Many application open up with just the top toolbar visible, once a new project is made or opened the rest of the window gets filled. How is this behavior created? Does it use hidden elements or are there forms within the main form that get loaded?
I am currently building a application that builds various charts from log files. Currently things are a bit messy and I want to have regular windows behavior so others can find there way within my app as things are getting more complicated. Currently my app opens with lots of buttons that do not even function until certain things are loaded/done.
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I am having a hard time being more clear. What i want is:
Start application with just the top toolbar.
Once a project gets loaded the window gets populated. Currently all my stuff like charts and buttons are already there. I want these to appear after a project gets loaded. Like you Photoshop it opens with just the top toolbar, once you open or create a new file it opens up a new "field" inside the main window. What is this field, is it a form or a area that gets unhidden or created and populated when a file is opened
Those are called MDI's (Multiple-Document Interface).
All you have to do is setting the IsMdiContainer on your Form.
Then simply create a new form and set the MdiParent to the parent form:
YourMdiForm yourMdiForm = new YourMdiForm();
yourMdiForm.MdiParent = this;
yourMdiForm.Show();
Related
I'm making a WinForm app in C# (Visual studio) for fun. I came across a low-priority problem. It doesn't affect how the app works. But...
On the starting page, I have a button to open a Form1, inside Form1, there's a button to open a Form2 and so on.
At runtime, when I open a form, its parent form does not close and every form is a separate tab in the task-bar. As the layers grow, I'll have more-than-acceptable amount of tabs down there...
Is there a way to have only 1 tab?
I've tried:
Adding a parentForm.close() line when opening the form, but that was bad.
Instead of creating another form, putting everything in a panel, and bringing out another panel using code, but if there are too many layers, the code gets ridiculously long.
There has to be a simpler way right? Please shed some light.
Yes, you have a property in every form called ShowInTaskbar which is true by default. You can change that in the form properties under Window Style section or changing it by code manually:
Form2.ShowInTaskbar = false;
Form2.ShowDialog();
Configure to false all forms but the first one in order to achieve your desired behaviour.
Make sure your opened forms are dialogs or you are put them on top so user can never get in the situation where the form is behind and they cannot close it.
Anyway, with a proper form parenting configuration (if it fits your needs) you won't need this, as children forms won't appear in the taskbar.
If a form is parented within another form, the parented form is not displayed in the Windows taskbar.
Make sure you check the MSDN Documentation about this.
When I create a new window using .Show(), it shows the new window, however my icons are grouped like below:
I don't want that. I want the icons to be separate because I want my users to easily open the window that they want instead of having to click it, view the list of open windows, then choosing which one they want every time. I don't want to use .ShowDialog() because I need the users to be able to focus on either window no matter the state of the other. Meaning, both windows will need to be open and the user will need to be able to interact with each of those windows regardless of if the other window is open or minimized.
I've tried setting the parent, but I don't think I'm taking the right approach. I've never worked with icons before, so excuse my lack of knowledge.
var w = new Window();
w.Owner = Window.GetWindow(this);
w.Show();
I will be changing the icon of the second window that gets opened so that the user knows which one to click on based on what they want. I'm just trying to get around the grouping that seems to be the default.
(If i'm correct) In Windows it's possible to assign a seperate AppUserModelID to your shortcut icon to prevent the default grouping of icons, this is the page explaining how to define and assign a seperate AppUserModelID. I would suggest reading the provided source thouroughly.
I'm building a C# form application which contains several forms. (Login, Menu, Products, Users, Settings..etc).
This is the structure how the navigation happens.
Currently what I'm doing is hide the current form and create a new object of the next form and display it.
this.Hide();
Menu obj = new Menu();
obj.Show();
If I create objects for each visit to a form, there'll be lot of objects of that form. Right ?
Is this the correct way of doing it ?
And some of the navigation are bidirectional. There's a button on each form to go back.
So, what's the efficient way of closing the current form and go to next.
I think a better (this is subjective) flow would be:
Login and Menu are Forms that are considered top level.
When Login is complete, it is closed (not hidden), and Menu appears as the only form.
From Menu, you can pop-up Modal dialogs for the other screens. But only one of them can be open at a time. When they're closed, the user can control the Menu form again and open another screen.
