I need to understand how to utilize a ToolTip with a custom UserControl. Just creating the ToolTip on a form and assigning the specific control a ToolTip (via SetToolTip) obviously will not work.
What properties do I need to give the custom UserControl in order to assign ToolTip text to it? Do I need to add a ToolTip on the usercontrol form? How can I go about doing this?
Please provide a code sample or something for me to visualize.
Thank you!
Put a ToolTip on your UserControl (use the designer, just like you would put one on a form), and add a public property to your UserControl like:
public string TextBoxHint
{
get
{
return toolTip1.GetToolTip(textBox1);
}
set
{
toolTip1.SetToolTip(textBox1, value);
}
}
Create SetToolTip method in user control and set tooltip for each user control's subcontrol:
public partial class SomeUserControl : UserControl
{
public void SetToolTip(ToolTip toolTip)
{
string text = toolTip.GetToolTip(this);
toolTip.SetToolTip(subControl1, text);
toolTip.SetToolTip(subControl2, text);
// ...
}
}
Set tooltip text for user control instance in parent control designer. This adds in .designer file:
this.toolTip1.SetToolTip(this.someUserControl1, "Some text.");
Call SetToolTip method of user control instance with ToolTip parent control instance from parent control's constructor:
public partial class ParentForm : Form
{
public ParentForm()
{
InitializeComponent();
someUserControl1.SetToolTip(toolTip1);
}
}
This is the correct way to implement a serialized ToolTip property:
public partial class YourControlClass : UserControl
{
// Serialized property.
private ToolTip toolTip = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolTip();
// Public and designer access to the property.
public string ToolTip
{
get
{
return toolTip.GetToolTip(this);
}
set
{
toolTip.SetToolTip(this, value);
}
}
Related
I am developing a set of custom controls for a specific application. I want to define properties which is universal over the set of controls for appearance purposes, for argument's sake let's make it CustomCtrl.AccentColor
I want to define that same property for my Windows form i.e. Form1.AccentColor and when I change it, all the custom controls' AccentColor should change, exactly like when I change the ForeColor of my form, all labels' and buttons' etc ForeColor changes with it.
Is it at all possible to do this or do I have to settle for the effort of looping through all custom controls and changing it one-by-one?
Short Answer
Since you can have a common base class for all your controls as you mentioned in comments, as an option you can create a base class and then add some properties with behavior like ambient properties (like Font) to the base control class.
Detailed Answer
An ambient property is a property on a control that, if not set, is retrieved from the parent control.
In our implementation, we get the value from parent Form using FindForm method. So in the implementation, when getting the property value, we check if the value equals to default value and if the parent from has the same property, we return the property value of the parent form, otherwise we return the property value of the control itself.
After adding XXXX property, in this scenario we also should implement ShouldSerializeXXXX and ResetXXXX methods to let the designer when serialize the property and how to reset value when you right click on property and choose reset.
MyBaseControl
using System.Drawing;
using System.Windows.Forms;
public class MyBaseControl : Control
{
public MyBaseControl()
{
accentColor = Color.Empty;
}
private Color accentColor;
public Color AccentColor
{
get
{
if (accentColor == Color.Empty && ParentFormHasAccentColor())
return GetParentFormAccentColor();
return accentColor;
}
set
{
if (accentColor != value)
accentColor = value;
}
}
private bool ParentFormHasAccentColor()
{
return this.FindForm() != null &&
this.FindForm().GetType().GetProperty("AccentColor") != null;
}
private Color GetParentFormAccentColor()
{
if (ParentFormHasAccentColor())
return (Color)this.FindForm().GetType()
.GetProperty("AccentColor").GetValue(this.FindForm());
else
return Color.Red;
}
private bool ShouldSerializeAccentColor()
{
return this.AccentColor != GetParentFormAccentColor();
}
private void ResetAccentColor()
{
this.AccentColor = GetParentFormAccentColor();
}
}
MyBaseForm
public class BaseForm : Form
{
[DefaultValue("Red")]
public Color AccentColor { get; set; }
public BaseForm()
{
this.AccentColor = Color.Red;
}
}
Form1
public partial class Form1 : BaseForm
{
public Form1()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
}
i think you can create inherited class from Control class and define your common properties on there then inheriting your custom controls from that class and use parent property to access container (like Form) and get property value from it
I want to access fdtlc.Controls instead of fdtlc.flpFlightList.Controls
public partial class FlightDetailListControl : UserControl
{
public ControlCollection Controls //Error circular control reference has been made
{
get
{
return flpFlightList.Controls; // flpFlightList is a FlowLayoutPanel
}
}
public FlightDetailListControl()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
}
FlightDetailListControl and FlowLayoutPanel are both Controls, so they both already have a ControllCollection named Controls inherited from UserControl. You'll have to pick another name for your property in FlightDetailListControl.
