Adding a user control from solution explorer to a winform - c#

I am having trouble drag-dropping user controls into the design view on a winform. I am able to go through the toolbox, create a new tab, and choose items drag drop my control.
I am unable to go in through the design view and drag the control onto the design view. Is design view from solution explorer drag-drop supported? Going through the toolbox is a lot of steps which makes it hard to test. Is the toolbox the only option?

The ToolBox is the only option to drag-drop (custom) controls onto a winform. When you create a seperate assembly for custom controls and reference it in the project where you need the controls VS2010 should automatically add your custom controls (from the referenced project) to the ToolBox. Although the ToolBox behaves "weird" sometimes for unknown reasons.

I don't believe that it is supported.
The control needs to be compiled before it can be used in the form. So dragging from the solution explorer would not be possible.

Related

ToolBox, Windows Form Application

I've created Windows Form Application for Visual Studio 2010 with C# so that I can make the form execute SQL statements from my Database. I've looked through several tutorials and examples and many of them include a toolbox for adding options to the form. I do not have this form about creating or resetting Visual Studio, and I have no Idea where it can be found. At this point my only options are coding each "thing" i want on the form one by one but for time constraints I can't really do this. Can anyone tell me how I can get or find this toolbox of controls?
To open the toolbox, go to View -> Toolbox. Or you can use the Ctrl-W, X shortcut.
You must have a Form to place your controls on. Make sure you add a new Form to your project, then double click on it to view the blank form. Using the toolbox, you can drag and drop new controls onto your form.
Try Ctrl+Alt+X to bring up the Toolbox.
Or go to View menu and select "Toolbox".

Reusing screens created in compact framework?

I've created a screen in compact framework using the form editor, is there a way I can grab this screen or at least some components of it and use them in multiple places in the compact framework app?
Yes, tcarvin is right, just create a user control and then reuse this in your compact framework application as often as you need.
To start right click in VS on the project name in solution explorer:
In the popup menu click Add and then UserControl. Accept or change the file name for the user control and then you are looking at the empty user control:
You can now resize the user control canvas and then place other controls as buttons, labels, textboxes etc. on it:
You can then also enter code for button events etc. In the example one can add code to use openfiledialog to select a file and the filename will then displayed in the textbox.
When you are ready, you have to build your solution to get an updated control list on the left in visual studio. Back to a window form design view, you can then place your usercontrol:
Is that simple?
You can also build a library with user controls and then reuse your controls in every compact framework project where you reference the library.
~josef
It sounds like you need to look at UserControls. They let you create add one or more controls to a surface (the UserControl), and then you can add that UserControl to as many forms in your application as you want.

Left Menu Tabs Control in Windows Forms Application How can i get it? Its available in current controls?

i am building a C# application, i have explored its all controls but i cant find the left menu style which i usually see in software applications for example visual studio, i am attaching the image of what i need.
Please let me know how can i use it in my forms. I have used a tab menu control in visual studio, but it is not what i required, its tabs are vertical, but i want the exact like i shown in attachment. I think it requires some reference to add.
I don't think that control is available, which means you would have to make one yourself. Here is a link from someone that made one. I haven't tried it: Visual Studios "My Project" Tab Control
There is no such a control in the ToolBox by default. But you could create one for you.
Creat a user controller.
Added a SplitContainer and set Dock.Fill.
Add a FlowLayoutPanel to the Left panel. Add buttons or labels as you wish and implement the click event.

Create Visual Studio style Options/Settings Dialog

I am currently in the process of improving my options dialog for a winforms application. At the moment I am using a tab control.
I would like to create a form/dialog for settings that is similar to Visual Studio's. How is this done? I can see a treeview like control on the left hand side but what control are they using to display each of the options pages, it doesn't appear to be a tab control. I would like to be able to build the controls for each of the settings at design time.
Thanks.
They look to me like UserControls. I can't say how exactly they implement it, but it would be simple enough to build a UserControl for each option type and swap out the current control when the tree view selection changes. In your designer you would simply have the TreeView and a parent panel to host the UserControls. At runtime you would perform the swap.

How to put extended WinForms Control on ToolBox

I plan to add functionalities to TextBox with the following:
public class TextBoxExt : TextBox
{
protected override void OnKeyPress(KeyPressEventArgs e)
{
base.OnKeyPress(e);
}
}
The question is how can we use this TextBoxExt? Is there anyway to get this class onto the ToolBox so that we can just drag and drop it onto the form? If not, what is the best way to use the TextBoxExt?
I believe there are a couple of ways to get your control to appear in the toolbox:
The project it's in must be included in your open solution and the project must have been compiled/built into an assembly. This is the route to go if you're working on the control and a project that uses the control at the same time (e.g., building the solution will also re-build the control's project).
You can right-click the toolbox to add new items... in the resulting dialog, you can browse to the assembly containing the control and add it that way (or add it to the GAC, in which case you can pick it right from the list without browsing). This is the route to go if the project containing your control won't be a part of your solution and you're dealing only with the compiled DLL (e.g., building the solution doesn't re-build the control's project).
There is an another simple option to add a control into Toolbox is,
Create a new toolbox tab in the VS Toolbox. Say for e.g. "My Own Control".
Drag the assembly which has your control into the newly created tab and drop it.
You can see your control added in your Toolbox.
Main advantage of this method is, if you have more than a control in your single assembly, you do not need to search in the Add Components dialog and choose them. VS will do it for you and will add all those automatically in Toolbox.
Hope this helps.
Just compile your application - TextBoxExt should then show up in your Toolbox (you'll see it at the top, whenever you have a form designer open), and you can drag it onto your form.
The key here is probably to have a form designer open - otherwise, you won't see your custom user control in the toolbox.

Categories