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Fluid Geometry - An Animation Library and Configuration Application

by Josh Smith

A task-oriented review of an animation library and the application which uses it

Using a TypeDescriptionProvider to support dynamic run-time properties

by Nish Nishant

This articles explains how to implement a TypeDescriptionProvider for a class to support multiple object types using a single class type

A Project Dependency Graph Utility for Visual Studio 2008

by Marc Clifton

Review your project dependencies.

An extensible ExifReader class with customizable tag handlers

by Nish Nishant

An ExifReader class in C# that supports custom formatting and extraction. StyleCop compliant code, with demos for WPF and Windows Forms.

Latest Articles

Smart Home – Controlling Shelly® Devices (Part 3)

by Ralf Meier

The article walks through ShellySceneComponent and ShellyScenesComponent, which allow users to define scenes with multiple actions assigned to a control or controls for Shelly devices.

Smart Home – Controlling Shelly® Devices (Part 2)

by Ralf Meier

This article is a continuation of a series on controlling Shelly® devices in a smart home. It introduces a component that works with standard controls without requiring adaptation.

.NET Silent ClickOnce Installer for Winform & WPF in C# & VB

by Graeme_Grant

.NET compliant Silent ClickOnce Update Background Worker Service for Winform, WPF & Console in C# & VB

Testable WinForms Applications

by Mirnes Mrkaljevic

Make WinForms testable

All Articles

Windows Forms

WIA Scanner in C# Windows Forms

4 Jul 2014 by Chakravarthi Elchuri

How to use WIA supported scanner using C#

Set Owner of a WPF Window to a Form

28 Nov 2011 by Akos Orban

Set Owner of a WPF Window to a Form

Resolve DesignMode for a User Control

26 Aug 2012 by Wendelius

The tip shows one way to resolve if a user control is in design mode.

Ownerdrawn ComboBox Example

5 Jul 2013 by Johnny J.

A sample owner-drawn ComboBox

ExHtmlEditor - Express WYSIWYG HTML Visual Editor

14 Aug 2013 by adriancs

A program/application for learning and writing HTML. Get instant visual effect side by side with your code as you type. Support HTML5, Javascript and CSS3 elements.

[tut 8] Hand tool

29 Jun 2016 by The Zakies

we would create Hand_tool to pan through the drawing form, and we would use a custom cursor of open and closed hands

Count Number of Unique Colors in an Image

19 Feb 2011 by #realJSOP

Determine the number of unique colors in an image

Prevent code executing at Design Time in Visual Studio for Winforms Apps

28 Apr 2010 by Keith Barrow

If you have a Winforms application that auto loads data, there is no doubt that you’ll have come across the problem of data loading at design time (i.e. when opening the code in the designer). At best, this slows the designer down, at worst it might crash VS and prevent the control from...

Use Custom Events from your WCF ServiceHost

26 Jan 2011 by #realJSOP

When you need to communicate with the app that contains your ServiceHost object, use custom events

Enabling and Disabling TaskManager

27 Jun 2011 by charles henington

How To Hide Or Show .NET Tabs Programmatically

20 Nov 2011 by Bernhard Hiller

That's far too obscure.All you need to do is store a reference to the TabPage instance which was removed from the TabPages collection of the TabControl. You may use the form where the TabControl is placed for that purpose.You could also create your own TabControl which has an extra property...

Rendering Text with OpenType Fonts Using GDI

6 Mar 2013 by wmjordan

Rendering text with OpenType fonts by P/Invoking GDI API in WinForm applications.

Yet Another Color Picker for C#, VB.NET WinForm

17 Aug 2013 by adriancs

An Office 2010 Style Color Picker for .NET WinForm.

TextBox cursor position

3 Jan 2012 by PIEBALDconsult

Getting the line and position of the cursor in a TextBox

Adding Images to a Winforms Project so They are Accessible as Resources

17 Apr 2023 by OriginalGriff

How to add images to a Winforms Project so they are accessible as resources

Tip: Minor Improvements on the DockPanel Suite, Part 1

6 Jul 2011 by Brian C Hart

This tip shows how to add support for New Horizontal Tab Group and New Vertical Tab Group commands to the Window menu of an application using the DockPanel Suite by Weifen Luo, and some other minor improvements to help decided if at least one of your windows is docked to the side of the main form an

Bind ComboBox and Other Controls to DataGridView using STT

25 Mar 2015 by TarikHuber

Use STT (SQL Table Toolkit) to bind WinForm Controls to a DataGridview and to define ComboBox data sources

ActiveX in .NET Applications

9 Sep 2015 by Vladyslav Chernysh

The goal of this tip is to share knowledge and experience on ActiveX usage in .NET applications (back-end & front-end).

