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.
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Currently I am working on a project in which a combo box determines which panel is shown. This gets very messy since all the panels are on top of each other and it becomes very hard to determine what is what.
I was wondering if there is anything that can help me in Visual Studio 2013 to solve this.
You could use Document Outline window which provides an outline view of elements present on the form.
On the View menu in Visual Studio, click Other Windows, and then click Document Outline. The Document Outline window will open.
There is another link which explains How to: Layer Objects on Windows Forms.
By layering you could manipulate their z-order of control at design view. There is option to change the Order of control either Send To Back or Bring To Front.
MSDN reference also explains how you could manipulate ordering programmatically.
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.
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.
For instance, I have an application that has a main window and then child windows inside of it.
http://screenshots.rd.to/sn/e3hek/sapienfullwindow.png
http://screenshots.rd.to/sn/e3hek/appscreen8.png
What i need is to grab each individual child window of that application, and display them as tabs in my application, or on a panel's handle.
I already have code to kidnap the application and put it into mine, and it works great.
MDI support is already present in the C#. So the first screenshot is using the MDI option.
The second screenshot is using tabbed windows. Now you have two options:
Use this opensource library DockPanelSuite which will let you have tabs in your application. something similar to visual studio interface. You can create forms and then tab it based on your needs. You can even dock them anywhere in the parent form by drag and drop. Just like in visual studio.
The second option is to create a form with tab control covering the whole windows. There you create tabs using the resource editor and hide/show based on the forms you want to display to the end user.
In my opinion, use the first option which gives you lot more customization. Also if you use the dockpanel, you can switch between the views shown in your first screenshot and second one. So user has better control as to how he wants to view. Dockpanel is free to use even in commerical apps and comes with source code. So you can either use the dll or directly incorporate the code in your application.
I need a control in my C# program that behaves exactly the same as MS Expression Blend keyspline control - is there any way to get hold of that control and add it to my application?
As a side note it'd be nice to use some of the other controls that appear in that applications as well
What do you mean by add it to your application? If you're developing a C# WPF application you can already add it using the Blend designer or programatically in Visual Studio.
You can inherit from all the WPF controls to create new ones that enhance the behaviour if needed. If you simply want to customise the feel of a control you can use styles within Expression Blend. If you want to customise the complete look, feel and behaviour of a control you also have the option of templates.
Ok sorry for uing the wrong terminology.
I want to add the control into Visual Studio 2005's toolbox (or indeed Expression Blend's Asset Library) so that I can drag and drop it into any C# WPF applications I create.
The problem is I don't know what the Expression Blend Keyspline control is called and how to get access to it (ie what dll to include as a reference)?
I can try and go through Expression Blend's dll's etc searching for the control but I'm not sure A) that this will work, B) that its a bit long winded, C) what the licensing is for such controls.
I think what you want to do is add a Storyboard, that's where you will then have the option to set the animations including KeySplines for your different controls. A KeySpline by itself is not actually a control it is an animation that acts on a control.
To add a Storyboard click the little plus icon at the top of the "Objects and Timeline" panel (to the right of where is says No Storyboard Open).