choosing to hide or show tooltips based on bool - c#

so I figured I'm making just a stupid mistake here. In the first of what will be many controls, I need to either show a balloon tooltip when a bool is true or not show them when the bool is false. I know that ShowAlways is not what I need to modify and I've tried various solutions already. Does anyone spot the problem? The bool is set by a checked dropdown item in a Help Menu Strip Item.
It will open with the application with the correct display, but as soon as I check that option to show it, it always shows there after.
public void changeBalloonProperties(bool boolSet)
{
ToolTip helpDeskInfoButtonToolTip = new ToolTip();
if (boolSet)
{
helpDeskInfoButtonToolTip.ToolTipTitle = "HelpDesk Information Button";
helpDeskInfoButtonToolTip.UseFading = true;
helpDeskInfoButtonToolTip.UseAnimation = true;
helpDeskInfoButtonToolTip.IsBalloon = true;
helpDeskInfoButtonToolTip.ShowAlways = true;
helpDeskInfoButtonToolTip.AutoPopDelay = 5000;
helpDeskInfoButtonToolTip.InitialDelay = 1000;
helpDeskInfoButtonToolTip.ReshowDelay = 500;
helpDeskInfoButtonToolTip.SetToolTip(helpDeskButton, "Click to launch HelpDesk user info page in default browser.");
}
else
{
helpDeskInfoButtonToolTip.RemoveAll();
}
}

You are creating a new ToolTip instance each time the changeBalloonProperties is called so the code isn't removing the caption associated with the original ToolTip that was used with the helpDeskButton. Try moving the ToolTip declaration outside of your changeBalloonProperties method so the same ToolTip object is used with RemoveAll().
Also note you can use that same ToolTip object to add captions for multiple controls (as shown in the sample here) and it's probably better to set helpDeskInfoButtonToolTip.Active = false to disable them all at once instead of setting and removing the captions (and other properties) each time you toggle.

Related

ToolStripMenuItem strange behavior on visible property [duplicate]

This question already has an answer here:
How to set a ToolStripMenuItem Visible in code?
(1 answer)
Closed 1 year ago.
I have encounter that issue a long time ago and again now. I cannot figure out what special thing had to be done to edit the ToolStripMenuItem control a Visible property while inside a form load.
in designer.cs
private System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem mnuExport;
//
// mnuExport
//
this.mnuExport.Name = "mnuExport";
this.mnuExport.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(116, 22);
this.mnuExport.Text = "Export";
this.mnuExport.Visible = false;
this.mnuExport.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.mnuExport_Click);
in the form code
public partial class MainBuilder : Form
{
private void MainBuilder_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
mnuExport.Visible = true;
}
}
In the code above export is a menu item of type ToolStripMenuItem which trough the property grid in the form design mode I have modified it's Visible property to false. So in the form load I want to switch to the visible state to true. I thought it be easy so I coded all the logic around and it failed. So I decided to remove all my code and simply hardcode the set to true and to my surprise this does not work.
When I put the breakpoint on the line in the form_load I clearly see it's false and if it let the line run the value is still false.
I recall seeing this issue in the past but cannot find anything about it. I also tried with 4-5 other menu item in that window and they all show the same behavior.
EDIT
just tried to put visible = true in the designer.cs instead and in the form_load still tells me the value is false. There is some major issues here.
As mentioned in the comments the property Visible getter does not reflect the actual inner property value until later in the lifecycle. It is still unavailable in the form_loaded event. My main problem is that one menu visibility state was based on if all sub menus are not visible then it should not either. To do so I was iterating on it's child and checking the Visible property. The problem is them having Visible to false due to the way it works the parent set it's own Visible to false as well.
I don't like the solution but that's the only way to make it work
// get all sub menus
var subMenus = mnuExport.DropDownItems.Cast<ToolStripItem>().ToList();
// create a list of bool that will store the visible state I want the controls to have. put them to true by default
var menusVisibleStates = Enumerable.Repeat(true, menus.Count).ToList();
// set the visibility state of each sub menus
for (int i = 0; i < menus.Count; i++)
{
// some logic is here that choose true or false but is irrelevant here
var visibleStateIWant = true;
// set the visible state stored
menusVisibleStates[i] = false;
// set the actual control value that will change later on
menus[i].Visible = false;
}
/// now here I use the state I have specified and NOT the menu object property
mnuExport.Visible = menusVisibleStates.Any(o => o);

