Let me start from a simple example to reproduce my problem:
Create WinForms project.
Drop a ToolStrip on it.
Make a ToolstripDropdownButton in it (with no children).
Add a click event-handler to the button, with something like this:
MessageBox.Show("text", "Caption");
(the point is to make the main form loose it's focus).
To make the problem more obvious, let's make a few unnecessary additions:
Set RenderMode of our ToolStip to ManagerRenderMode.
Set it's Autosize to false and make it a lil bigger.
And that's should be enough to reproduce it. Run the app and click the Button. You'll get the popup. Close the popup and voila ... the button now looks like someone is holding it pressed.
Any ideas on how to reset it to it's default state?
I've tried to call Buttons ResetBackColor, Refresh ... also as ToolStrips. Doesn't seem to work. Maybe I'm missing something?
The MessageBox or a modal form will interfere with that. The drop down is expecting children menu items.
Sample work around:
private void toolStripDropDownButton1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
this.BeginInvoke(new Action(() => MessageBox.Show("Help")));
}
General description of application:
Main form as MDI Container. On application start, if there is no xml file for database configuration (it is checked in Main form) Main form i call another form as showdialog() to fill all database info to build connection string. Then i close form and open another for login, then i get back to Main form, which has Split Container (2 panels: 1-menu on top, 2-content from child forms).
I open forms with:
private void PlanButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
plan.TopLevel = false;
KontenerMenu.Panel2.Controls.Add(plan);
plan.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
plan.Show();
}
and close form with:
private void Plan_FormClosing(object sender, FormClosingEventArgs e)
{
e.Cancel = false;
this.Hide();
}
Problems i have with app:
1. When i hit Cancel button when i open ShowDialog() form for database app crashes. Cancel button is simply:
private void cancelButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Application.Exit();
}
2. I have problem with clicking button to open/close/open again child forms. When i hit 'X' and want o open, app crashes with exception that it cannot refer to non-existing object
3. I have several buttons when i hit one and then another one it is always below the first one and not on the top
4. For example my form is 200x200 and in right down corner i have button (so location let's say 190x190) and i hit maximize button. My button is still on 190x190 and i would like to have it on down right corner. I couldn't find any property for that. Is there any or i have to write some code for that.
I'm not sure I understood your questions. Please make them clear.
But as an answer to question #4, there's an anchor property that does what you want.
Instead of trying to exit the application from within the dialog form itself you should return a DialogResult value and test that in the main form. The cancel button on the dialog doesn't need any code, just set its DialogResult property to 'Cancel' and if you have an Ok button set its DialogResult to 'OK'.
DialogForm f = new DialogForm();
DialogResult r = f.ShowDialog();
if (r == DialogResult.Cancel)
{
Close();
}
I can immediately see a number of problems with you code, including:
If you're going to add controls dynamically using Controls.Add, you should make sure the controls you're adding are dynamically created using new(). I get a sense that you don't have a clear understanding of object lifetimes and the WindowForms control life cycle.
The Application.Exit method should be used only in unusual cases. It's purpose is to achieve exactly the result you're observing - to immediately "crash" the application. The easiest way to have a button close a modal dialog is the set the DialogResult property of the button.
Winforms has a very elegant system for placement of control on a variable sized window. In order to use this system, you should familiarize yourself with the Anchor and Dock properties that are available on all controls.
It looks like what you're doing is attempting to learn WinForms by trial and error. You can do this, but it will take much longer and be much more painful that getting a hold of a good tutorial, book, or perhaps even attending a class if you can manage it. That will allow you to take these issues one at a time and have a much more enjoyable learning experience.
I two forms, Form1, and a UserControl which hosts Form2. Within that UserControl on Form1 I call Form2.Show();. I have also tried Form2.Show(this);. Either way, the focus is not given to the form. I have to click once within the new form to give it focus, and then I can click items within that form.
I figured that control is passing back to my main control/form, and thus the focus is getting lost. So I am waiting until Form2 is closed via:
while (form2.Visible == true)
{
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(100);
Application.DoEvents();
}
This seems to work. However after I close the form, now the reverse holds true. Form1 is not given focus (even if I call this.Focus()) until I click once within the main form window.
Any ideas how to handle this properly. I want to show a child form (modeless) and immediatley be able to click on it, and when that form is closed, immediately be able to take action back on the parent form.
You should probably use .ShowDialog(), this can also be extended to give your response on if the user performed Form2's operation properly or aborted early.
