Auto-size capability of window form - c#

My window form contains many sub-components including 2 labels. Now I want if 2 these labels are invisible, the window form automatically shrink in order to fit the remaining sub-components. When 2 these labels are visible, the window form automatically grows up in order to contain all components.
I've used the following properties of the window form, but it does not work:
1) AutoSize = true
2) AutoSizeMode = GrowAndShrink
Is it possible for a window form to implement such feature? Otherwise, I have to do it manually??
Thanks

The window will autosize so that all control fits inside the window. If you make the labels invisible they will still be there and stop the window from getting smaller.

if I got your question right you can achieve this with Multiview...take a Multiview from toolbox and add two view in it (from toolbox) in design mode choose Multiview and in properties panel set the active view index on 0 (by default the value is -1)...put the both of the label in which you willing to hide in one view and let the other stay blank...so now in C# you can switch between the views as you please with a command like MultiView.SetActiveView(View1)...as you can see when you use this method basically there is no label when you switch on the blank view so there is no unnecessary white space in your form

Related

Developing multi tab windows

let's say I want to make program settings menu like:
Many tab options that change the layout of the rest of the window
My program is in C# and I'm making it in Visual Studio
I tried to do it 2 ways:
Make the window super large with all possible layouts in the Form designer and then just resizing it to fit one of them at the time but this method works for like 4 tabs when you can fit them all at 1 screen. If it's large you have to work with slide bars and that's really impractical, laggy and for many tabs you even have to search them
Not using Form designer at all and hand write all the declarations, positions, sizes, colors etc. But like this it takes pretty a while even just to set up 1 button and there is no way I can fast see how it looks like
So the question is: Is there a magic way I don't know about to do this? And how is this made professionally?
Simple solution for small number of views
You can use a TextBox and ListView docked in a Panel docked left.
And a ControlTab docked fill in a panel named for example PanelMain docked fill at right with visible at false.
You will create any tabpage as option. In each tabpage you will put a panel docked fill and dedicated content in. On the listview item click event or itemchange, you will set the tabpage panel parent to PanelMain.
The little problem can be about spacing and the code file can be large (regions can be used).
Advanced solution more clean for several views
You can use the standard multipage pattern with one form per option/view, and do the same thing as exposed previously.
You create one form per view and put a panel docked fill embedding controls.
When the user click on the menu, you set the form main panel parent to the option form or the main panel of the options form.
I hope I haven't written too badly in unverified English.
Feel free to open any new question centered on any atomic and code problem on this subject.

how to make a prescrollable tab control so i can add in tons of text boxes without having the form not take up the entire screen

so I have a tab control in my c# program that's going to be getting a lot of information from a user. this is in the form of like 40 checkboxes/textboxes. I'm trying to figure out how in the designer to add a scroll bar ahead of time so I can have the form be a nice 800x500 but allow the user to scroll threw all the boxes and fill them up. idk if this is possible in the designer, or if I need to add them in through code with like a loop or something and then have autoscrollbar on so it works that way. Any ideas?
Open the designer. Select your tab page in the Properties window. Set AutoScroll property to True. Expand AutoScrollMinSize property and enter some value (let say 1000) for Height. Now your tab page should have a vertical scrollbar.

