.5/4.6 but it never made it to production (source; there are others if you google it). There has been no word as of yet that Microsoft plans on addressing it.
This article might help with ways to get around it: MSDN
My first recommandation would be to replace the Windows Form control by an equivalent WPF control.
Second recommandation would be to accept the limitation and do not overlap any WPF control over the Windows Form control.
In some case, you might be able to use multiple top-level Windows to work around the limitation. You then have to write some code to properly synchronize the location or the apparent activation state of Windows...
I have never done that between Windows Form and WPF but I have done 2 top-level windows in Windows Form so that part of the UI could be semi-transparent (the purpose was to be able to overlap another application (maybe a PDF viewer) so that we can "copy" curves from existing charts).
My requirement is to create a winform with contains a datagrid that allows rows to expand and show additional details. I'm considering using a WPF control and incorporate a WPF Datagrid in it to handle this, taking advantage of the RowDetails property of the DataGrid to handle the expansion of rows.
I'm completely new to WPF and the RowDetails property of Datagrid and so am only reading up on them now. Is it possible for me to use this control in my winform once I develop it? What issues may I face when trying to integrate the WPF control in my winform.
I have on multiple occasions used a WPF control on a WinForm. However, the only way I ever do it is to host it inside an ElementHost control. Once there I haven't noticed any major issues, though I do hear performance can be suspect depending on the usage.
As the two previous Answers state you have to use an ElementHost.
Here there is a comparison on how to host WPF in Winforms and Winforms in WPF. It was good for me to read the comparison when I was starting to work with it.
In this article the author links you to Gotchas For Working With Windows Forms/WPF Interop that has some common issues you can run into.
Build your WPF control like it was a Vendor control, with a clear interface and then just host it with the ElementHost. I have had to use it both ways but with legacy controls, and it really helps if you have a good interface in the control that you bring from the other platform, if not it can be a bit messy.
I created a TabControl using Windows Forms but the tab headers look very ugly. I want to make them with rounded corners and also create some space between two tab headers. Can anyone please tell how it can be done using C#.
Thanks,
gary
You'll want to do one of a few things:
Make your own custom control that inherits from TabControl and overrides its render method.
Download a third-party custom tab control that does what you want.
Switch to WPF, which gives you some more flexibility in the way of creating and styling controls.
There isn't a way to do this with System.Windows.Forms.TabControl out of the box, so you'll have to either live with what you've got, or roll your own.
Not to spark any heated debate, but WinForms is an aging API. If you're building a brand new application and/or learning a UI framework for the first time, you might consider using WPF instead. For legacy code, it's fine to maintain WinForms of course.
The System.Windows.Forms.TabControl class is just a wrapper around the Windows COMCTL32 tab control. Unfortunately, that control doesn't provide much in the way of customization options. You'll have to switch controls, either to WPF, custom code, or some third-party product.
I have an MDI application for which I do not have source for. I believe it is an MFC application. I need to automate some of it's functionality.
It has a form with a listview type control on it. I would like to be able to read that list from my new C# application to know what the items are so I can select the correct one. I have tried Spy++ from VS2008 but it cannot see the listview control. There are no windows messages that are useful. How can I make the items in this list available to my new application?
Thanks.
Is it appearing in Spy++ at all? If it is just a window handle then the whole control is custom drawn in which case you are pretty much out of luck.
The only time you would might be able to query this data would be if it was based on one of the Windows standard controls or if it allows you to query it using messages (which is unlikely unless it was designed to be automated)
Using .NET 2.0 with WinForms, I'd like to create a custom, multi-columned menu (similiar to the word 2007 look&feel, but without the ribbon).
My approach was creating a control, and using a left/right docked toolstrip, I have constructed a similar look&feel of a menu. However, there are a few shortcomings of this solution, such as
the control can only be placed, and displayed within the form;
if the form is too small, some area of the control won't be displayed;
the control also have to be manually shown/hidden.
Thus, I'm looking for a way to display this control outside of the boundaries of the application. Creating a new form would result in title-bar deactivating on display, so that's also out. Alternatively, any other approach to create a customized menu would be very welcomed.
Edit: I don't want to use any commercial products for this; and since it's about a simple menu customization, it's not related to Microsoft's ribbon "research" in any way.
unless you are in the business of providing .net components, you should be looking to buy it off the shelf. Its a lot of work getting such a control right - There are already vendors providing this kind of UI. e.g. ComponentOne
if you are trying to build this component as a product, you should look at the link below. Apparently Microsoft has a 'royalty-free' license around the Office UI to protect their R&D investments. As of now you need to tell them that you are using something similar to the Office UI. More of that here
The MenuStrip class has a Renderer property. You can assign your own ToolStripRenderer derived class to customize the painting. It's a fair amount of work.