I have a single page WinForms app with dozens of 'tab-able' labels, textboxes, sliders, combo-boxes and other controls.
This is my first real app so the tab index is out of control. I want to reset it and essentially start over.
There are many items that I don't even want tab-able (such as labels).
I know this can be done manually, but I assume there must be a way to batch process this change besides creating code during initialization to modify the tab-index.
I'd prefer to do it in the design screen. My code is boated enough and this is one of the final steps I need to take.
I've tried highlighting everything and change the tab-index to 0 on everything but it appears that something in my app doesn't have a tab-index which seems to disable that option.
My app contains:
month calendars
buttons
labels
comboboxes
text boxes
sliders
checkboxes
rich text boxes
panels
toolstrip
data grid
I only want the text boxes and combo boxes and buttons to be tab-able.
Well, to set it you could use the Tab Order tool (View > Tab Order):
If you need to remove every TabIndex property (which is set in the same order that you add the controls to the Form), you can go to the Designer.cs/vb and replace every assignment with nothing, or with a neutral TabIndex, like 0. Here's an example using a regular expression to do the replacement:
Forgive me if this isn't what you were looking for, but have you tried using the Tab Order option under View -> Tab Order?
From there you click on where you want the tab order to start and click the next until you are done. This is the simplest way to do it anyway.
Related
I have a weird situation. I have a panel with 4 textboxes, 2 are read only. I have tab stop set to true and tab index set on panel and two editable textboxes. When running the application, the first textbox never receives focus. I have deleted the textbox and created a new one with a different name, same result. I then reversed the tab order and the other textbox was skipped. for some reason, whichever textbox is set to be hit first when the panel receives focus is completely ignored. I have tried manually setting the tab order and using the tab order wizard both. I have even tried to programmatically set tab index and tab stop just to make sure without any luck. I have several other panels and group boxes on the same form with similar controls, and they all work as expected. I'm running out of ideas, does anyone have any suggestions?
I would like to implement the following WinForms user-interface, with two buttons at the top that allows the user to toggle between two views.
So, when I click the 1st button ("Show User Profiles"), the three panels below should show the three different user profiles (with some content fetched from database), like so...
And when I click the 2nd button ("Show Chat History"), the three panels below should show the three different chat histories (with some content fetched from database), like so...
What is a good approach (either dynamic or static) to implement this kind of structure in C# / .Net? Is there a cleaner or at least more efficient way than my crude method below:
Layout three sets of controls for the three Profiles
Layout three sets of controls for the three Chat-Histories, overlapping on top of
the Profiles' controls.
Change visibility of the controls based on which button is pressed.
For example, if 1st button is clicked, Set Visibility=false for all the controls related to Chat-History, and Set Visibility=true for all the controls related to User-Profiles.
a tab control would give you a separate set of panels. Its the obvious way to do it, but if you want to overlay panels and control the visibility you can, and its fine. I have a content viewer that displays either images or text depending on the mime type of the content, and that context switching occurs without user interaction, so it makes sense there to put the image control on top of the textbox and set it visible if the mime type is image/jpeg. Where a user is going to make the choice tho, I would use a tab control.
I assume you are using the visual ui to add controls. you can just drag a tab control to your form and it should by default appear with 2 tabs defined. You can add more in properties my modifying the tabpages collection. That's where you would also rename them to reflect your choices (profiles, chats). drag the tab control up where you want it on the form and size it appropriately, or dock it to fill the form. drag 3 panels into the first tab, then click on the 2nd tab, and drag 3 more in there. then proceed as you would have. When the user clicks on the chat tab the tab control will manage the view - hiding the first tab and its 3 panels. Of course clicking the first tab would make that tabPage visible again. no need for you to code anything.
I'll just add that I don't understand the design of having 3 profiles visible, and 3 chat history's. Unless your users are going to be limited to 3 friends. I would think you would be better off using a listbox for friends names on the profiles page, with a single profile panel that just filled the profile controls based on which friend is selected, and then the same list on the chat page, with a single chat panel that loaded the history into the textbox based on which friend was selected. That way you can have all the friends you want :)
and for completeness i'll suggest one more way, why should the user have to switch between tabs to view a users profile or chat history when you can provide them both in a single tabPage? You could programmatically create a new tab for each user and on that tab have their profile panel on the left, and their chat history on the right. Less context switching = better user experience. The tab control will allow you to scroll for tabs that don't fit on the form automagically(tm).
so I have started from 0 and defining tabindex for the controls on my form but at run time it is all messed up. the form is a little complex tho. it has horizontal and vertical splitters and panels, group boxes and some older VB 6.0 activeX controls which is a Tree control inside them. even if i do it programmatically and read previewkeydown eventg and say if it is TAB then control2.Focus() it is still working wrong. so frustrating. any thoughts? ..there are also labels on the form which do not need tab so I have defined 0 for their index.