WinForm VB.NET Hosting WPF Ribbon - Part 2 - Using ICommand with MVVM Pattern

11 Jan 2022 by Jo_vb.net

My idea was to host a WPF user control with Ribbon within a WinForm VB.NET project and try to use MVVM pattern.

Change individual DataGridView row colors based on column value

8 Jan 2010 by dwilliss

Another way to do something like this is to handle the RowPrePaint event and change the background there. The advantage to doing it this way is that if you have thousands of rows, you don't have to set it for every row at the beginning, which could take a few seconds. This way only sets it for...

Dragging a Borderless Form

13 Jul 2010 by Dima Popov

A slightly different solution.using System.Runtime.InteropServices;private const int WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN = 0xA1;private const int HTCAPTION = 0x2;[DllImport("User32.dll")]private static extern bool ReleaseCapture();[DllImport("User32.dll")]private static extern int...

Quick 'n' easy Colour Combo Box

15 Jul 2011 by Simon Bridge

Full code listing for a very simple but effective Colour-Combo (Color for those in America)

custom-controls

Managing Application Scoped Connection Strings

25 Dec 2011 by Juan Davel

Managing Application Scoped Connection Strings

Retrieving TreeView nodes as IEnumerable

30 Jan 2012 by leppie

Here is yet another alternative (originally from http://xacc.wordpress.com/2009/03/05/tree-traversal-extension-methods/[^]):public static class TreeExtensions{ public static IEnumerable TraverseDepthFirst( this T t, Func valueselect, Func

Localized String in Form's resx with Designer Support

26 Apr 2012 by coffee_machine

A component to add localized strings to a Form's res'x.

Set ComboBox/DateTimePicker/CheckedListBox Read-only

14 Oct 2015 by cwfong

Make these controls read-only on WinForm

Prevent code executing at Design Time in Visual Studio for Winforms Apps

18 Feb 2010 by Ron Beyer

If you are designing in a WinForms component, which is anything that derives from Control at some point (Forms, UserControls, panels, etc), then you can use the following code:if (this.Site.DesignMode) //Do stuff[edit]The above will throw an exception if Site is not set (in...

Run Only One Copy Of Application

12 Apr 2011 by KevinPorter

How about using a Mutex? This should also work for Terminal Services sessions. Use in Program.csstatic Mutex mut;try{ bool isOwned = false; mut = new Mutex(true, Application.ProductName + " MUTEX: {53A4988C-F91F-4054-9076-220AC5EC03F3}", out isOwned); if (!isOwned)...

Extension method to update controls in a MultiThreaded WinForm application.

21 Jun 2011 by SergeyT2

You can use Action instead of MethodInvoker as well. And ".Invoke" at the method is unnesessary.public static void ThreadSafeCall(this Control control, Action method){ if (control.InvokeRequired) { control.Invoke(method); } else { method(); ...

multi-threading

Determining which TabPage was clicked

7 Jan 2012 by PIEBALDconsult

A binary search technique to determine which TabPage of a TabControl was clicked

Multiple User-Selectable Main Forms

22 Nov 2011 by #realJSOP

Allow any number of forms to be used as a main form with easy transitions between forms

TextBox cursor position

25 Dec 2011 by PIEBALDconsult

OK, here's another way (I found this at http://dotnet.mvps.org/dotnet/faqs/?id=textboxcaretpos&lang=en[^]). [System.Runtime.InteropServices.StructLayoutAttribute (System.Runtime.InteropServices.LayoutKind.Sequential)]private struct ApiXY{ public int X ; public int Y ;}[ ...

Disable 'click' sound when accesing WebBrower control

21 Dec 2011 by Member 8208766

To me the second method was problematic. After searching, I found an apparently equally good solution:webBrowser1.DocumentText = text;or in your case:webBrowser1.Document.Write("Hello, world!");from here:...

Determining which TabPage was clicked

3 Jan 2012 by Lutosław

This method, although it doesn't use binary search, handles Multiline tab pages too.private static intGetTabIndexAt( System.Windows.Forms.TabControl tabControl, System.Drawing.Point point){ int result = -1; if (tabControl != null) { for (int i = 0;...

