Re: Containter like controls - C# Discussion Boards

5-Aug-03 9:32

I have a user control that needs to function like a panel in the designer. Is there an attribute to set to have it behave this way?

Ista5-Aug-03 9:46

Ista

5-Aug-03 9:46

public class myControl : System.Windows.Forms.Panel

I'm not an expert yet, but I play one at work. Yeah and here too.

Alex Korchemniy5-Aug-03 13:48

5-Aug-03 13:48

Well Duh!

I have a custom control here and I need to do the same thing with it without deriving from Panel

Marc Clifton5-Aug-03 14:22

Marc Clifton

5-Aug-03 14:22

AK wrote:
I have a custom control here and I need to do the same thing with it without deriving from Panel

So, what features of Panel are you talking about? A panel is basically just a container for another collection of controls. But that's a property of Control, not Panel. It provides grouping for radio buttons. But that should be easy enough to implement yourself. Similarly with Panel's enable/disable feature--disable the panel and it's child controls are disabled. The only other thing about panels is the AutoScroll capability, which again may or may not be necessary but is fairly easy to recreate.

And why not derive from Panel? If that doesn't work, then you can derive from Control but contain a panel, and pass through whatever functions you want to the Panel object and provide your own drawing.

Maybe my article will help too: http://www.codeproject.com/cs/miscctrl/csoutlookbar.asp[^]

Good luck!

Marc

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Alex Korchemniy5-Aug-03 18:25

5-Aug-03 18:25

Sorry for not explaining this well enough.

What I was looking for is an attribute, or something simple to tell the VS.net designer to allow me to add child controls to my custom control. I don't need scrolling or anything extra. Just a way of treating my control as a control container.

Thanks for your help.

Furty5-Aug-03 14:19

Furty

5-Aug-03 14:19

By the sounds of it, what you need to do is create a designer class for your control. Control designers are a complex subject, so I'd suggest looking up the MSDN doco, or look at some CP articles such as Jerry McGuire's designer for the Magic docking library for some insight.

What is the @ for?

Alvaro Mendez5-Aug-03 8:45

Alvaro Mendez

5-Aug-03 8:45

This should be simple to answer, but MSDN comes up blank.

I've noticed some C# code with an @ in front of string literals:

MyNameIs(@"Alvaro");

What is it for?

Thanks in advance,
Alvaro

If you want to get to the top, prepare to kiss a lot of bottom. -- despair.com

mikemilano5-Aug-03 8:48

5-Aug-03 8:48

the @ supresses escaped characters... for example:

a windows path of C:\Program Files\ would normally have to be defined like this:
string path = "C:\\Program Files\\";

because back slash is a character which must be escaped.

if you use @, then it ignores special characters:
string path= @"C:\Program Files\";

hope this helps.

Eric Gunnerson (msft)5-Aug-03 9:06

Eric Gunnerson (msft)

5-Aug-03 9:06

It also lets you write multi-line string constants.

The feature name is "verbatim string".

Alvaro Mendez5-Aug-03 9:27

Alvaro Mendez

5-Aug-03 9:27

Eric Gunnerson (msft) wrote:
It also lets you write multi-line string constants.

You mean like in C++?

String ml = @"I love " 
             ".NET.";

Thanks,
Alvaro

If you want to get to the top, prepare to kiss a lot of bottom. -- despair.com

J. Dunlap5-Aug-03 9:31

J. Dunlap

5-Aug-03 9:31

Like this:

String ml = @"I love
.NET.";

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." - Jesus

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi

Control painting

Alex Korchemniy5-Aug-03 8:18

5-Aug-03 8:18

I creatd a custom control and I'm having re-painting problems. When another window is moved in front of the control and screws it up, it doesn't repaint. Do I need to set any style for the control to make sure it repaints when needed.

J. Dunlap5-Aug-03 8:42

J. Dunlap

5-Aug-03 8:42

You are repainting in the OnPaint method, right? There's no such thing as AutoRedraw in C# unless you make there be one.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." - Jesus

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi

Alex Korchemniy5-Aug-03 9:31

5-Aug-03 9:31

I fixed it already. Thanks for the help.

All i did was set up wndproc and on WM_PAINT tell the control to paint

Arun Bhalla5-Aug-03 10:15

Arun Bhalla

5-Aug-03 10:15

Is that a better solution than invalidating that portion of the parent control (and the parent's child controls) in that region?

Nick Parker5-Aug-03 17:33

Nick Parker

5-Aug-03 17:33

Arun Bhalla wrote:
Is that a better solution than invalidating that portion of the parent control (and the parent's child controls) in that region?

Well, overriding the WinProc allows you to catch specific messages, allowing you to customize the way the application works, in this case, when repainting is done.

-Nick Parker

accessing variables between forms.

Csharp™6-Aug-03 0:23

Csharp™

6-Aug-03 0:23

i posted a reply and it dissappeared Confused | :confused:

anyway , invalidating a control should do the job, eg:
button1.Invalidate();

mikemilano5-Aug-03 7:09

5-Aug-03 7:09

I have 2 forms. ( Form1 & Form2 )

Form 1 has a datagrid and an advanced search button which shows Form 2.

When the information in form 2 is submitted, I want it to hide and populate the datagrid of form 1.

The problem is that I can not seem to access any variables or functions of form 1 from form 2.

am i on the right track with the code below?

<form1>

<br />
private void button1_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)<br />
{<br />
  Form Form2 = new Form2();<br />
  Form2.Show();<br />
}

<form2>

<br />
private void btnFindContact_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)<br />
{<br />
  // db connections and populate DataSet variable "ds"<br />
  Form1.dataGrid1.SetDataBinding(ds,"Contacts");<br />
  this.Hide();<br />
}

apferreira5-Aug-03 7:23

apferreira

5-Aug-03 7:23

It is always a question of level of accessibility. When trying to access variables or methods of a second form on a first form you have two options:

1. Change the accessors of the variables assigned to the controls in questions (in most cases I would not recommend that).

2. Use properties to indirectly access variables assigned to the controls (recommended in most cases).

mikemilano5-Aug-03 8:45

5-Aug-03 8:45

sorry i don't completely understand your answers, but i'm trying.

#1: i think i have tried this by changing from private to public, and then trying to access the variable from form 1 with: Form2.TextBox1.Text .. however i get compilation errors that it does not recognize TextBox1

#2: could you go into a little more detail? or if you know a good link, send me there?

i've been working at this for the last 2 days and can't seem to come up with anything except for working with a dialog box.

Rocky Moore5-Aug-03 9:27

Rocky Moore

5-Aug-03 9:27

It would depend on the access you have on the grid variable in Form one plus your form2 would have to have knowledge of your form1 structure which is calling it.

You have two ways:

1) Add a Property and a variable to your Form2 of a DataGrid.

private DataGrid parentDataGrid = null

public DataGrid ParentDataGrid
{
   get { return parentDataGrid; }
   set { parentDataGrid = value; }
}

In your Form1 when you call the Form2:

private void button1_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
   Form2 form2 = new Form2();
   form2.ParentDataGrid = dataGrid1;
   form2.Show(); (or .ShowDialog)
}

In Form two you simply:

if(ParentDataGrid!=null)
{
   ParentDataGrid.SetDataBinding(ds,"Contacts");
   this.Hide();
}

2) In form2 do:

Form1 form1 = ParentForm as Form1;
form1.datagrid1.DataBinding(ds,"Contacts");
this.Hide();

And make sure in Form1 you either change the private or protected access to the datagrid1 to public or make it a property of the datagrid1 in form1 as we did above and call that property in Form2.

Rocky Moore <><

mikemilano5-Aug-03 9:48