Free advanced dropdown list control (Windows Forms .Net) - c#

I'm looking for a free advanced dropdown list control. Basically something that provides a dropdown list which can have icons, and multiple bits of text per entry (preferably one large bit of text and then a smaller bit of text underneath).
Anyone know of such a control? I've had a look but can't seem to find one.
If I can't find it I spose I'll have to create it myself. I've done a bit with custom controls but I'm not really sure how I'd go about this...how would one take a ComboBox or something but make each entry completely graphically customisable?
Any links to controls, or hints on how to create one would be greatly appreciated.

it's not a drop down list, but I think you can use the knowledge here to do the same thing

I haven't found anything on the free side of WinForms that lets you do this. If you have green fields, however, WPF gives you what you're looking for out of the box.

Check out Krypton Toolkit which is free.

Related

Multi-level Combo Box in Windows Forms

I would like to use Combo Box in my WinForms application to select only one option out of many. This choice affects the whole application and is pretty important, so I don't want to use Menu Strip for this. Therefore Combo Box is the obvious choice.
There is one problem though, I have a two-level hierarchy of these choices and I need to select and display options from the second level. Put simply, I would like to obtain something like this:
Is there a way to do this or something similar easily using WinForms tools? Or some easy way to implement this? I haven't really implemented any visual controls in WinForms before and I don't want to waste a lot of time by learning how to. Thanks for any answer.
For anybody that still needs this, you can use the ToolStrip with menu items to represent multilevel combo-boxes.
Attach click listeners to the ToolStripMenuItems and use OwnerItem to read the text of the parent.

How can I create/skin a C# UI?

Ive been working on a C# project for a while now and I fell it needs change its look.
I have found a UI kit that I really like, which can be seen below:
http://medialoot.com/item/transparent-ui-kit/
Does anyone know how to do this?
Thanks
EDIT: Im using WinForms
EDIT2: Maybe I should convert over to WPF? Is this doable?
You can subclass most common controls and draw their appearance yourself. However, unless for novelty applications I doubt your users will thank you for doing so.
Your example is a library of controls. For you to have an appearance such as that you'll have to create or acquire a similar library of controls and replace all your controls in your project to get that appearance.
If you want to update colors (background, foreground, etc.) and such you can make a class that recurses through controls and sets the settings using reflection and a switch statement to process each control. Then just run this on each form before you show it. One word of caution about this, some controls don't respect your changes and get overridden with themes from the OS (datetimerpicker being the biggest culprit). You'll also need to consider whether your users will appreciate the extra work put in for color/appearance changes.
If you don't have very good design skill and have a good know how about creating such templates, its better to buy them.
And C# is just a language. You're looking to create templates and skins for either for ASP.NET website/application or for windows forms.
Have a look at DevExpress Skins
If you can afford it.

A good listview component for C# WinForms

Does anyone know of a good listview component other than the one included with Visual Studio (as it looks kinda boring)?
Devexpress are good too. http://devexpress.com
(Quick edit missed the Winforms bit). For Winforms controls, I'd recommend Telerik.
If you want to modify the look of your form and controls try DotNetSkin. You can modify controls from existing windows themes or your own controls by modifying it.
If you want a free ListView, you should try ObjectListView, it has a LOT of features.
You better be careful about the license if you want to use it in a commercial product though. See these answers for more information about the license: here and there.
You may try Better ListView.
It has native look and feel. It also supports many nice features, like hierarchical items, multi-column sorting, data binding, three-state check boxes... the list goes on :-)
It is not a ListView wrapper, but self-contained control so it fixes all inherent flaws of .NET ListView (these are enumerated on ComponentOwl's website).
Take into account the 10Tec iGrid control:
Its main features are:
Multi-column sorting with indication in column headers.
Grouping and autofilter are also available.
"Subitems" (cells) can be edited.
Rows can have different heights.
Rows/cells can be formatted dynamically easily.
Built-in incremental search.
TreeListView mode.
No flickering and fast work with 100'000+ rows.
To find out more, start from reading this article:
Editable ListView Replacement
See also other cross-referenced articles on the site.

alternative to DataGridView in Win API

Somewhere on net on one Blog I read a sentence that is "DataGridView something like Boeing 777, but what is goal when I do not know how to fly.
Before I goo deep in creating my projects I wanna know is there alternative for DataGridView in C#.
Something like jQuery in WEB api.
The favors things which I am looking for is that is simple for using, if its posibile to be freeware and looks smoth and modern.
Best regards
Admir
If you want to fly one person across town you can learn to fly a Piper Cub. If you want to fly hundreds across an ocean you need to learn to fly a 777.
There are many ways of displaying data in WinForms applications; which one is best for you depends on what you're trying to do. If you want to show a fixed, non-editable, non-scrollable list of data you can use a DataList; simple and limited. If you want to add scrolling you can output the data to a scrolling textbox.
If you want to handle a scrolling grid of multiple rows with multiple, resizable, editable columns you will need to move to a DataGrid or DataGridView.
There are many alternatives to DataGridViews; simpler controls provide fewer features and more functional controls are more complex.
I have implemented the datagridview extensively as an unbound control in a windows forms project using Visual Studio 2008. Looking back, implementing this control has consumed a large amount of time, mostly because it is loaded with bugs and peculiar behavior that should have been fixed rather than just 'documented'. A good data grid control is essential to any application of substance. I would recommend looking for a third party alternative from a company that is more interested in getting it right rather than just getting something out there.
The DataGridView is perfectly easy to use without going too deep. If all you want to do is display data in a grid, create a DataGridView and turn off features like adding and editing rows. The fact that it's got all of these incredibly complex features is really only an issue when you start needing to use them - and in that case, you'll be glad you're using it.
DevExpress has a really good gridview.

What is the best way to create a wizard in C# 2.0?

I have a winforms application where users will be creating stock items, and a time of creation there are a number of different things that need to happen.
I think the UI for this should probably be a wizard of some kind, but I'm unsure as to the best way to achieve this. I have seen a couple of 3rd party Wizard controls, and I have also seen manual implementations of making panel visible/invisible.
What are the best ways that people have used in the past, that are easy to implement, and also make it easy to add "pages" to the wizard later on if needed?
I know this answer has already been accepted, but I just found a better Wizard control that's free, and of course, since it's on CodeProject, includes the source, so you can modify it if it's not exactly what you want. I'm adding this as an answer for the next person to stumble across this question looking for a good Wizard control.
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/miscctrl/DesignTimeWizard.aspx
Here are a few more resources you should check out:
This DevExpress WinForms control: http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/Controls/WinForms/Wizard/
A home-grown wizards framework: http://weblogs.asp.net/justin_rogers/articles/60155.aspx
A wizard framework by Shawn Wildermut part of the Chris Sells's Genghis framework: http://www.sellsbrothers.com/tools/genghis/
Use a tab-control inside a form.
Change back color to "Control" in all tab-pages.
Set "appearance" to flat buttons to get rid of the white border-stuff.
Hide the tabs by sizing the entire control so that the tabs gets pushed up "under" the title bar of the form. If you need other controls (or banner maybe) above the tab-control, then instead hide the tabs with a panel-control or similar.
Childplay to code logic for back/next buttons and very easy to extend with new pages.
Take a look at this article on MSDN about "inductive user interfaces". It describes a framework (and provides the code to download) based on UserControls that give you "navigation" within a form. Perfect for designing wizards.
The easiest way to create a wizard dialog is to use one of the third-party versions available that handle all of the "hard stuff" (the page navigation, UI framework, etc.) for you. The one I like the most is from Divelements; they have both a WinForms and a WPF version.

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