I'm trying to build a simple application to test the idea of having multiple forms in one application. For example, in Visual Studio, you have the IDE - design area, and on the right hand side, you have a form called Properties and Solution Explorer
When you click on something in the design area, i.e. Textbox, on the right hand side, the properties for that object selected automatically changes.
I do not want to add the PropertyGrid ontop of the same form where the objects are, it must be independant on its own.
My ultimate goal is to have a 3D viewer/WPF and on the right hand side, a form. When you click in the 3D viewer on a line, or point, the selected object's properties must be displayed in the PropertyGrid
Second to that, I want to be able to dock the forms, or reset to default layout.
Screesnhot:
(properties should be docked inside the main form - not like screenshot)
Example: http://dan.virgesystems.com/images/CPVimage.JPG (Dead Link)
If you decide to do it using WinForms, there's a good C# opensource library for VS-style docking: http://sourceforge.net/projects/dockpanelsuite/
Here's a screenshot of an application using it: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Image:Kosmos.2.0.png
Try encapsulating your viewer and form into user controls. You can use the splitter control or panels to layout the container form as you please. Communication between the user controls can be done through events or direct references.
Related
I have an application that uses a UserControl inside of a Window, Coded UI Testing recognizes everything in the Window (buttons, etc.) but inside the UserControl I just get a blue box around the area and cannot select anything inside for recording.
I've been all over google for this issue and I think it has to do with the AutomationPeers (?). Any suggestions would be useful in how to get these elements visible to Coded UI
If the custom control doesn't provide a customized/override version of the OnCreateAutomationPeer, you can't. You need to ask developers to implement automation support for their control.
UPDATE:
My issue was that Coded UI couldn't see past my TabControl (displays different user controls). I followed this solution to create a CustomTabControl and override the OnCreationAutomationPeer() method so that the lower elements could be displayed.
[ click here ]
I'm trying to build an app in winforms with something similiar to masterpages in asp.net - a menu on top and when choosing an option from the menu the entire screen on the bottom will change while the menu remains (there are 10-15 screens in the future app, some are quite similar, some are not).
What is the best way of doing this? Should I use different forms for each screen or use a panel or something else?
If I use a panel or something how do I manage to use the designer with so many panels taking space on the screen?
Try with the MDIParent Form's. View the Example
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/12514/Multi-Document-Interface-MDI-tab-page-browsing-wit
If it is just keeping the same menu and opening/closing parts of the UI you could simply add and remove instances of usercontrols to the main form.
If you need more features such as docking (like Visual Studio) look at this
Another option is to use Form inheritance
Which one to select depends on what you want to reuse and the features you need.
One option would be to make your application an MDI window and then load entire forms, maximized, into the parent window.
Then, you would be able to treat each form as its own self-contained item, since it really would be exactly that.
Is it not an option for you to use WPF? A WPF browser application fits the paradigm you are describing quite well.
I'm writing a Windows application in WPF. I based my UI in a single menu and a tab control to display different documents or application forms. Since the menu as well as other things are fixed throughout the application, I need a way to display the contents of each TabItem. I have found two:
write a user control for each form, or
using a frame to display the content of each form.
The question
Is there any other single way for doing this. How do they compare in terms of clean code? I mean, in .net forms I only need load the form from the menu.
I know, I should go for any pattern like MVVM, but for this very first time I want to use the default approach.
I go with Frames and host Pages (not user controls). I like Pages over User Controls as the event model seems to have more hooks.
Am looking to implement a detach and popup UI behaviour in my applcation.
It basically means that I will be displaying say, a stackpanel with lot elements on the right side of my page. And on a button click, I want the stackpanel part to popup(removing its allocated space in the UI) and should be able to move it above the underlying wpf UI.
What am trying to do is that remove the stackpanel from its parent grid on button click and add it as the child of wpf popup control. But I am facing some issues doing this way. However I just want to know whether I am doing it in the correct way or do anyone have a good alternative for implementing this pin out functionality am specified here?
Thanks,
Vinsdeon
How about using this kinda nice control, AvalonDock, which is simulating Visual Studio's dockable components behaviors?
http://avalondock.codeplex.com/
It will spare you the pain of developing such a specific functionality, and will have a great reusability anyway
I am working on a little WinForm app and have been trying to find the answers to a few questions i have without any luck. Im a ASP.NET developer so WinForms development is new to me.
Here is my main question:
How do I create a menu system that once selected the contents will render in the Main form of the selected item. If its a GridView I want to the GridView to render inside the main application so they can navigate away without having to deal with the modal popup. I do not want to popup forms unless i explicitly say so. I guess the equivalent to this would be using a Master page in ASP.NET.
Make sense?
The closest thing to Master pages in winforms would be MDI (multiple document interface), which is a hideous Windows 3.1-era abortion of a user interface. Why this option is even still around, and why anyone still uses it, is beyond me.
The second closest thing (and something more acceptable as a UI) is just to have one main form in your application, and implement the different pieces of functionality your app requires as separate user controls which are displayed on the form and hidden as the context requires.
A weirder method, but one that might also work for you, is to use forms inheritance - design one "master" form with the menus and controls that you want to always be present, and then have each form in your app inherit from that master form. This would not appear to the user to be much different from my second option above, so I wouldn't bother with it.
There really isn't anything similar to Master pages in WinForms.
The closest to what you want to use would be a TabControl selecting a different tab will display that tab over the other tabs. If you don't like the tab look you could extend the TabControl to not show the tabs or hack it together by placing the TabControl inside a panel just large enough to show the content but not the Tabs and change tabs programatically in your menu control.