How do i make a picturebox selectable? - winforms

I am making a very basic map editor. I'm halfway through it and one problem i hit is how to delete an object.
I would like to press delete but there appears to be no keydown event for pictureboxes and it will seem like i will have it only on my listbox.
What is the best solution for deleting an object in my editor?

You'll want the PictureBox to participate in the tabbing order and show that it has the focus. That takes a bit of minor surgery. 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. Implement the KeyDown event.
using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Windows.Forms;
class SelectablePictureBox : PictureBox {
public SelectablePictureBox() {
this.SetStyle(ControlStyles.Selectable, true);
this.TabStop = true;
}
protected override void OnMouseDown(MouseEventArgs e) {
this.Focus();
base.OnMouseDown(e);
}
protected override void OnEnter(EventArgs e) {
this.Invalidate();
base.OnEnter(e);
}
protected override void OnLeave(EventArgs e) {
this.Invalidate();
base.OnLeave(e);
}
protected override void OnPaint(PaintEventArgs pe) {
base.OnPaint(pe);
if (this.Focused) {
var rc = this.ClientRectangle;
rc.Inflate(-2, -2);
ControlPaint.DrawFocusRectangle(pe.Graphics, rc);
}
}
}

i think this is the best methode:
http://felix.pastebin.com/Q0YbMt22

... 8 years after ...
An alternative to Hans Passant's code, which doesn't require you to create a new class just so your PictureBox is in the tab order, is to set TabStop to true, and call SetStyle() directly on the PictureBox, optimally after InitializeComponent() is called.
TabStop is public, so it's easily set, but SetStyle() is protected, so reflection comes to the rescue!
myPictureBox.TabStop = true;
typeof(PictureBox)
.GetMethod("SetStyle", BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic)
.Invoke(myPictureBox, new object[] { ControlStyles.Selectable, true });
This of course, doesn't do anything like getting the focus when the PictureBox is clicked, so you have to do that in its various events as you see fit.

Related

(WPF) Does .Close() method releases the window instance?

I'm creating a new window in On_Click method. First I tried this;
public partial class MainWindow : Window
{
CustomerOperations customerOperationsWindow;
public MainWindow()
{
customerOperationsWindow = new CustomerOperations();
InitializeComponent();
}
private void btnCustomer_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
customerOperationsWindow.Owner = this;
customerOperationsWindow.Show();
}
}
It's not working so I started creating the window instance every time the user clicks on the Customers button. And I used the following codes.
private void btnCustomer_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
CustomerOperations customerOperationsWindow = new CustomerOperations();
customerOperationsWindow.Owner = this;
customerOperationsWindow.Show();
}
In the new window, If user clicks to Main button, I want to navigate to main window.
private void btnMain_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
this.Close();
this.Owner.Show();
}
First question: Does this.Close() releases the window instance?
Second question: Is this usage correct?
What do you think is the best practice?
Thank you all.
Window.Close() will dispose all resources allocated by the instance. That's why you cannot show it again once it was closed.
If you want to reuse the same Window instance, you should cancel the closing procedure to prevent disposal of internal resources and collapse the Window instead (by setting Window.Visibility to Visibility.Collapsed - Visibility.Collapsed is also the default value of an instantiated Window before Window.Show() is called).
Alternatively hide the Window by calling Window.Hide() (which will set the Visibility to Visibility.Hidden) instead of Window.Close().
Calling Window.Show will also set the window's visibility to Visibility.Visible.
As a matter of fact, showing a Window by setting Window.Visibility is the asynchronous version of Window.Show().
Generally, you switch between Window instances by using the Window.Activate method. Calling Window.Show on a Window that is currently showing/visible, does nothing.
public partial class MainWindow : Window
{
CustomerOperations CustomerOperationsWindow { get; }
public MainWindow()
{
InitializeComponent();
this.CustomerOperationsWindow = new CustomerOperations();
// Consider to move this logic to CustomerOperations class,
// where you can override the OnClosing method instead of subscribing to the event
this.CustomerOperationsWindow.Closing += CollapseWindow_OnClosing;
}
// Cancel close to prevent disposal and collapse Window instead
private void CollapseWindow_OnClosing(object sender, CancelEventArgs e)
{
e.Cancel = true;
this.CustomerOperationsWindow.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed;
this.CustomerOperationsWindow.Owner.Activate();
}
private void btnCustomer_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
this.CustomerOperationsWindow.Owner = this;
// Calling Show will set the Visibility to Visibility.Visible
this.CustomerOperationsWindow.Show();
}
}
Creating a Window instance allocates unmanaged resources. If this happens very frequently, you will keep the garbage collector busy. From a performance point of view you may want to avoid it and prefer to reuse the same instance.
In a common scenario this is not necessary. But since Window exposes a Hide() method, you may consider to use it instead of Close().
If you want to switch to the parent window, you can use the code this.Owner.Activate(); and if you want to close the current window, first this.Owner.Activate(); and then this.Close();.
When you enter this.Close(), the compiler does not execute the following lines after reaching it. And when a sample window still exists there is no need to recreate it
private void btnMain_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
this.Owner.Activate();
this.Close();
}

