I have a very specific problem using C# and a Windows MDI Form application. I want to display two (or more) images to the user, a 'left' and a 'right' image. The names of the images are concealed from the user, and then the user selects which image they prefer (this is part of a study involving medical image quality, so the user has to be blinded from possibly relevant capture parameters which might be revealed in the image name). Instead of showing the actual names, substitute names like 'image 0' and 'image 1' (etc) are shown to the user.
Whenever I use the standard MDILayout.TileVertical or TileHorizontal, the images are loaded in reverse order. For example, if I have image 0 and image 1, they are displayed
Image 1 Image 0
Three or more images would be something like
2 1 0
or
3 2
1 0
And so forth. The problem is, my users are confused by this right to leftness, and if I have another dialog box that asks them which image is better (or to rate the displayed images), they always confuse the order of images on the screen with the order of images in the dialog box. That is, if I just order the images 0 1 2 3 etc in a ratings dialog, they assume that image 3 as it's displayed is image 0 in the MDI parent window, image 2 is image 1, etc-- they read left to right, and the images are being displayed right to left. If I reorder the tabs in the ratings dialog box to reflect the order on the screen, that just confuses them further ("Why is image 3 before image 2?") and the results come out in the wrong order, and are generally unusable.
So, how do I force the ordering of displayed windows using MDILayout in C#? Do I have to do it by hand, or is there some switch I can send to the layout manager?
Thanks!
Why are you using an MDI interface? Surely a single window with a TableLayoutPanel or similar providing layout would be more suitable. The only reason you'd want to use a MDI layout is to allow the users to move the windows, which as far as I can tell from your description of the problem isn't desirable anyway?
Another idea would be to put the actual rating mechanism at the bottom of each child window. So the answer is actually attached to the picture on their child windows instead of having the answers in their own area.
Could you avoid this problem by (before displaying the images) you:
Put the image references in a structure (array or similar).
Have a recursive function build a reverse order structure (or reorder the original).
Use the new reversed order structure to build your child windows as before.
It would add one more layer but might solve your problem if no one finds the reverse layout order switch soon enough.
I strongly recommend following Groky's advice and using a single-form interface rather than MDI for this.
If you must use MDI, you need to know that the MDI layout methods use the Z-order of MDI forms to determine where the forms end up. For example, if image 2 is behind image 1, then image 1 will be on the left and image 2 will be on the right. The most logical way to cause this to happen would be to load image 2's form, then image 1's form, then do the MDI layout. You can also use the ActivateMdiChild method to put the forms in a particular order (activating one form puts the other forms behind it).
It's complicated and error-prone, and I strongly recommend having a two-pane interface on a single form instead, but this will work.
Thanks Owen and Groky, but the Single-Form interface is just not going to work. First, I already have the display code in the MDI format, so that rewrite would require a very, very large rewrite of the code. It took me about three weeks to write the basics of the app a while ago; these aren't jpgs I'm showing here, these are DCM images, and each one is a good 30 mb, with a variety of support tools that I haven't seen outside of medical imaging.
Second, some radiologists don't like split screening for image comparison, and others require it. As such, to accommodate both kinds of users, I set this up with tiling, but then the user can maximize images and then switch between them. So, MDI is the right approach for that differing set of tastes; a single interface with a very complicated set of tab controls just sounds like a nightmare compared to an already extant and (for the most part) working system.
However, since I do control the way in which images are displayed, I can force the z-ordering, and then that should work, right? That's the basis of Fred and Owen's answers, if I'm reading them properly. The user enters 'evaluation mode', and then the program loads the images, shows them, and only once the user has entered an evaluation are the images closed. Given that constraint, I can probably enforce a particular z ordering (maybe by looping from length to 0 rather than from 0 to length).
Related
I am working with Visual Studio 2010 ReportViewer WinForms.
I have been unable to figure out how to fix the rectangle height in a report. I've tried using a table within the rectangle, also a table in a sub report that is placed in the rectangle of the main report with no success.
Basically, I am setting up an invoice-type report that must keep its' form and should not be allowed to grow so that elements are pushed onto a second page.
Both rectangle and tables will always grow vertically based on the content. There is no way to really stop this.
There are a couple of properties that might be able to help you get the correct page breaking in place:
KeepTogether indicates whether to keep all sections of the data region together on pane page.
When set on true and the region is to large to fit the page, this will add a page-break before the start of the region to try and fit as much as possible on a single page.
So if you wish for the region to start at the initial location but break afterwards, make sure this is to false.
PageBreak has the parameter BreakLocation which can be used to determine a fixed place to add a page-break. You can set it on Start, End, StartAndEnd or Between.
You could split your report in fixed pages and use these to add standard page-breaks in the desired (fixed) locations.
These properties alone might not be enough to get your desired result. Especially when working with tables it is hard to add a page-break after a fixed amount of rows.
It is hard to give you a detailed description of a possible approach with the amount of information you gave me, but here is some general advice.
You should split your data in the correct intervals before sending the datasource to the reporter. You can for example use grouping to place them in the correct intervals and add page-breaks based on the grouping.
