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C# Form - MouseClick will click the actual control after losing form focus

If you ever remove focus from any professional application like Chrome/FireFox/Visual Studio, and then reclick a button/menu item, it will actually click it as if you never lost focus.
How can I apply the same concept in C# WinForm? I tried many things like
private void form1_MouseClick(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
BringToFront();
Activate();
}
Activate/focus/select/etc... nothing worked to react the same way, it always takes 3-4 clicks to actually click on a menu!
I thought about making a click event for every single control, but that seemed rather redundant.
Check this for example (Yellow Clicks)

You are right about Menues taking an extra click to get focus.
Which is extra annoying since the menue get highlighted anyway but doesn't react to the 1st click..
You can avoid that by coding the MouseEnter event:
private void menuStrip1_MouseEnter(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// either
menuStrip1.Focus();
// or
this.Focus();
}
The downside of this is, that it is stealing focus from other applications, which is not something a well-behaved application should do..
So I think it is better to wait for a definitive user action; code the MouseDown event in a similar way..:
private void menuStrip1_MouseDown(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
menuStrip1.Focus();
}
Or use the event that was made for the occasion:
private void menuStrip1_MenuActivate(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
menuStrip1.Focus();
}
I can't confirm a similar problem with Buttons or any other controls, though.

I have find trick to solve your problem. it work for me 100%
See this code:
dynamic elem1;
private void menuStrip1_MouseEnter(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
elem1 = sender;
}
private void menuStrip1_MouseLeave(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
elem1 = null;
}
private void Form1_Activated(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if(elem1 != null){
elem1.PerformClick();
if (elem1.GetType().ToString() == "System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem") elem1.ShowDropDown();
}
elem1 = null;
}
Here what happend.
When mouse enter button/menu item elem1 = this button/menu, and when mouse leave it set back to null.
so when form Activated we can call elem1.PerformClick() to click the button/menu item.

Windows Store App Textbox keeps losing focus

I have a simple application that has a TextBox and a Canvas. When the user touches the Canvas, I want to move the focus to the TextBox. So, on the PointerReleased event, I got:
private void canvas_PointerReleased(object sender, PointerRoutedEventArgs e)
{
textBoxMain.Focus(Windows.UI.Xaml.FocusState.Programmatic);
}
I also subscribed to the TextBox GotFocus and LostFocus and noticed that, immediately after the TextBox got focused, it looses the focus. Why is it loosing focus and how can I solve it?
Thanks in advance.

This will work for me.
private void Canvas_PointerReleased(object sender, PointerRoutedEventArgs e)
{
textBoxMain.Focus(Windows.UI.Xaml.FocusState.Programmatic);
}
private void textBoxMain_GotFocus(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
textBoxMain.Focus(Windows.UI.Xaml.FocusState.Programmatic);
}

Drawing in C# winform is fairly slow

I'm creating a custom DataGridView, in which the CheckBox Shows a border when MouseHover is raised.
Here is what I've done so far.
void checkBox_MouseLeave(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//showBorder defines whether the border is drawn.
this.showBorder = false;
this.DataGridView.InvalidateCell(this);
}
void CheckBoxMouseHover(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
this.showBorder = true;
this.CheckBox.BringToFront();
this.DataGridView.InvalidateCell(this);
}
protected override void Paint(...........)
{
..........
if (showBorder)
{
GraphicsPath border=new GraphicsPath();
border.AddRectangle(new Rectangle(checkBoxPosition.X-1,checkBoxPosition.Y-1,checkBoxSize.Width+1,checkBoxSize.Height+1));
graphics.DrawPath(new Pen(borderColor,1),border);
}
}
But is comes so slow that I have to wait for about half a second to see do border show.
Anyway, MouseLeave works fine.
So how can I improve the performance here?
In addition, how can I customize the checkbox? for example, the background color, etc.