Wait progress bar for long running UI operations

3 Feb 2012 by Member 147785

Hello!Here is a small article - Show progress on long-running operations, which describes approach to keep the UI responsive, starting long-running operations in separate thread. This approach is native and without any 3d-party libraries and even without BackgroundWorker.For example, the...

[tut 9] hand tool (part 2) navigator panel

3 Jul 2016 by The Zakies

we will continue the functionality of the hand tool with having a navigator panel which works as a map, we will also have a red rectangle which tells the user where he is actually viewing inside the whole form, also it can be moved to pan the form

Hosting an Excel Application in an MDI Form

8 Dec 2009 by Your Display Name Here

How to use WebBrowser, a form, and an MDI parent to open Excel files

Ensure visibility of your windows when switching computerscreens

30 Nov 2010 by MartinW1307

I have for years used the follow to fetch a window to a visible screen.1. Right click the window on the taskbar and select 'Move' (or use the keystrokes Alt-Space, M)2. Move the mouse a bit3. Press "left arrow"4. Move the mouse around - you will see the window outline ;) 5. left click...

Ensure visibility of your windows when switching computerscreens

6 Dec 2010 by Luc Schenkeveld

Alternate 3Right click on the taskbar and use "Show Windows Side by Side"

Count Number of Unique Colors in an Image

19 Feb 2011 by a_pess

I think we may check if the color is repeated or not, any how this another alternative but in VB.NetPublic Shared Function GetImageColorsCount(ByVal bitmap As Bitmap) As Integer Dim ColorList As New System.Collections.Generic.List(Of Integer) Dim clr As Integer For...

Multicast delegates in winform control update

21 Mar 2011 by Nitin Singh India

People wonder how do delegates work and the threading issues associated with multicast ones.

Apps Key in DevExpress GridControl

29 Jun 2011 by Alexandros Pappas

Display of a context menu when pressing the Apps key in a DevExpress GridControl

An error log class to perform WinForms validations

22 Sep 2011 by Armando de la Torre

Use an error log control to validate forms.

Wait progress bar for long running UI operations

2 Oct 2011 by Anshul R

You can use BackgroundWorker to do the work and report the progress using:private void backgroundWorker1_ProgressChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e){ this.progressBar1.Value = e.ProgressPercentage;}

Single Instance Form in a MDI application

28 Sep 2011 by Vladimir Vorobiev

This example contains the code to manage the menu of open forms (standard Windows menu). When created, each mdi-child gets a menu item and event handler through which this element is removed from the menu when the corresponding form is closed.private void ShowOrCreateMdiChild(Type formType)...

Single Instance Form in a MDI application

1 Oct 2011 by Rafał Klepacz

private void OpenForm() where T : Form, new(){ T frm = (T)new List(this.MdiChildren).Find(f => f is T) ?? new T() { MdiParent = this }; frm.Show(); frm.Focus();}and usageOpenForm();

Wait progress bar for long running UI operations

7 Oct 2011 by Bruce Lee Harrison

The background method is probably the most preferred method, but I've found this one is very easy to implement, and it's just one short line:BeginInvoke(new Action(() => progressBar1.Increment(1)));Place this in your worker thread to report to the UI. Not sure how "good" this is, but it...

Select only one node in Treeview

3 Feb 2012 by Sagotharan Jagadeeswaran

Thanks, I am just changing False to True, And I got Automatically Check TreeView Child Nodes When Parent Is Checked.private void treeView1_AfterCheck(object sender, TreeViewEventArgs e) { if (e.Node.Checked) { ...

Silent Print Using C#

14 Mar 2012 by R.Tarik

Print you PDF silently using C#

Dynamically positioning a form/dialog, whilst also keeping it all on one monitor/screen

25 Aug 2015 by CharlieFoolsTheComputer

Constraining a form/dialog to a single monitor

Draggable WinForms Controls

8 Apr 2011 by intrueder

Extension method to make any WinForms control to be draggable at runtime

Does Your App Know Where it's Running

2 Feb 2011 by #realJSOP

How to determine if your .Net app is running in the Visual Studio IDE

How to apply many Tags for a Control using C#

6 May 2012 by Shahin Khorshidnia

Tag is a useful property, but when you need more than a Tag, what will you plan for it?

