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How to prevent text box from gaining focus unless clicked?

I have a WinForms application that has a TextBox control (search box) at the top of it. This TextBox is constantly receiving focus during normal application use, and it is very distracting.
I would like the TextBox to only receive the focus if the user explicitly clicks on it.
I can think of a couple rather complicated ways to accomplish this:
Change an image of a text box into a text box when clicked
Keep track of mouse clicks and shift the focus away based on mouse state
Is there something simpler that I can do to accomplish this?
Edit to add better description of problem based on new understanding
Based on the answers that I have received, I now have a bit of a better understanding of what was causing this problem. As the user interacted with my application, various actions would cause controls to either be disabled or to completely disappear. If one of these controls happened to have the focus at the time, then the next control in the tab order would receive the focus.
I don't know what was the "next control" before I added the text box in question. The application has hundreds of controls on screen at any given time, and I'm pretty sure that tab order was never intentionally defined. Whatever it was before, it was innocuous. After adding the search text box, it seemed like that control would always end up with the focus.
Here is a very simple example that demonstrates what was happening:
public class Form1 : Form
{
public Form1()
{
var button = new Button
{
Location = new System.Drawing.Point(159, 67),
Size = new System.Drawing.Size(75, 23),
TabIndex = 0,
Text = #"Click me"
};
button.Click += (sender, args) => button.Enabled = false;
var textBox = new TextBox
{
Location = new System.Drawing.Point(159, 142),
Name = "textBox1",
Size = new System.Drawing.Size(174, 20),
TabIndex = 1
};
SuspendLayout();
ClientSize = new System.Drawing.Size(486, 392);
Controls.Add(textBox);
Controls.Add(_button);
ResumeLayout(false);
PerformLayout();
}
}
After starting the application, clicking on the button will force the text box to get the focus, since it is the next in the tab order. As mentioned by Handbag Crab in the accepted answer, this behavior can be avoided by setting TabStop = false on the text box.

textBox1.TabStop = false;
The above should stop it receiving focus from tabbing.

Subclass the TextBox and over WndProc function to capture the focus message and handle it. Maybe something like this:
if (m.Msg == WM_MOUSEACTIVATE) {
m.Result = (IntPtr)MA_NOACTIVATEANDEAT;
return;
}
base.WndProc(ref m);

windows forms can't add more components

I want to build a form that has 100 label and 100 text box
what I did is:
add new form
add panel to that form using drag and drop
change the dock property of that panel to fill
change the AutoScroll property to True
start adding the labels and text boxes using drag and drop
The problem
I added like 40 labels and text boxes but I can't add any more because I can't expand the form nor the label vertically.
Note
I can minimize the size of the panel and a vertical scroll bar appears. (maybe this information helps you to help me).

A data entry window with that many text boxes is going to require scrolling. So set the Panel's AutoScrollMinSize property to, say, (1000, 1000) as a first guess. You'll see the scrollbars appear. They work at design time as well, allowing you to scroll the panel and place the controls. High odds you should be using a DataGridView btw.
Something that needs to be said: the odds that you can get a human to enter 100 data items without any mistake are very close to zero. A very frustrating job for the hapless user, it will take him 10 or more minutes only to arrive at failure. Create a user friendly UI, one that partitions the data entry job in small steps that can be successfully completed. Automatically solves this problem as well.

Set parent form's properties AutoSize and AutoScroll to true. Then disable docking for your panel. This way you can set any size to panel and scroll form contents to add new controls. When panel design is done, set docking to Fill again.
Or you can set position for newly added controls using Properties panel. This will move controls to appropriate position on the panel.

This is a sample method I've used to add an unknown number of controls to a form. The trick is a FlowLayoutPanel.
As has been said before: you don't want 100 manually added controls on your page.
private void AddMappingControls() {
HeaderFlowLayoutPanel.Controls.Clear();
MappingFlowLayoutPanel.Controls.Clear();
Label sourceHeaderLabel = new Label();
sourceHeaderLabel.Text = "Velden in Excel (bron)";
sourceHeaderLabel.Name = "BronLabel";
sourceHeaderLabel.Width = MappingFlowLayoutPanel.Width / 2 - 20;
HeaderFlowLayoutPanel.Controls.Add(sourceHeaderLabel);
Label destinationHeaderLabel = new Label();
destinationHeaderLabel.Text = "Velden in Word sjabloon (bestemming)";
destinationHeaderLabel.Name = "BestemmingLabel";
destinationHeaderLabel.Width = MappingFlowLayoutPanel.Width / 2 - 20;
HeaderFlowLayoutPanel.Controls.Add(destinationHeaderLabel);
foreach (string destination in this.destinationFields) {
ComboBox sourceFieldComboBox = new ComboBox();
sourceFieldComboBox.BindingContext = new System.Windows.Forms.BindingContext();
sourceFieldComboBox.DropDownStyle = ComboBoxStyle.DropDownList;
//sourceFieldComboBox.AutoCompleteMode = AutoCompleteMode.SuggestAppend;
sourceFieldComboBox.Name = destination + "ComboBox";
sourceFieldComboBox.ValueMember = destination;
sourceFieldComboBox.DataSource = this.sourceFields;
sourceFieldComboBox.Width = MappingFlowLayoutPanel.Width / 2 - 20;
MappingFlowLayoutPanel.Controls.Add(sourceFieldComboBox);
Label nameLabel = new Label();
nameLabel.Text = destination;
nameLabel.Name = destination + "Label";
nameLabel.Width = MappingFlowLayoutPanel.Width / 2 - 20;
MappingFlowLayoutPanel.Controls.Add(nameLabel);
}
}