Resize components inside user control while maximiziing

I am using c# and i am creating a simple design where i have a user control and some components inside it like treeviews and buttons. I am trying to fill a treeview with some nodes and drag-drop these nodes to other treeview and use the buttons to also copy nodes from side to another.
The problem i am having is that when i maximize the window containing this user control there is no effect on the inside components.
I have set the Dock property of the user control to Fill.
I have changed the anchor properties of the buttons and treeview inside the user control but the behavior wasn't as expected. For example i have tried to set the anchor property for the right treeview to be Top,Bottom,Left => and the result was a disaster
I have also done a lot of combinations for the anchor property of all the buttons but nothing gave me the right behavior. I just only need to maximize the window form and the controls will be maximized with the same proportion.
It sounds like you want a "3 column" interface where you have a TreeView on either side and Buttons in the middle to allow movement between the two. Assuming this is correct, you can accomplish your automatic resizing by using a TableLayout.
Essentially, it would be like this:
Add a TableLayout and edit the rows/columns such that there is a single row with 3 columns:
The first and last column would be sized at 50% (and would hold your TreeViews).
The middle would be an absolute size of (for example) 120. This would hold your Buttons.
Set the properties of this new TableLayout to Dock -> Fill the form. This will size the entire table to grow with your form.
Add your TreeView controls to the left/right columns and set them to Dock -> Fill the respective columns. Since these columns are dynamically sized, they will grow with the form.
In your middle column, add a Panel and set it to Dock -> Fill. We add a Panel here to hold the multiple Buttons you use for movement. This Panel will not grow in size because the middle column is sized absolutely.
Add your Buttons to the middle Panel.
Without a screenshot, I'm not completely sure what you are trying to achieve but I believe this is along the lines of it. The nice thing about this setup is there is zero code involved.

How do I make multiple controls in a Windows Form automatically resize with the window?

I'm new to Windows Forms in Visual Studio, and I am wondering how to automaticly resize controls to the window size.
Say, I have 2 controls in a panel, a List Box and a Button. I want the button to dock to the bottom, and I want the List Box to fit the rest of the space. when the window resizes, the button should be at the bottom (as expected with docking), and the list box should stretch down to the button.
Is there a way to do this without any code?
Thanks.
Dock is pretty easy to use, but I recommend using the Anchor properties instead. Resize your form to a reasonable size in the Designer. Then, place your controls to look the way you want. Then, decide which controls should resize with the form and set the Anchor property as follows:
If you want the control to resize with the form in width, set the Right anchor.
If you want to resize height, set the Bottom anchor.
If you want the control to stay right when the form resizes, unset the Left anchor.
If you want the control to stay bottom when the form resizes, unset the Top anchor.
The problem I have with Docks is that they sometimes act funny when controls are not declared in a specific order, and to get the effect you want, sometimes you have to create extraneous panels just to hold controls.
It really gets messy when you want to maintain the aspect ratio of each control. One way, which is not really up to the mark if you want to get into fixing the details, is to use TableLayoutPanel and use Dock and Anchor wisely to achieve what you want.
Use the dock and fill options on the controls. Look under properties for each object, and containers if they are in any.
You can use SplitContainer
Google for examples. Here is one
Try setting your ListBox's Dock property to Fill.
You'll need to watch for one thing though: by default the ListBox will size itself to display whole list items. If you resize the control so that it displays a partial item it will adjust itself so it will display a complete item. This can make the control appear to lose its 'Dock'ing behavior. The solution for this is to set the ListBox's IntegralHeight property to false, which specifies that the control not resize itself to fit complete items.

Resizing componenets on a c# form

typically in java if you have a layout manager of somesort, when you resize the page then the components in that panel will resize accordingly. I think my app is missing some sort of layout manager to control resizing as at the moment everything is just static
Is there a way to make it resize on the changing of the form size? say the user makes the page bigger, then the componenets adjust and so on.
Thanks
.NET has layout managers as well.
Personally, I prefer the TableLayoutPanel for my WinForms apps.
Once you layout the Table (using a combination of static/dynamic sized rows/columns) you add your child controls to the table cells. Once you add your controls, you can dock or anchor the controls to the cell so that they are automatically adjusted when the window is re-sized.
Two main options:
Anchoring. Set your control to "anchor" to the sides of your form. This means that if the form resizes, the control will stay a constant distance from that side. So, if you anchor Top, Left and Right, then your control will stay in the same position, but resize horizontally with the width of the form. Play with it. It'll be obvious.
Docking. Set your control to "dock" to a side of the form, or the center. This is usually done with containers, and it will make the widget take up that entire portion of the form no matter how large it gets.
In Windows Forms you make use of the Control.Anchor property, which will cause the control to adjust accordingly when the window resizes.
To do this with windows forms you use the Anchor and Dock properties of the control
See this for a guide on how to use them

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