WinForms : Dynamically add / remove AnchorStyles to / of control - c#

I am currently working on a Editor, which lets the user design his own WinForm overlay, at least to a certain point.
Therefore I want the user to decide, which AnchorStyles the current selected Control should have. I would like it to be handled by checkboxes. Here's how I had it in mind:
As you can see, the user has currently selected a dynamically added Panel, called Grid. Handled by the CheckBoxes to the right, he should now be able to set the selected Controls AnchorStyles.
Here's my problem: I can't seem to find a usable solution, to dynamically add a specific AnchorStyle to the already existing ones, or the opposite, remove the AnchorStyle, but keep the other ones as they are.
I was trying to get it to work with...
SelectedControl.Anchor += AnchorStyles.Top;
which doesen't work at all. So i thought of this...
SelectedControl.Anchor = SelectedControl.Anchor | AnchorStyles.Top
which I imagine could work, but I haven't even tested it, since I wouldn't know how to remove ones unchecked AnchorStyle.
Building a gigantic if(){} else if(){}... doesen't seem to be a good Idea :)
I'm open for any ideas / solutions.
Thanks in advance!

Assuming you have four check box controls named top, bottom, left and right, you can handle CheckedChange event of them using a single method and set the anchor of the desired control based on the checked value of the controls. For example:
private void checkBox_CheckedChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
var values = new[] { top.Checked, bottom.Checked, left.Checked, right.Checked };
byte[] data = new byte[1];
new BitArray(values).CopyTo(data, 0);
selectedControl.Anchor = (AnchorStyles)data[0];
}
Note: AnchorStyles is a flag enum having top=1, bottom=2, left=4 and right=8. Using above code I've mixed those flags to create the AnchorStyles and have assigned to the Anchor property of control.

Related

Is it possible to add more than one panel in same location

i'm using telerik control.
So i want to ask,
In winforms application ,Is it possible to add more than one panel in same location and display one at a time just like show/hide property.
Make sure you have placed all panel control in same container or form. then you can use Visible property to show and hide panel. BringFront and SendToBack function will be used to bring panel on top or send it to back. If you have placed any panel in another panel then that will be disappeared when you Hide parent panel. So, Make sure all panels' parent control must be same. To determine the parent control simply select that panel and press escape key to select their parent.
private void LoadPanels()
{
panel1.Location = new Point(10,10);
panel2.Location = new Point(10,10);
panel3.Location = new Point(10,10);
panel4.Location = new Point(10,10);
panel5.Location = new Point(10,10);
VisiblePanel("panel1");
}
private void VisiblePanel(string panelName)
{
string[] panels = new string[]{"panel1","panel2","panel3","panel4","panel5"};
for (int i=0;i<panels.Length;i++)
this.Controls[panels[i]].Visible = (panels[i] == panelName);
this.Controls[panelName].BringToFront(); //Not required you can remove this line.
}
Here's a slightly different approach you might want to consider...
Are you wanting to be able to programmatically select the contents of a rectangular area at runtime, selecting among various controls to display? If so, you could use a custom TabControl which has its tabs (not the pages) hidden.
Then you can select which page is displayed by programmatically changing its SelectedIndex property at runtime.
Doing it like this means that your form editor will show a normal tab control, which allows you to much more easily add the content to each page - but at runtime the tabs will be hidden from the user; they will just see the contents of the currently selected page.
See Hans Passant's answer here for how to create such a custom tab control.
(However, you might also want to override the OnKeyDown for the custom tab control in order to ignore Ctrl-Tab.)

Changing text of a combobox in a different tab

I have a combo box which I need to mirror in another tab page in a C# winforms based application.
I have perfectly working code for when you select a different item from the drop down list. Unfortunately, however, when I change the Text of a tab that has not been clicked on yet nothing actually happens.
If I first click each tab then everything works as expected.
Now I'm putting this down to some form of lack of initialisation happening first. So I've tried to select each tab in my constructor.
tabControlDataSource.SelectedIndex = 0;
tabControlDataSource.SelectedIndex = 1;
// etc
But this doesn't work.
I've also tried calling tabControlDataSource.SelectTab( 1 ) and still it doesn't work.
Does anyone know how I can force the tab to "initialise"?
Ok, typically I post the question after struggling for an hour and shortly afterwards find the solution.
TabPages are lazily initialised. So they don't fully initialise until they are made visible for the first time.
So i added this code to my constructor:
tabControlDataSource.TabPages[0].Show();
tabControlDataSource.TabPages[1].Show();
tabControlDataSource.TabPages[2].Show();
but this didn't work :(
It occurred to me, however, that the constructor might not be the best place. So I created an event handler for Shown as follows:
private void MainForm_Shown( object sender, EventArgs e )
{
tabControlDataSource.TabPages[0].Show();
tabControlDataSource.TabPages[1].Show();
tabControlDataSource.TabPages[2].Show();
}
And now everything is working!
Perhaps you could also use sort of a "lazy" synchronization (initialization) in this case. Quick robust ideas: polling timer to update content (which will update it once you see tab page), no dependses within second tab (no Changed events for combobox to update second tab content, use original combobox from first tab or rather have it's content underlying in accessable for both comboboxes class, etc), "reinitialization" when tab become visible (at which moment you also init your second combobox)...
Can't be a hour, no way =D