C# WinForm TabControl Formatting Issue

When programmatically adding controls to a tab control, I have been using the Form_Load event to create and embed things like datagridviews into my UI. I made a class that inherits from DataGridView
class DBDataGridView : DataGridView
{
public DBDataGridView()
{
DoubleBuffered = true;
AllowUserToAddRows = false;
AllowUserToDeleteRows = false;
AllowUserToResizeRows = false;
AllowUserToOrderColumns = false;
AllowUserToResizeColumns = false;
RowHeadersVisible = false;
AutoSizeColumnsMode = DataGridViewAutoSizeColumnsMode.AllCells;
ReadOnly = true;
Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
SelectionMode = DataGridViewSelectionMode.FullRowSelect;
TabStop = false;
}
}
And I call it later in the Form_Load event like so
private void MainDesignerForm_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
DBDataGridView _DGV = new DBDataGridView();
var listOfOverlays = new List<OverlaySelectionList>()
{
new OverlaySelectionList { Description = "Description 1", PartNumber = "123-R1"},
new OverlaySelectionList { Description = "Description 2", PartNumber = "456-R1"}
};
var overlayList = new BindingList<OverlaySelectionList>(listOfOverlays);
_DGV.DataSource = overlayList;
Tab_Overlay.Controls.Add(_DGV);
_DGV.ClearSelection();
}
This gridview is on the THIRD tab of the TabControl, and everything works as expected except the ClearSelection(). No matter where I call it, it does not clear the initial row selection of the DGV. However, if I fire the same code block from a button ON the third tab, the formatting AND the ClearSelection() behave as expected.
What is causing this behavior?
Thanks to 41686d6564 and Jimi for the insight into the specifics on why this was happening.
Reiterating what they said in the comments: Assignment of properties appear to be cached regardless of whether the control they belong to is active or not (Hence why all the sizing and formatting properties were present at run time). However, actions that require a handle, like ClearSelection() require the control to be shown and active for the intended behavior to be observed.
Setting the selected tab to where the DataGridView before calling ClearSelection() was the solution (Or in my case, I had nested tabs, so I had to follow the tab tree to get to the specific tab that the DataGridView was on)
So now, part of the Load_Form logic is to check WHERE the control is located, make that tab active, THEN format and clear selections for each control that is being added. This allowed ClearSelection() to work as intended.

C# Window From Autoselects Text

I have not dealt with WinForms for a long time.
Now I'm stuck with something trivial but cannot figure it out.
I have a Winform and when a Timer Tick happens I want to show a message in a new form message box:
frmMessage frmM = new frmMessage();
frmM.txtMessage.Text = ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["Message"];
frmM.Show();
It works but the text in the textbox shows as selected(with a blue background).
I tried
txtMessage.SelectionLength = 0;
Did not help.
Also tried to set focus to a different control, did not help either.
for now, as a workaround, I will use a Label.
This is a consequence of the way TextBox Class is implemented. If a selection is not specifically set, all text will be selected when the control gets focus.
From TextBox.OnGotFocus:
Protected override void OnGotFocus(EventArgs e) {
base.OnGotFocus(e);
If (!selectionSet) {
// We get one shot at selecting when we first get focus. If we don't
// do it, we still want to act Like the selection was set.
selectionSet = true;
// If the user didn't provide a selection, force one in.
If (SelectionLength == 0 && Control.MouseButtons == MouseButtons.None) {
SelectAll();
}
}
Additionally due to the way the SelectionLength Property is implemented, setting that property to zero does not set the selectionSet` flag as it is already zero.
Instead, set the TextBox.SelectionStart Property immediately after setting the text as this will set that flag.
txtMessage.SelectionStart = 0;
However, your work-a-round of using a Label to display a message is much more appropriate than using an input control.
This is not the best answer but it works. You can try this
frmMessage frmM = new frmMessage();
frmM.txtMessage.Text = "";
frmM.txtMessage.AppendText(ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["Message"]);
frmM.Show();