Controlling the priority of children's handlers for the same keyboard event

I have multiple children of the same WinForms form, each with its own handler for a keyboard event. For a minimal example (C#):
public Form1() {
InitializeComponent();
c1 = new Control();
c2 = new Control();
c1.KeyPress += c1_KeyPress;
c2.KeyPress += c2_KeyPress;
Controls.Add(c1);
Controls.Add(c2);
}
void c1_KeyPress(object sender, KeyPressEventArgs e) {
Text += " c1";
e.Handled = true;
}
void c2_KeyPress(object sender, KeyPressEventArgs e) {
Text += " c2";
e.Handled = true;
}
When the event fires, it always gets handled by whichever child was originally added to the form first. Reordering the children with c2.BringToFront() or Controls.SetChildIndex(c2, 0) doesn't change the priority. Reordering the constructions or the delegate assignments doesn't change anything either. Calling c2.Focus() doesn't either. Changing the order of the Add calls is the only thing that seems to affect it.
(By contrast, for mouse events the priority gets resolved in an expected way: the topmost control under the pointer hotspot gets dibs on the event, and "topmost" is a clear concept I can control using BringToFront and friends.)
In my real case, c1 is a simple custom control derived from WinForms.UserControl, and c2 is a CefSharp.WinForms.ChromiumWebBrowser. There the keyboard events are caught by c2 no matter what I do.
What decides this priority of handlers? How can I change it?
There is no "priority", keyboard events are raised on the control that has the focus. Intuitively simple to understand, entering text in a TextBox requires selecting it first. A very significant flaw in the posted snippet is that you cannot tell which one has the focus. Although the Control class is usable as-is, in practice you almost always need to derive your own class from it to give it desirable behavior.
Add a new class to your project and paste the code shown below. Replace new Control() with new MyControl(). Now you can tell.
using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;
class MyControl : Control {
protected override void OnEnter(EventArgs e) {
this.Invalidate();
base.OnEnter(e);
}
protected override void OnLeave(EventArgs e) {
this.Invalidate();
base.OnLeave(e);
}
protected override void OnPaint(PaintEventArgs e) {
if (this.Focused) {
ControlPaint.DrawFocusRectangle(e.Graphics, this.DisplayRectangle);
}
base.OnPaint(e);
}
}

Custom Mark-up Extensions return RoutedEvents

I'm trying to create a generalized event for my Close buttons, where they have to close the window but before that set focus to the owner window. I don't want to have an event for every file for that, because that'd be pretty unpractical since I have 30+ windows in my application. (So if I wanted to change that behavior, i'd have to change on 30 files everytime)
I'm not sure if that's the correct approach, but I tried making a MarkUp Extension which returns a delegate(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) Here is the code:
delegate void RoutedDelegate(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e);
[MarkupExtensionReturnType(typeof(RoutedEvent))]
public class CloseWindowExtension : MarkupExtension
{
Window win = null;
public Window Win
{
get { return this.win; }
set { this.win = value; }
}
public CloseWindowExtension(Window win)
: base()
{
this.win = win;
}
public override object ProvideValue(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
{
if (win == null)
{
throw new InvalidOperationException("The window must be specified!");
}
return new RoutedDelegate(delegate(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
Extensions.FocusClose(win);
});
}
}
The FocusClose method gets a window, closes it, but sets focus to its owner before. But I can't make it work. When i set my button in the xaml,
Button Click="{e:CloseWindow {Binding win}}"
(win is my Window name), I get the error message:
Click="{e:CloseWindow {Binding win}}" is not valid. '{e:CloseWindow {Binding win}}' is not a valid event handler method name. Only instance methods on the generated or code-behind class are valid. Line 28 Position 17.
Am I doing something wrong? Is this the best approach or do I have another options?
Thanks in advance!
Clark
You can't use a markup extension to set an event handler. Instead, you can use an attached behavior, which allows you to bind a command to an event.
See this article by Marlon Grech for details
.NET 4.5+ supports markup extensions for events, so you can implement what you wanted now :)