This does make the form locked in focus up front and will halt your code execution on the first form till that form is closed.
use this.Activate(); in place of this.Focus();
Not sure I follow completely, but from your UC try opening Form2 like this:
form2.Show(Parent);
This should specify the UC's Parent form as form2's owner.
This came from the fact that I was overriding WndProc in order to display the form. When I received the CBN_DROPDOWN message, I would display the form. I fixed this by instead Invoke'ing the method that shows the form and it fixed it.
case CBN_DROPDOWN:
Invoke(new MethodInvoker(Show_DropDown));
return;
On my main form, there is another (floatable) window. This floatable window works sort of like a popupwindow in that it will close when the user clicks somewhere else outside of this window. This is handled by the Deactivate event. But what I want to do is, if the user clicks on a different control (say a button), I want to both close this float window and then activate that button with just one click. Currently, the user has to click twice (one to deactivate the window and once more to activate the desired button). Is there a way to do this with just one click?
foreach(Control c in parentForm.Controls)
{
c.Click += delegate(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if(floatyWindow != null && floatyWindow.IsFloating)
{
floatyWindow.Close();
}
};
}
And then add your handlers as normal. This additional handler can close the floaty window.
Make sure you floaty window isn't a dialog too as this will not allow your parent form's controls to be clicked.
I had a slightly hacky solution. In your Deactivate event, fire another custom event to your main form. Then when you main form is handling the custom event, enumerate through your control(this.Controls) and locate the control under the mouse by checking all their bound then call Focus(). You might need to sort by the one with the smallest surface area, or you can have a separate list of "focus-able" control like button just for this purpose.
Another way might be to switch focus to your main form immediately after OnMouseLeave of the floatable window, or OnMouseHover of your main window, but keep the floatable windows on top, just no focus. Handle the global mouse down of your main form, and close the floatable window by then.
These are just theories, not tested.
I had an issue like this once too, when a customer wanted "floaty" windows all over there application. I used used an approach similar to the one described in this article:
http://www.vbaccelerator.com/home/NET/Code/Controls/Popup_Windows/Popup_Windows/article.asp
Code sample available here:
http://www.vbaccelerator.com/home/NET/Code/Controls/Popup_Windows/Popup_Windows/Popup_Form_Demonstration.asp
By extending this a bit we created "floaty" windows similar to the ones VS uses when you get a runtime error while debugging code.
At the very least reading the code may give you some insight, however, quarrelsome's response may be the more simple solution.
Rep steps:
create example .NET form application
put a TextBox on the form
wire a function up to the TextBox's Enter event
When you run this application, the Control.Enter event fires when focus first goes to the TextBox. However, if you click away into another application and then click back into the test application, the event will not fire again.
So moving between applications does not trigger Enter/Leave.
Is there another alternative Control-level event that I can use, which will fire in this scenario?
Ordinarily, I would use Form.Activated. Unfortunately, that is troublesome here because my component is hosted by a docking system that can undock my component into a new Form without notifying me.
What are you trying to do in the Enter event?
I can't find another control-level event that fires in your example program but when my test app does regain focus, the control that last had focus still has it.
Interesting question but it needs a little more context.
If I try your example and click outside the control on another window, desktop, etc, I can get the Got and Lost Focus events to fire, but if you're only trying to click within a form or a control with only 1 control, these event will never be fired because it is the only thing to focus on. Neither will Entered or left, unless you change the dynamics or overload the controls, you cannot get this to happen
In your example, I think you need another control. The reason being is that the first control (tabIndex 0) is the one with focus. With no other control to switch focus to, this control will always be focused, and therefore can never be entered. Switching to another application or form will not change the focus or active control in this form so when you return you will still not get the event fired.
With added controls control.entered should work fine. If this is your only control, why not call the event on formLoad, or TextChanged, when the form gets focus?
Thanks, I'll give some background.
My control is a UserControl that contains a grid and a toolbar. A user will typically launch several of these controls to view different slices of the system's data.
There are several keyboards shortcuts that can launch actions from the selected row in the current grid. However, it is a requirement that these keyboard shortcuts should apply not only to the currently focused grid. If the user is currently focused on one of the many other areas of the application, then this keyboard shortcut should still work, and it should be routed to the last focused grid.
So I wired a function to the Control.Enter event of my UserControl to basically say LastFocusedGrid = this.
And it would work, except for the docking and undocking...
See, these controls are hosted inside an application with docking features, somewhat similar to visual studio.
By default, the control launches as a tab within the main working area of the application, similar to the way a source file opens in visual studio.