Position a Windows Forms MessageBox in C#

6 Apr 2013 by Thomas Daniels

A tip about how to set the position of a Windows Forms MessageBox in C#

Resolve DesignMode for a User Control

23 Sep 2016 by Midi_Mick

This is an alternative for "Resolve DesignMode for a user control"

DataGridViewGrouper

28 May 2015 by Robert.Verpalen

DataGridViewGrouper: add grouping functionality to the .NET DataGridView

[tut5] form communication,multi tab program, custom cursor for each tool

20 Jun 2016 by The Zakies

Learn how to implement a tecnique of a parent form that createes and controls other forms , through the tecnique of using the tab control, also learn how to implement a menu for the tools, and how to add cutom cursor for each tool

Extend RichTextBox for Easy Formatted Appending

11 May 2015 by Yvan Rodrigues

A few lines of code to make using the Windows Forms RichTextBox easier to use as a logging window.

Dragging a Borderless Form

12 Jun 2010 by Kristian Sixhøj

A code snippet which makes a borderless form draggable.

Designing the Layout of Windows Forms using a TableLayoutPanel, with auto-expand panels

16 Nov 2014 by Hassan Mokdad

This is a just a small tip to show a simple way of designing the user interface of Windows Forms for Desktops applications.

TableLayoutPanel

Adding Checkbox to a List View Column Header in C# WindowsForm Application

7 Feb 2018 by Santosh Kokatnur

Adding Checkbox to a List View Column Header in C# WindowsForm application

Run Only One Copy Of Application

6 Nov 2011 by RaviRanjanKr

Yet another way to this is as follows: using System;using System.Collections.Generic;using System.Windows.Forms;using System.Threading;namespace OnlyOneInstance{ static class Program { [STAThread] static void Main() { bool...

Run Only One Copy Of Application

25 Mar 2011 by FDW

Maybe this is helpful, it tries to switch to the first running instance:namespace UltraSimple.Win{ static class Program { [System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("user32.dll")] public static extern bool SetForegroundWindow(IntPtr hWnd); [STAThread] ...

Count Number of Unique Colors in an Image

20 Feb 2011 by Andrew Rissing

Just a few minor improvements to readability and such...The catch/throw isn't needed here, since you are just throwing it without doing anything in the catch block. A try/finally could have been used on its own.The try/finally isn't necessary because a using statement can achieve the same...

Automatically Display Menu on Hover

14 Sep 2011 by #realJSOP

How to automatically display a Winforms menu when the mouse is hovered over an item

Avoiding InvokeRequired

27 Apr 2012 by Igor Pashchuk, MBA

This is an alternative for "C# Pivot Table"

Retrieving TreeView nodes as IEnumerable

4 Feb 2012 by springy76

By using a LinkedList, you can even mimic true recursive behavior without using recursive calls; the order will be "0,3,9,10,4,1,5,11,12,2,6,7,8", then:public static IEnumerable GetRecursive(this IEnumerable source, Func> subSelector){ var...

Simplest way to implement irregular forms in .NET

24 Jan 2011 by Nejimon CR

Make irregular splash screens without writing a single line of code!

Multiple Subsequent "Main" Forms in C# Apps

22 Nov 2011 by #realJSOP

A useful technique that could be used for winform apps which require a login dialog

GuidTextBox

26 Oct 2016 by Midi_Mick

An edit control for the masked input of GUIDs

A method to move rows within a DataTable

11 Jan 2012 by agent154

A method to move rows within a DataTable

Unfocusable, borderless form, perfect for floating controls!

22 Dec 2010 by Vercas

Unfocusable, borderless form, perfect for floating controls!

Passing Cookie Value from webbrowser Control to webclient in an Authenticated Environment

25 Nov 2013 by selvaprakash.s

This tip will demonstrate how cookies are passed from one control to another control in C# .NET in authenticated webpage.

Counting Unique Products in a DataGridView and Displaying Column Sum

18 Sep 2012 by Raje_

This is a simple demo of how to display the number of unique products from a DataGridView.

Filling PDF Form using iText PDF Library

7 Nov 2013 by MayurDighe

This tip describes how to fill the PDF Form Template programmatically

Convert a Windows Form to PDF

6 Oct 2012 by Frans Jan

This article shows how to save a Windows Form to a PDF file.