I meant exactly the same as MeanGreen but he was first. I have created sample solution: https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share?s=i9N7raPPQPEjOdHPRn99uE

c# WinForms can you get the NumericUpDown text area

Is it possible to get the text area of a NumericUpDown control? I'm looking to get it's size so that I can mask it with a panel. I don't want the user to be able to edit AND select the text. Is this possible? Or is there another way of covering up the text in the text box?
Thanks.

You can get this by using a Label control instead of the baked-in TextBox control. Add a new class to your project and paste the code shown below. Compile. Drop the new control from the top of the toolbox onto your form.
using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;
class UpDownLabel : NumericUpDown {
private Label mLabel;
private TextBox mBox;
public UpDownLabel() {
mBox = this.Controls[1] as TextBox;
mBox.Enabled = false;
mLabel = new Label();
mLabel.Location = mBox.Location;
mLabel.Size = mBox.Size;
this.Controls.Add(mLabel);
mLabel.BringToFront();
}
protected override void UpdateEditText() {
base.UpdateEditText();
if (mLabel != null) mLabel.Text = mBox.Text;
}
}

If you want do disallow manual editing, you can just set ReadOnly property to true.
updown.ReadOnly = true;
If you want to disallow selecting too (I wonder why you need this), you can use reflection. I don't think there's better way, because the field upDownEdit is internal field of UpDownBase.
FieldInfo editProp = updown.GetType().GetField("upDownEdit", BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
TextBox edit = (TextBox)editProp.GetValue(updown);
edit.Enabled = false;

Set the ReadOnly property to true, that's all.

The 'proper' way to do this is to create an Up-Down control and a Label (the label can't be selected or edited). However, the authors of Windows Forms, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that we don't need the Up-Down control and so they didn't provide a .NET wrapper for one. They decided that the only reason we could ever want an Up-Down control is when paired with a TextBox control.
The Up-Down control is simple enough to create a light wrapper if you want to go this route: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb759880.aspx
Edit 1
[snip]
Edit 2
I blogged about it here: http://tergiver.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/using-the-up-down-control-in-windows-forms/

Multiline text as the button label in Windows Forms

Basically, I am creating a button in an oval shape. But my button label is too long to display in one line, so I wanted to split it into multiple lines so that the oval button looks good.
How do I enable word wrap on a button?

If you want to set a button's label to multi-line text inside the VS designer, you can click on the "down arrow" at the right of the property field and then you are able to enter multiple lines of text.
I tried this in VS 2015.

Set the label text on form load and add Environment.Newline as the newline string, like this:
btnOK.Text = "OK" + Environment.NewLine + "true";

Just add a newline in the text at the place where it should split.

Try to add "\n" to button's Text property in the places you want to wrap.

There are two options:
If you are creating a custom control, then place a label control on it with the Autosize = true option. And adjust its size as per the buttons size.
Add a new line wherever you want (a bit crude).

You can create custom Button with one additional property (say, Label) which converts "\n" occurrence into "real" newline (because VS designer cannot do it already 10 years):
public string Label
{
get { return (string.IsNullOrEmpty(Text) ? Text : Text.Replace("\n", #"\n")); }
set {
Text = (string.IsNullOrEmpty(value) ? value : value.Replace(#"\n", "\n"));
}
}
Once you created such class, your SuperButton will be visible in Toolbox at Project page, so you don't loose visual way of design.

You just need to insert a line break (i.e. \n) in the button text.
Example:
Button1.AutoSize = true;
Button1.Text = "This is \n The Button Text";

Arrange controls in panel in ASP.NET

I want to arrange the controls in a Panel control. For example, I have four labels and four textboxs, I want to put them in a panel like a table without using the VS designer, only use the code. Does anyone do it before?
Best Regards,

C#, and use styles to control layout.
Panel pnl = new Panel();
Label lbl1 = new Label();
lbl1.Text = "1";
pnl.Controls.Add(lbl1);
TextBox tb1 = new TextBox();
pnl.Controls.Add(tb1);
Page.Controls.Add(pnl);
label
{
display: inline;
}

You could essential do the same thing Visual Studio does on the back end. Create a new control and set the properties, such as: size, name, text, and location.

I think that you can simply create a custom control that contains a label and a text box. Let's call this control LabeledTextBox. And then on your code simply add 4 instances of LabeledTextBox one after the other. This should provide the look and feel you want.