However, the user can "rip out" a tab by grabbing the tab header and dragging it out of the main application. At this point, the application creates a new "float form" to host the control. Switching between the main application and this float form is the same as switching between apps, for the purposes of the Control.Enter and Form.Activated events.
At that point we have the "one control within a form" scenario simulated with the example application described in the original post.
Now, there are some ways around this. I could leverage the Form.Activated event, which DOES fire when switching between forms. If you add an event in the test application to the Form's Activated event, you will see that it works great.
The problem is that my UserControl's relationship with its parent Form is fluid, making the solution somewhat complicated. I tried wiring up to "this.ParentForm.Activated" which worked okay. The problem is when do you call this? What happens when you are undocked/redocked? I ended up with a nasty bunch of code with things like "previousParentForm" so that I could unhook from the old form, and then I was still facing the problem that the docking system doesn't notify me when my parent Form is being changed, so I was going to have to make a bunch of changes there, too.
These problems are not unsolvable, but if there is a simpler control-level "parent form was activated" event, then that would be a lot more elegant.
That's rather long, but I hope it clarifies the situation.
So when creating your grid, can you not set the KeyPressed, or KeyUp, etc. event? If so, all the grids can make use of the same event handler. Just make sure that when you get into the event handler to do something like:
Grid currentGrid = (Grid)sender;
Then you should be able to apply that block of code to any grid that gets sent in without having to worry about keeping track.
Since all the event handler really is, it's location is a mute point really as long as everything you need to execute it is accessible.
Frye, the problem is that the keyboard shortcuts should work no matter where the user is in the application. They are gloabl commands, handled at the top level, and then routed to the "last focused grid."
So handling the keystrokes at the grid level will not help.
To be more specific, assume user launches grids A, B, and C. But he also launches other controls X, Y, and Z that have nothing to do with my code.
User clicks on A, then on C. Then he clicks on Y, then on Z. With focus on Z, he hits my keyboard shortcut. In this case, grid C should respond since it was the last grid the user was focused in.
It sounds like the issue that you're having is not directly related to the Enter event and more to the point, if you have controls "that have nothing to do with your code" then you really aren't looking at a control level event.
Guess I wasn't clear.
My control lives in a container application. So do other unrelated controls by other teams. Think of it like visual studio -- my control is the code editing tab, but there is also the pending changes list and the properties window, which cohabitate with the source files but aren't directly related.
The keyboard shortcut is handled by the container application. Then it should be routed to the last one of my controls that the user was focused on.
Maintaing this "LastFocusedGrid" reference is what I do in the Enter event.
If you want to see similar functionality at work in visual studio, try this:
open a few source files
navigate to the "Start Page" tab.
Hit Ctrl-F and search "current document" for some string
Notice that the serach feature auto-navigates to the LAST FOCUSED source file to perform the search.
So even though you weren't focused in the source file, the ctrl-F command was processed by visual studio and routed to the last focused source file tab.
Now try the same thing with Ctrl-G. It doesn't work unless you are focused directly in the source file.
My keyboard commands need to work like Ctrl-F here, not like Ctrl-G. That is why I don't just capture the keyboard events directly in my control.
Does that clarify or make things worse?
Have you tried just a simple Control.GotFocus?
in this example if you toggle between clicking the textboxes neither the enter or got focus will do as expected, however if you click the child forms instead both will behave as expected.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Windows.Forms;
namespace EnterBrokenExample
{
static class Program
{
/// <summary>
/// The main entry point for the application.
/// </summary>
[STAThread]
static void Main()
{
Application.EnableVisualStyles();
Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
Form Form1 = new Form();
Form c1 = new Form();
Form c2 = new Form();
Form1.IsMdiContainer = true;
c1.MdiParent = Form1;
c2.MdiParent = Form1;
c1.Show();
c2.Show();
TextBox tb1 = new TextBox();
c1.Controls.Add(tb1);
tb1.Enter += ontbenter;
tb1.Text = "Some Text";
tb1.GotFocus += ongotfocus;
TextBox tb2 = new TextBox();
c2.Controls.Add(tb2);
tb2.Enter += ontbenter;
tb2.Text = "some other text";
tb2.GotFocus += ongotfocus;
Application.Run(Form1);
}
static void ontbenter(object sender, EventArgs args)
{
if (!(sender is TextBox))
return;
TextBox s = (TextBox)sender;
s.SelectAll();
}
static void ongotfocus(object sender, EventArgs args)
{
if (!(sender is TextBox))
return;
TextBox s = (TextBox)sender;
s.SelectAll();
}
}
}