"Pin" control over items in ToolstripMenu

First, a little overview of how my current UI looks like:
Note that other than the stuff in the ToolStripControlHost, everything else is standard WinForms.
In short, I want to have something similar to the ToolStripControlHost but I need it "pinned" to the bottom of the menu, mostly so that when there is a lot of items, it is not scrolled like the rest of the menu items.
After some searching around I came to the conclusion that maybe customizing painting might be the solution, don't know if this is the case though.
Here's some sample code, but I'm not sure how useful it is:
public ToolStripDropDownButtonContainer(ToolStripDropDownButton button)
{
this.UIControl = button.GetCurrentParent();
this.Button = button;
if (this.Button.Tag == null)
{
this.Button.Tag = true;
this.Button.DropDownDirection = ToolStripDropDownDirection.AboveLeft;
ToolStripDropDownMenu menu = (ToolStripDropDownMenu)this.Button.DropDown;
menu.SuspendLayout();
try
{
menu.BackColor = Color.White;
menu.ShowImageMargin = false;
menu.ShowCheckMargin = false;
menu.AutoSize = true;
menu.Margin = Padding.Empty;
menu.Padding = Padding.Empty;
menu.GripMargin = Padding.Empty;
menu.GripStyle = ToolStripGripStyle.Hidden;
menu.MinimumSize = new Size(310, 0);
menu.MaximumSize = menu.MinimumSize;
// TODO pin panel (or some control) to the bottom-side of the menu
}
finally
{
menu.ResumeLayout();
}
}
}
My solution to this problem is to completely avoid using the normal menu control containment system and instead have the menu show one FlowLayoutPanel which instead contains my menu items.
This involved having to add some various trickeries to get the panel to behave nicely with the UI. The added advantage of this approach is more flexibility and control over the system.
On the downside, I noticed a degrade in performance when I have a tonne of sub-items, but I'll investigate this separately.

How to scroll in a fixed-size ToolStripDropDown

I am using a ToolStripDropDown control to implement the dropdown portion of a custom ComboBox-like control. In order to be visually appealing, I am imposing a MaximumSize on the dropdown and manually specifying the width of each ToolStripButton within it - the result is a popup which is the same width as the control that activates it, with a cap on the height of the height of the dropdown portion.
Example (simplified):
ToolStripDropDown dropDown = new ToolStripDropDown();
dropDown.MaximumSize = new Size(200, 100);
dropDown.RenderMode = ToolStripRenderMode.System;
dropDown.AutoSize = true;
for (int i = 0; i < 50; i++) {
ToolStripButton dropDownItem = (ToolStripButton)dropDown.Items.Add("Item " + i);
dropDownItem.AutoSize = false;
dropDownItem.Size = new Size(200, 20);
}
dropDown.Show(owningControl, new Point(0, owningControl.Height - 1));
As you can see, the constraints on the popup's size are applied, however the up/down scroll buttons are not displayed and there seems to be no way to make them appear. There do not appear to be any methods or properties within ToolStripDropDown regarding the scrolling offset or a mechanism to scroll a particular item into view (such as EnsureVisible() on ListViewItem).
How, then, can I get the dropdown to scroll? Any method would be sufficient, be it a scroll bar, scroll buttons or even the mouse-wheel.
(Incidentally, I have tried many times to make similar controls using a Form for the dropdown portion - despite trying dozens of solutions to prevent the popup from stealing focus or gaining focus when its controls are clicked, this seems to be a dead end. I have also ruled out using ToolStripControlHost, whose hosted control can still take focus away from the form that opened it.)
Finally cracked this one. It occurred to me that ContextMenuStrip and ToolStripDropDownMenu are capable of the auto-scrolling behaviour which their base class, ToolStripDropDown, cannot provide. Initially, I avoided these alternative controls because they usually add a wide margin. This can be removed via ShowImageMargin and ShowCheckMargin. Even after doing this, a small (approx 5px) margin remains. This can be removed by overriding the DefaultPadding property:
public class MyDropDown : ToolStripDropDownMenu {
protected override Padding DefaultPadding {
get { return Padding.Empty; }
}
public MyDropDown() {
ShowImageMargin = ShowCheckMargin = false;
RenderMode = ToolStripRenderMode.System;
MaximumSize = new Size(200, 150);
}
}
// adding items and calling Show() remains the same as in the question
This results in a popup window which can contain any type of ToolStrip item, enforces MaximumSize, has no margin and, most importantly, does not steal focus and cannot receive focus.
This is your nemesis:
internal virtual bool RequiresScrollButtons
{
get
{
return false;
}
set
{
}
}
It is internal, you cannot override it. You can revive your approach of using a Form by fixing the focus stealing behavior. Paste this into the form class:
protected override bool ShowWithoutActivation
{
get { return true; }
}

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