Another solution is to add them in separate containers, this will require you to have enough spare data regions at your disposal. If there are too many you can always hide the empty ones based on an expression set for the Hidden property.
It won't be easy to set this up correctly so that it can dynamically grow. It takes a lot of puzzling from your end but pretty much any layout should be possible to achieve.
I wish I could give you a more specific solution to your problem and am willing to help you further if you give me an example to work with. But ultimately this is something you should be able to achieve on your own.
We are developing an application in C# and WPF, that requires the user to select one or more items in a 2D area using the mouse in order to edit their corresponding properties in text fields below it. I am new to C# and WPF and currently trying to figure out the best way to implement this.
The figure below shows a scetch of what I have in mind. Each circle represents an item of the same type whose properties/values can differ between instances. The user should be able to select a single or multiple items using either Mouse-Click, Mouse-Click+Ctrl, or Mouse-Drag (by selecting an area). Furthermore it would ideal if similarly columns and/or rows could selected by selecting one or more of their numbers/letters.
Furthermore the color of the items should change border-color to signal their selection-status (selected vs. unselected) and fill-color to signal their contained values and make groups of identical items easily identifiable.
The number of shown items (cirlces) needs to scale to at least 400. In the future perhaps 2000 or more, so performance could become an issue. By then the area would likely also have to be zoomable. However at the moment ease of implentation has highest priority.
I am currently reading up on WPF and it seems, that the unified grid along with templating to fill it might be an option. However, I am unsure if the performance will be sufficient(?).
I am hopeful, that someone has already implemented something similar and perhaps could recommend a direction for further investigation. Thanks in advance and best regards.
I am creating a custom control for semiconductor wafermap
Each of those small rectangle need to satisfy following requirements;
1) Tooltip to show the index
2) clickable to include or exclude from the wafermap definition.
no of dies in the wafermap may cross 2 millions in the case of 1400 x 1450 dies.
at certain point i need to show all the dies in a window (most of the clicking will happen in zoomed view).
Currently I am adding each die separately using Rectangle shape and store the coordinate information (index like (10,10)) for the tooltip as an attached property.
I use different style to each die; depending on certain calculation and position of the die.
DieStyle1 = new Style { TargetType = typeof(Rectangle) };
DieStyle1.Setters.Add(new Setter(Shape.FillProperty, Brushes.MediumSlateBlue));
DieStyle1.Setters.Add(new Setter(Shape.StrokeProperty, Brushes.White));
DieStyle1.Setters.Add(new EventSetter(MouseDownEvent, new MouseButtonEventHandler(DieStyle1_MouseDown)));
this approach is slow and use high memory too. so suggest a better way to achieve this in WPF?
In creating a designer for christmas tree lights, I ran into the same problem. Using UIElement or Shapes is way too slow when you get to 100+ items. The best approach to handle a very large number of items entails using double-buffering with your own managed buffer of the image and a structure to handle the clicks. I have posted my project which should give you a good start. It can be obtained at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xlightsdesigner/
You are interested in the Controls\ChannelitemsCanvas.cs. It can be modified to suit your needs and uses a quad-tree to store the rectangles so that click events can be quickly determined.
i will need to print an "x" according to the coordinates given to me from one of the tables in my database. im probably gonig to use c# to connect to mysql.
i will probably have a winform that is 8.5 x 11 inches (The size of a regular sheet of paper) and i will populate the entire thing with labels of "x" and they will be invisible.
each individual table record will have the coordinates of those labels which should NOT be invisible
the form for every record will show and will print. the printing will be on top of a paper that is actually a physical application itself.
the problem:
how to fill out a physical application using data from a mysql database. (dont tell me that i should be printing the entire app from scratch, the reason this is not possible is because the form is actually TRIPLE paper width (white, yellow, and pink copy), so i cannot print the entire app from scratch, i have to print on top of it.
the question: how do i print "x" at specified regions? is my solution the best way to go or is there a smarter approach?
in case you have no idea what i am talking about, here are some related questions:
ms-access: designing a report: printing text on specific x,y coordinates
Conditional formatting in Access
While labels would offer you the ability to make an X show up I don't feel that having a bunch of hidden labels is the best way.
Does the "application" represent some kind of form? Are you looking to "check-off" boxes using x's and then print this?
I may suggest using GDI+ (drawing) vs using labels.
Consider the following:
Locate the coordinates for your boxes. Then use the drawstring method within an overridden onPaint event-handler for your form or for the panel which may represent your form's canvas.
This article talks about GDI+ and how to draw text as graphics.
http://www.functionx.com/vb/gdi+/objects/fonts.htm
There is a program with a long list, from which I would like to take screen shots from. The Problem is, that there are only 14 of about 100 shown. How can I take a screen shot of the entire list?
The one approach that comes to my mind is basically send a PG-Down click to this list, take a new screen shot and merge them together. Are there any easier and quicker solutions for that?
You may grasp the concept from
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/graphics/IECapture.aspx &
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/dialog/windowsnapshot.aspx
and replace the window handle of IE by Custom listClass window