You're using MouseHover event for the Mouse going over the control. Try MouseEnter instead. MouseHover is triggered after the mouse stays over the control for a little bit of time. MouseEnter is instant

Mouse events not fired

I'm making a C# WinForms application. The MouseMove and MouseClick events of the form aren't getting fired for some reason. (I'm probably going to feel like an idiot when I find out why.)
It is a transparent form (TransparencyKey is set to the background colour) with a semi-transparent animated gif in a Picture Box. I am making a screensaver.
Any suggestions?
EDIT:
MainScreensaver.cs
Random randGen = new Random();
public MainScreensaver(Rectangle bounds)
{
InitializeComponent();
this.Bounds = Bounds;
}
private void timer1_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Rectangle screen = Screen.PrimaryScreen.Bounds;
Point position = new Point(randGen.Next(0,screen.Width-this.Width)+screen.Left,randGen.Next(0,screen.Height-this.Height)+screen.Top);
this.Location = position;
}
private void MainScreensaver_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Cursor.Hide();
TopMost = true;
}
private Point mouseLocation;
private void MainScreensaver_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
if (!mouseLocation.IsEmpty)
{
// Terminate if mouse is moved a significant distance
if (Math.Abs(mouseLocation.X - e.X) > 5 ||
Math.Abs(mouseLocation.Y - e.Y) > 5)
Application.Exit();
}
// Update current mouse location
mouseLocation = e.Location;
}
private void MainScreensaver_KeyPress(object sender, KeyPressEventArgs e)
{
Application.Exit();
}
private void MainScreensaver_Deactive(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Application.Exit();
}
private void MainScreensaver_MouseClick(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
Application.Exit();
}
Excerpt from MainScreensaver.Designer.cs InitialiseComponent()
this.MouseClick += new System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventHandler(this.MainScreensaver_MouseClick);
this.MouseMove += new System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventHandler(this.MainScreensaver_MouseMove);

This isn't an answer to you question, but I'm leaving this answer in case anyone else stumbles upon this question while trying to debug this same issue (which is how I got here)
In my case, I had a class that was derived from Form.
I was also using TransparencyKey.
Some things I noticed
The events will not fire on the transparent parts of the form.
The events will not fire if the mouse cursor is over another control on the form.
The events will not fire if you override WndProc and set the result of a WM_NCHITTEST message. Windows doesn't even send out the corresponding mouse messages that would cause the .NET events.
My Solution
In my constructor, I had forgotten to call InitializeComponent().
Which was where the event handlers were being bound to my controls.
Events were not firing because the handlers were not being bound.

Are you sure that your form has focus? If your form does not have focus, the mouse events will not be fired.

Listbox events firing strangely

I'm confused. I am basically trying to tell when the user has clicked something in the listbox, held the button, and left the listbox. Here is a somewhat dumbed down version of what I am doing:
private bool itemHeld;
private void listOriginal_MouseDown(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
itemHeld = true;
}
private void listOriginal_MouseUp(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
itemHeld = false;
}
private void listOriginal_MouseLeave(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (itemHeld)
MessageBox.Show("OHH YEAH");
}
To me that seems like it should turn itemHeld true when you press the mousebutton, turn it false only if you lift it, and display ohh yeah if the value is true. If I break on the mouse down event to check the value, it is true and if I continue from there it displays the message. If I do not break, it does nothing. Is there something else at work here?
Edit:
Brief description: It would be difficult to explain what I am really trying to accomplish but imagine something almost like dragging a file off of a window. I need to simply be able to recognize when the user clicks inside of the listbox and then drags out of the listbox if that makes sense

You can not debug windows events by break point because when the Visual Studio get active to debug, the mouse leave event will be fired for the hovered control.
You can use Debug.WriteLine which writes information about the debug to the trace listeners.
private void button1_MouseLeave(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Debug.WriteLine("Mouse leave");
}
private void button1_MouseEnter(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Debug.WriteLine("Mouse enter");
}
private void button1_MouseHover(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Debug.WriteLine("Mouse hover");
}

what about this?
private void listBox1_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
if (e.X > listBox1.Width - 1 || e.Y > listBox1.Height - 1 || e.X < 0 || e.Y < 0)
{
Console.WriteLine("drag out");
}
else
Console.WriteLine("mouse move {0}/{1}", e.X, e.Y);
}
it uses the fact that the Control is not left before the mousebutton is released ... but be aware that the drag out part will occur more than once so you probably will want to have a flag set the first time ... and have that flag cleared on mouse up or leave

For every mouse click, your MouseDown event will fire AND your MouseUp event will fire, so the sequence of operations is equivalent to
itemHeld = true;
itemHeld = false;
if(itemHeld)
MessageBox.Show("yay");
If you press the mouse button on the listbox and move the cursor out without releasing the button, switching focus to another window (e.g. Visual Studio) is what triggers the MouseLeave event to fire. This is why you're seeing the message box pop up when you're debugging.
I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish, so I can't recommend another solution.