WPF Listview modification

For a very specific reason I want to select ListViewItems on mouse button up, not actually on mouse button down. I want this behaviour to be embedded in the control. Is it possible to achieve this? can anyone give hint?
Yes it's definitely possible using attached properties. Define an attached property called SelectOnMouseUp and when it's set to true, hook to your ItemsContainerGenerator events to discover when a new item container is added. Then when you get an event for a new item container, hook into its PreviewMouseDown and ignore it (set e.Handled to true), and hook into its MouseUp event and perform the selection (set IsSelected to true).
Aviad P.'s answer is a good one and a clever use of attached properties, but I tend to use a different technique most of the time:
Subclass ListViewItem.
Override OnMouseLeftButtonDown and OnMouseRightButton to do nothing.
Override OnMouseLeftButtonUp / OnMouseRightButtonUp to call base.OnMouseLeftButtonDown / base.OnMouseRightButtonDown.
Subclass ListView.
Override GetContainerForItemOverride() to return your ListViewItem override
This seems easier to me than subscribing to ItemContainer events and adding handlers dynamically.
This is what it looks like:
public class MouseUpListViewItem : ListViewItem
{
protected override void OnMouseLeftButtonDown(MouseButtonEventArgs e) {}
protected override void OnMouseRightButtonDown(MouseButtonEventArgs e) {}
protected override void OnMouseLeftButtonUp(MouseButtonEventArgs e)
{
base.OnMouseLeftButtonDown(e);
}
protected override void OnMouseRightButtonUp(MouseButtonEventArgs e)
{
base.OnMouseRightButtonDown(e);
}
}
public class MouseUpListView : ListView
{
protected override DependencyObject GetContainerForItemOverride()
{
return new MouseUpListViewItem();
}
}
I like this technique because there is less code involved.

How can I toggle the main menu visibility using the Alt key in WPF?

I'd like the main menu in my WPF app to behave like the main menu in IE8:
it's not visible when the app starts
pressing and releasing Alt makes it visible
pressing and releasing Alt again makes it invisible again
repeat until bored
How can I do this? Does it have to be code?
Added in response to answers submitted, because I'm still having trouble:
My Shell code-behind now looks like this:
public partial class Shell : Window
{
public static readonly DependencyProperty IsMainMenuVisibleProperty;
static Shell()
{
FrameworkPropertyMetadata metadata = new FrameworkPropertyMetadata();
metadata.DefaultValue = false;
IsMainMenuVisibleProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
"IsMainMenuVisible", typeof(bool), typeof(Shell), metadata);
}
public Shell()
{
InitializeComponent();
this.PreviewKeyUp += new KeyEventHandler(Shell_PreviewKeyUp);
}
void Shell_PreviewKeyUp(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
if (e.SystemKey == Key.LeftAlt || e.SystemKey == Key.RightAlt)
{
if (IsMainMenuVisible == true)
IsMainMenuVisible = false;
else
IsMainMenuVisible = true;
}
}
public bool IsMainMenuVisible
{
get { return (bool)GetValue(IsMainMenuVisibleProperty); }
set { SetValue(IsMainMenuVisibleProperty, value); }
}
}
You can use the PreviewKeyDown event on the window. To detect the Alt key you will need to check the SystemKey property of the KeyEventArgs, as opposed to the Key property which you normally use for most other keys.
You can use this event to set a bool value which has been declared as a DependencyProperty in the windows code behind.
The menu's Visibility property can then be bound to this property using the BooleanToVisibilityConverter.
<Menu
Visibility={Binding Path=IsMenuVisibile,
RelativeSource={RelativeSource AncestorType=Window},
Converter={StaticResource BooleanToVisibilityConverter}}
/>
I just came across this problem myself. I tried hooking into the PreviewKeyDown event, but found it to be unreliable. Instead I found the InputManager class where you can hook into the EnterMenuMode from managed code. The manager exposes two events, for enter and exit. The trick is to not collapse the menu, but set it's container height to zero when it is to be hidden. To show it, simply clear the local value and it will take its previous height.
From my TopMenu user control:
public TopMenu()
{
InitializeComponent();
InputManager.Current.EnterMenuMode += OnEnterMenuMode;
InputManager.Current.LeaveMenuMode += OnLeaveMenuMode;
Height = 0;
}
private void OnLeaveMenuMode(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
Height = 0;
}
private void OnEnterMenuMode(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
ClearValue(HeightProperty);
}
I'd try looking into handling the PreviewKeyDown event on your window. I'm not sure if pressing Alt triggers this event or not, but if it does, then I'd toggle a bool which is bound to the visibility of the main menu of the window.
If PreviewKeyDown doesn't work, I'm not sure what else to try. You could look into getting at the actual Windows messages sent to your window, but that could get messy very quickly.
It would be better to use GetKeyboardState with VK_MENU to handle both left and right Alt, to mimic the behavior of IE / Windows Explorer (Vista+) you'll need to track the previously focused element to store focus, on a VK_MENU press whilst the focused element is within your main menu. You also want to be doing this work on PreviewKeyUp (not down).
See my answer to the following thread:
How to make WPF MenuBar visibile when ALT-key is pressed?
There I describe how to solve your problem with the class InputManager (from namespace System.Windows.Input).
You can register the classes events EnterMenuMode and LeaveMenuMode.

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