How are you setting it?
If you are in visual studio with the form in design view select view -> tab order and then click on each item in the order you want them.
Usually works for me.
The reason is that the controls are in different Containers. Suppose you've got panel1.TabIndex = 0 and panel2.TabIndex = 1, then in panel2, textBox1.TabIndex = 0, in panel1, textBox2.TabIndex = 1. At runtime, textBox1 comes before textBox2 because its panel comes first!
As kerry said, use view->tab order to see the complete hierarchy of tab orders.
I'm mentioning this because I haven't seen it in any of the winforms tab order threads that I have found on stackoverflow.
If you have multiple panels, you change your panel tab order by clicking on the Panel, going to properties, and then you change the TabIndex to whatever you want. This will allow you to navigate from panel to panel in the order that you want. Then within each panel, follow the recommended steps listed above using view > tab order and click on each cell in the order that you want to set.
Follow the steps below:
Set the TabIndex property to DIRECT CHILD containers and controls in your form or container, either using the View > TabOrder utility or directly from the properties window. Completely ignore the TabStop property of containers, which defaults to false even it's very important.
Repeat step 1 with each container.
I'm using different sets of controls on the same location on a form. By default all are visible=false and then certain subsets of the controls are set to visible as the user selects specific values in a combobox dropdown control.
From the user's perspective this works well since they only see the controls that are needed.
However, since the controls occupy the same location on the form it is difficult to manage these in Visual Studio design view.
Is there a way to group sets of these overlapping controls in Visual Studio so that I can select the entire subset of controls quickly and easily? Is there a way to hide certain controls in design view? Right now everything is stacked on top of each other when developing so it makes managing these controls difficult.
To get such a beast to work i would put every group into it's own UserControl. On your MainForm you stack all these UserControls above each other.
So at the MainForm you can't really get a good overview, but now you got for every group your individual designer view and in your main form you can hide the complete group by a single line of code userControl.Visible = false.
A TabControl can do this, works well in design mode. You just need to hide the tabs at runtime. Check my code in this thread.
You can not hide them.
However you can group them in group box
and using "Bring to front" and "Send to back" property deal with them.
First of all,
If you work with multiple components in same location, you can use groupboxes in your form. Then, to superimpose these groupboxes, you should edit each of your groupboxes on different place in your form screen. After the edit, you should input size and location data manually in your groupbox properties menu.
If you want to edit one of your groupbox after the set location, you can easily right click any of your groupboxes then click "send to back" and "bring in front" commands. I hope it helps.
I have a list box with Checkboxes in it. I want to prevent the Checkbox from changing its status if the user clicks on the text next to it. I only want it to change if the small box is clicked directly.
Is there any way to do this in windows forms?
Greetings and thanks in advance.
Place the text next to it in a Label, instead of the Text property of the Checkbox. Or you could create your own control which has a Checkbox and a Label. The Text property of the control would then fill the Text in the Label, and you could expose all of the Checkboxes regular properties in your control.
That's fairly non-standard behavior. Users are going to expect to be able to change the checkbox when clicking on its label, and are going to be frustrated, confused, and surprised when it doesn't work. I'd recommend not doing this. I'm not the only one.
(Yes, it's about web design, but many of the concepts are applicable in desktop application design as well.)
You could always not fill in the Text property of the Checkbox and make a completely separate Label control.
Otherwise, you will probably have to do explicit hit testing within the control to see if they hit the box or text. And then you will have to worry about checking the margins, which side the box is on, and other things that can change the position of the box.
I personally was only able to freeze things.
I freeze the check boxes by handling the Click and ItemChecked events,
and change the check state back, when it gets modified.
I use a menu to check/uncheck items and let user decide to use the menu or classic behave.
Cheers, good luck.