catch complex focus in winform app - winforms

I have complex app and I lose focos in some cases. I use one form and dockpanels. I load dynamic elements on form so on start I don't have all elements on form.
The problem is that i can't figure out where the focus is. I have event gotfocus and lostfocus on form.activecontrol but It can't catch moment of lose. Maybe problem is with dockpanels or dynamic elements which are added in some cases. Do you know How to trace every focus chanage in whole app? Is It possible?
Thx

Related

WinForm not refreshing after datagridview row change

I have a Winform that has 2 datagridviews (parent-child relationship) that I fill with data on form load. I then have a textbox that I put a date in and use it to filter the main grid's databindingSource (which appropriately filter the child grid).
Everything was working fine as I developed the form until it seem to not want to refresh the form... portions of the form would simply be white until I actually move the form around on the screen making it repainted. Now that the form is painted I select different rows in the grid with either the mouse or the navigationsource's next/back arrows. The grid again doesn't refresh unless I move the form around the screen again (grab the title bar and move it around).
I have code in the child form's RowPrePaint method which shouldn't affect anything right? That's the only method that could remotely distrupt the form painting.
I'm going to start reversing my steps but I don't think there is anything that's going to make sense.
Does any of this sound familiar?
I believe the problem is that I had conflicting code in the DataGridView_RowsAdded and the DataGridView_RowPrePaint. I've also switched from the DataGridView_RowPrePaint to DataGridView_RowStateChanged as suggested here: RowsAdded Event in DataGridView only firing for first 2 rows
Thanks for the suggestions

Access WPF DataGrid after making element visible

Currently I am stuck with a problem that is simple on the first sight. Its about automated GUI testing.
I want to make a row/cell of a WPF DatGrid completely visible by scrolling using ScrollIntoView(row) and then accessing the row/cell directly after. Unfortunately scrolling in ScrollViewer seems to happen asynchronously. This means I need to wait for the scrolling to finish before accessing the row/cell. For this purpose I found the ScrollChanged event I can subscribe.
There is only one detail I can not solve: If the row/cell I want to access is already visible (and no scrolling is necessary) I do not get that event and the algorithm gets stuck. I was not able to find a reliable way to predict if a call to ScrollIntoView(row) actually scrolls.
Any idea how to solve this?
To make sure layout is updated call UIElement.UpdateLayout after you ScrollIntoView and before you want to use item. Quoting MSDN it
Ensures that all visual child elements of this element are properly updated for layout.

How to make UI elements load without freezing? (WPF)

I have a treeview and a textbox. As I type in the text box it updates the tree view in real time (filtering by what I type and matching against the objects in the tree view).
The problem is it starts freezing a bit as I'm typing in the box. ie. while the treeview is updating the text box freezes. I have put the logic that populates the treeview in another thread hoping this would make it run a bit faster - which it did, but not enough. I believe it is the actual UI updating which is causing the responsiveness to diminish.
What are some ways that I can tackle this problem? Is it possible to have different UI elements (in this case, the treeview and the textbox) handled in different threads - rather than just the logic which is the case now?
Thanks
Your problem is that only one UI thread exists!
A possible solution to your problem is to filter the treeview after a few milliseconds after the user has made ​​a text input.
Another possibility is to make the filtering in a separate task and the result of the Treview reassign.
I hope this helps you with your problem.

A better way of managing a forms state?

I am new to Windows programming, as in my previous work I've mostly been involved with web technologies, and mostly in the backend. I have inherited a Winforms application, and one of my biggest nightmares is navigating through the endless states a form can be in.
To give you an example, a form has the state 'New' and 'Edit' depending on whether the user decided to Add or Edit a record. On this form, we have logic. If this texbox has a certain value, then these other textboxes are disabled, etc. This leads to endless chaining of these rules. So, a textbox's TextChanged event will influence another field. It in turn will fire X event that changes the state of other controls. It quickly devolves into a tangled mess that is impossible to maintain.
There has to be a better way... something simple and elegant that solves this problem. Any suggestions?
What I do is to have a single method called FormatControls(). In this method, I implement all the logic such as myTextbox.Enabled = mycheckBox.Checked and so on.
I call this method from my event handlers in the form, such as on checked changed, etc... I also call it when appropriate (ie, form newly loaded with no data, record loaded from database, etc). This has suited me well for many years now, it makes everything less complex.
You are correct, if you do not have a pattern in use it can turn into a too-complex thing.
You can try to use tha Application.Idle event to perform the enable disable logic and insulate this part from the business logic part.
Depending on what controls you have on your form, you might be able to do away with the separate textboxes and add/delete buttons and replace the whole works with a DataGrid.

Windows Forms Application Performance

My app has many controls on its surface, and more are added dynamically at runtime.
Although i am using tabs to limit the number of controls shown, and double-buffering too, it still flickers and stutters when it has to redraw (resize, maximize, etc).
What are your tips and tricks to improve WinForms app performance?
I know of two things you can do but they don't always apply to all situations.
You're going to get better performance if you're using absolute positioning for each control (myNewlyCreatedButton.Location.X/Y) as opposed to using a flow layout panel or a table layout panel. WinForms has to do a lot less math trying to figure out where controls should be placed.
If there is a single operation in which you're adding/removing/modifying a lot of controls, call "SuspendLayout()" on the container of the affected controls (whether it is a panel or the whole form), and when you're done with your work call "ResumeLayout()" on the same panel. If you don't, the form will have to do a layout pass each and every time you add/remove/modify a control, which cost a lot more time. see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.control.suspendlayout(VS.80).aspx
Although, I'm not sure how these approaches could apply when resizing a window.
Although more general than some of the other tips, here is mine:
When using a large number of "items", try to avoid creating a control for each one of them, rather reuse the controls. For example if you have 10 000 items, each corresponding to a button, it is very easy to (programatically) create a 10 000 buttons and wire up their event handlers, such that when you enter in the event handler, you know exactly which element you must work on. However it is much more efficient if you create, lets say, 500 buttons (because you know that only 500 buttons will be visible on the screen at any one time) and introduce a "mapping layer" between the buttons and the items, which dynamically reassigns the buttons to different items every time the user does something which would result in changing the set of buttons which should be visible (like moving a scrollbar for example).
Although, I'm not sure how these approaches could apply when resizing a window.
Handle the ResizeBegin and ResizeEnd events to call SuspendLayout() and ResumeLayout(). These events are only on the System.Windows.Form class (although I wish they were also on Control).
Are you making good use of SuspendLayout() and ResumeLayout()?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.control.suspendlayout(VS.80).aspx

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