Note, by Modal dialogs, they would appear on top of the Menu form, but Menu wouldn't be hidden. It is simply waiting for the modal to be closed before it regains control.
The problem with windows that appear and disappear (regardless of whether they are closed or hidden) is that the end result may be disconcerting to the user. They may feel that the program has quit and the link between prior and consecutive windows may not be easily understood.
UserControls
Alternatively you may want to consider replacing your other windows with UserControls. This way you have a main window that consistantly stays open and you simply embed a UserControl representing the other pages into it. Thus making it more obvious to the user that there is a notion of an consistent "app".
Users; Products and Settings, instead of deriving from Form would instead derive from UserControl. To move from say Users to Products, simply remove Users from the Controls property; create a Products control and add it to Controls ensuring that it is set to Dock.Fill.
I see no reason why Login still can't remain a modal dialog though.
I'm developing a bunch of user controls which do different things - like a maintenance screen, enquiry screen, report screen that sort of thing. Each screen has a dedicated purpose and a single user control holds all the functionality for the one screen.
I'm using avalondock and can place these user controls into LayoutDocuments. This creates a separate tab for each screen/user control. I've got a menu system setup so users can choose which screens they need access to. For each new screen I create a new LayoutDocument, add the appropriate control to it, then add the LayoutDocument to the Docking panel's children.
This is all working fine.
Avalon dock also has the feature of being able to drag out the layout document and make it float - you can also dock it somewhere else in the app if you wish.
I'd like to take this concept one step further: Being able to say right click on a layout document and choose "Make external window" (i'll work out the exact wording later). The effect of this action would be to create a new application with it's own icon in the task bar; being able to alt-tab between it and other apps;
Kind of like when you're in say Excel editing a document and you then open up a second instance of excel. In Windows 7 you get two excel icons in the task bar (one behind the other), and you can alt-tab between them.
This is nearly the behaviour that i'm after. However the second app isn't a full blown copy of the first; it has only the one user control that the user selected.
This is where i'm stuck and would like a bit of guidance.
I'm thinking that i'll probably need some kind of shell app where I can pass in the user control that I want. The shell would act as a window with title, X, minimising etc; the user control would then be the sole content of that shell. Use process.start to create new process and launch ?
Ideally i'd be able to pass in the same control in the same state as the user is currently viewing - so if for example they are part way through editing some customer record in a maintenance screen, then choose the "external window" option, that same customer record would appear in the new window.
Has anyone done something similar or offer advice if i'm on the right track ?
I think I know how to create a shell app but not sure on passing a user control to it dynamically. I'd like to avoid creating different shell apps for each user control.
No need to start a new process for that scenario.
Just create a new Window add your UserControl at runtime and remove the UserControl from the DockingManager. Make sure the Window has ShowInTaskbar set if you want it to show up there.
To get the command to undock the UserControl as a seperate Window you just have to restyle the ContextMenu to incorporate your command (take a look at the VS2010 theme and how the ContextMenu is styled there VS2010 theme.xaml).
For instance, I have an application that has a main window and then child windows inside of it.
http://screenshots.rd.to/sn/e3hek/sapienfullwindow.png
http://screenshots.rd.to/sn/e3hek/appscreen8.png
What i need is to grab each individual child window of that application, and display them as tabs in my application, or on a panel's handle.
I already have code to kidnap the application and put it into mine, and it works great.
MDI support is already present in the C#. So the first screenshot is using the MDI option.
The second screenshot is using tabbed windows. Now you have two options:
Use this opensource library DockPanelSuite which will let you have tabs in your application. something similar to visual studio interface. You can create forms and then tab it based on your needs. You can even dock them anywhere in the parent form by drag and drop. Just like in visual studio.
The second option is to create a form with tab control covering the whole windows. There you create tabs using the resource editor and hide/show based on the forms you want to display to the end user.
In my opinion, use the first option which gives you lot more customization. Also if you use the dockpanel, you can switch between the views shown in your first screenshot and second one. So user has better control as to how he wants to view. Dockpanel is free to use even in commerical apps and comes with source code. So you can either use the dll or directly incorporate the code in your application.