Connecting Windows Form Application With ADO.NET in C#

2 Dec 2012 by Bikash Karmokar

Connecting Windows Form Application With ADO.NET in C#

C# SmartBuilder- A Tool to auto generate Classes (Info,Controller, Provider)

27 Jun 2016 by Ozesh Thapa

Choose your datasource and generate classes

How to Create a Dropdown Button Control

10 May 2013 by youssef.obeid

This is to show you how to build a Dropdown button for Windows form

Serial Port Communication

8 Apr 2012 by Sreedeep.S

Serial Communication with the .NET Framework in Winforms

Hiding the form from alt-tab menu

19 Dec 2010 by tumbledDown2earth

Hiding the form from alt-tab menu

Disable 'click' sound when accesing WebBrower control

20 Dec 2011 by emolina

Public Sub DisableSound() Dim keyValue As String keyValue = "%SystemRoot%\Media\" If Environment.OSVersion.Version.Major = 5 AndAlso Environment.OSVersion.Version.Minor > 0 Then keyValue += "Windows XP Start.wav" ElseIf Environment.OSVersion.Version.Major = 6 Then ...

How to Embed Multiple Icons and Color/Animated Cursors in .NET Executable or DLL Library as Native Win32 Resources using VS2010

4 Apr 2012 by CodeMajster

A detailed tutorial on how to embed multiple icons and color/animated cursors in VS2010 VB project assembly as native win32 resources.

Changing the line spacing in a RichTextBox control

3 Oct 2011 by Manfred Rudolf Bihy

Using SendMessage and the PARAFORMAT structure, one can easily change the line spacing in a RichTextBox control

Adding a File Open dialog to a PropertyGrid control

8 May 2011 by OriginalGriff

The Visual Studio Property pane is a control, which can be used in WinForms like any other, and it provides a simple, easy to use property editor for your classes. However, it is not obvious how to get it to open a browse dialog for a file path property.

WebCam Application with Scheduling

8 Mar 2011 by Ron Levy

WebCam Application with Scheduling

Does Your App Know Where it's Running

3 Feb 2011 by Alan N

I use the following to insert pauses into console apps when they are vs hosted. In fact it's the final lines in my standard template for a console app to ensure that the console stays visible until I dismiss it.if (AppDomain.CurrentDomain.FriendlyName.EndsWith("vshost.exe",...

ComboBox with Suggestions Based on Loose Character Search

26 May 2014 by Serge Weinstock

A ComboBox whose suggestion list is based on loose character search

Proper Resizing of SplitterContainer Controls at any DPI

14 Jun 2014 by Graham Wilson

A method of ensuring that SplitterContainer controls with fixed panels are properly resized when AutoScaleMode is ScaleMode.DPI

Retrieving TreeView nodes as IEnumerable

24 Jan 2012 by intrueder

Extension method to make it easy to retrieve all nodes of a TreeView control.

Collapsible ListView

24 Oct 2018 by Tecfield

Collapsible ListView

[tut4] Draw Lines with Circle and Rectangle End

7 Jun 2016 by The Zakies

[tut4] how to draw lines & to draw different types on end shapes like rectangle and circle using C#

Working with Excel Using C#

18 Dec 2013 by Nanda Kumar Chintam

Demonstration of Excel manipulations using C#

[tut 6] Line Drag & Drop & Line Selection

20 Jun 2016 by The Zakies

we will build an outline line around the drawn lines so we would test the mouse click on this outline to know which line is selected. and we would in the coming update build a select function inside the move tool

Globalization in WPF

17 Jun 2014 by Vipul Bhatnagar

Create a multilingual application WPF

A Very Simple C# Asynchronous Timed Message Box

9 Feb 2018 by Tony Zackin

A very simple yet customizable pop-up message box which auto-closes after a specified number of milliseconds.

Visual Image Cryptography Generator

6 Mar 2014 by Jacky Yiu

Visual cryptography is a cryptographic technique which allows visual information (pictures, text, etc.) to be encrypted in such a way that the decryption can be performed by the human visual system, without the aid of computers.

C# Winform Gantt Chart

11 Sep 2015 by pgmr_64804

C# Gantt Chart For Winforms

[tut 7] Drag & Drop points in lines

24 Jun 2016 by The Zakies

in this tut we will create a technique to enable the user to control points within a drawn line, by drawing circles around points of the line , when the user clicks a circle he would control the corresponding point.

DesignTime adding of Controls to a UserForm on a WinForm

15 Jul 2011 by BillWoodruff

An interesting change in behavior in VS 2010 Pro ?