I have a combobox on a usercontrol. I can expose the datasource however I cant expose the actual bindings.
If you add a normal combobox to a form and go to the databindings property you can choose selected value, text etc.
After this is chosen the designer automatically creates a
combobox.databindings.add("SelectedValue", datasource, columname, true));
How can I expose a combobox on a user control so that it has the above behavior
It's probably not considered best practice to expose your controls like this since after all, part of the point of using a UserControl is to hide the details of the child controls.
Try exposing the control on the UserControl as a property:
public partial class UserControl1 : UserControl {
public UserControl1() {
InitializeComponent();
}
[DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Content)]
public ComboBox ComboBox {
get {
return this.comboBox1;
}
}
}
If you are only interested in the control's DataBindings, then try to just expose that information:
public partial class UserControl1 : UserControl {
public UserControl1() {
InitializeComponent();
}
[DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Content)]
public ControlBindingsCollection ComboDataBindings {
get {
return this.comboBox1.DataBindings;
}
}
}
I've been trying for ever to try and figure this out.
Story: I have one MainWindow and 2 User Controls.
When the MainWindow loads One control is visible and the other is not.
Once the user enters their data and settings, I need to make the other form visible.
The form that is invisible at startup needs to be initialized, because it is gathering data from the WMI of the computer it is running on. It is also gathering AD Information in preparation for the user.
For some reason I cannot get one form to show the other.
I think this is what I'm supposed to be looking at:
#region Class Variable
public string ShowSideBar { get { return (String)GetValue(VisibilityProperty); } set { SetValue(VisibilityProperty, value); }}
public DependencyProperty VisibilityProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("ShowSideBar", typeof(string), typeof(UserControl), null);
#endregion
This is set in my MainWindow Class, however, I have no idea why I cannot call it from any other usercontrol.
Is there any way to just expose something like this to all my forms from my MainWindow?
public int RowSpan {
get { return Grid.GetRowSpan(DockPanel1); }
set { Grid.SetRowSpan(DockPanel1,value); }
}
Dependency properties must be static. Why is the type string? Should it not be Visibility if you wish to bind the visibility of the controls to it?
Does it have to be a dependency property? You could just use a regular property as well and implement INotifyPropertyChanged, since you are not binding this field to anything, rather binding other things to it.
For a dependency property, try something like this instead:
public static readonly DependencyProperty SideBarVisibilityProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("SideBarVisibility", typeof(Visibility), typeof(MyTemplatedControl), null);
public Visibility SideBarVisibility
{
get { return (Visibility)GetValue(SideBarVisibilityProperty); }
set { SetValue(SideBarVisibilityProperty, value); }
}
Firstly, this application would benefit from application of the MVVM pattern.
However, without taking that approach, you can still resolve the problem you have. It would be unusual for a user control to rely on knowing what its parent is. The code behind for your main window would be the better place to put this code. (Not as good as a view model... but that's another story.)
Add to the control that should cause the side bar to be made visible an event, ShowSideBar. Attach a handler in the main window, and use the handler to display the second control. No need for dependency properties here at all.
public class MyControl : UserControl
{
...
public event EventHandler ShowSideBar;
// Call this method when you need to show the side bar.
public void OnShowSideBar()
{
var s = this.ShowSideBar;
if (s != null)
{
s(this, EventArgs.Empty);
}
}
}
public class MainWindow : Window
{
public MainWindow()
{
this.InitializeComponent();
this.FirstControl.ShowSideBar += (s, e) =>
{
this.SecondControl.Visibility = Visibility.Visible;
}
}
}
I fixed the initlized Component but changing.
X:Class="AdminTools.MainWindow.ShowSideBar" to x:Class="AdminTools.MainWindow".
now i have an issues where
<Window
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:User="clr-namespace:AdminTools.Controls.User"
xmlns:Custom="clr-namespace:AdminTools.Controls.Custom"
xmlns:Bindings="clr-namespace:AdminTools.Functions"
x:Class="AdminTools.MainWindow"
Title="MainWindow" Height="691.899" Width="1500"
>
<Window.DataContext>
<Bindings:ShowSideBar />
</Window.DataContext>
<Bindings:ShowSideBar /> = ShowSideBar does not exist in the namespace clr-namespace:AdminTools.Functions
ShowSideBar: member names cannot be the same as their enclosing type.
If I have the following control:
public partial class MyControl : UserControl{
public string MyControlText{
get { return MyTextBox.Text; }
set { MyTextBox.Text = value; }
}
public MyControl(){ ... }
}
How can I bind to the "MyControlText" property when I place the control on one of my pages, like so:
<local:MyControl MyControlText={Binding Path=SomeField} />
Thanks!
You need to make the property a dependency property. The documentation for the DependencyProperty class shows you how to do this:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.dependencyproperty.aspx#