Add UserControl to a variable location in C#

So I am trying to add a UserControl to a windows form, however I want to add it in a variable location when a button is clicked.
So I have a groupbox in one location and I want the first one to go to the extreme left directly under the groupbox, I then want the next one to be in a position relative to the first, and all subsequent ones to be in a position in relation to the one before. However with restricted space a new line of these controls would have to be eventually created.
I am not sure if this is possible, or how I would do it. Currently I only know how to define a specific point for the control to be created at.
The only part of the code that really matters:
private void addpilot_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
PilotControl newPilot = new PilotControl();
newPilot.Location = new Point();
this.Controls.Add (newPilot);
}
I think that this behavior could be similar to a WrapPanel. If it is not, you may try to solve this using another Panel, or also, implementing your own panel to create an specific location behavior.
Try seen Panels Overview in the MSDN.
Look into docking and flow controls.

How do I change a display using TreeView?

I'm trying to change a panel to a specific form (as this is the only way I can fathom it) based on the selected TreeView node. For example, in Visual Studio, if you right-click on "Solution 'solutionname' (1 Project)", click 'Properties', it comes up with a tree list on the left side. When you click on a selection, the right pane changes.
I've searched continuously for hours the previous few days and only found a tutorial showing how it can affect a webBrowser control.
This is a farfetched example that I can understand:
private void tree_NodeMouseClick(object sender, TreeNodeMouseClickEventArgs e)
{
treeNode nName = e.Node;
//For testing:
string pg = "";
pg = nName.Tag;
if (pg == "Form2") display = Form2;
}
Display is a panel. I know this is absolutely wrong, but I couldn't find any proper method using my search terms.
You will need to set Visible on all your panels to false, except for the one you want to display which will be set to true.
WinForms does not have any particularly nice way of setting this up. You could set the Tag property of each node to be a reference to the panel (this has to be done programmatically - the designer won't let you do it), then iterate through the entire tree view to set ((Panel)node.Tag).Visible = false followed by ((Panel)e.Node.Tag).Visible = true or you can maintain the list separately. If you don't have many panels, a switch/if-else block may be okay, too.

Interactive Design-Time User Control

I apologise if the title was confusing, it took me nearly 5 minutes to finally think of a title for this one...
Okay, you know how in Visual Studio Express when you add a TabControl to the Form, and you can click on the right-arrow on the top right of the TabControl and it will add a new TabPage, or remove one?
Well, I'm creating a User Control where I need people to be able to switch between Panels (my user control is made up of several Panels). I know this is possible as I've used a Ribbon Control in the past and you could add new buttons etc in the Designer View.
Can somebody please provide any suggestions/advice on how I might go about acheiving this?
Thank you
If I understand your question correctly, you're talking about smart tags.
The process is a little bit involved, so I'm not going to try to post a complete sample. Instead, I'll refer you to this tutorial on the subject. To make a long story short, you have to create a custom designer, and register one or more custom actions. You can use this to create a combo box listing the available panels and switch between them when the selected item is changed.
(Note - the term "smart tags" has two distinct meanings in Visual Studio - I'm specifically talking about the visual designer smart tags, not smart tags in the code editor).
When you make a control that is inherited from Control, you have to make use of a couple of properties such as IsDesignMode, you can then construct event handlers especially for within Design Mode:
if (IsDesignMode){
// Handle the interactivity in Design mode, such as changing a property on the
// Properties toolbox
}
Suppose the control has an event such as MouseClick, you can do this:
private void control_MouseClick(object sender, MouseEventArgs e){
if (IsDesignMode){
// Do something here depending on the Click event within the Designer
}else{
// This is at run-time...
}
}
Another I can think of is 'ShouldSerialize' followed by a publicly accessible property in order to persist the property to the designer-generated code, suppose for example a Control has a boolean property Foo
public bool Foo{
get{ return this._foo; }
set{ if (this._foo != value){
this._foo = value;
}
}
}
public bool ShouldSerializeFoo(){
return true; // The property will be persisted in the designer-generated code
// Check in Form.Designer.cs...
}
If ShouldSerializeFoo returned false, no property is persisted, its the opposite when true, it will be buried within the Form.Designer.cs code...
Hope this helps,
Best regards,
Tom.

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