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Great Reads

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

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

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

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

Count Number of Unique Colors in an Image

19 Feb 2011 by #realJSOP

Determine the number of unique colors in an image

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

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

Centralise a Form on the Current Screen

5 Jul 2016 by _Matt_Wilkinson_

How to centralise a Form when using multiple screens

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...

Custom Snipping Tool using C# WinForms

6 May 2015 by Acharya Raja Sekhar

This tool helps a lot while capturing more number of snapshots. Example: Developers can use this tool to capture the UTR and save all snaps at the end to a Word document or save as individual images.

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.

Backup All MySQL Databases in C# WinForm with 1 Click

17 Sep 2018 by adriancs

A tool to backup & restore all MySQL databases in one click

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

17 Aug 2013 by adriancs

An Office 2010 Style Color Picker for .NET WinForm.

A method to move rows within a DataTable

11 Jan 2012 by agent154

A method to move rows within a DataTable

Set Owner of a WPF Window to a Form

28 Nov 2011 by Akos Orban

Set Owner of a WPF Window to a Form

Implementing Dynamic ToolTips: Preventing SetToolTip stack overflow

17 Feb 2010 by Alan N

Handling the Popup event raised by the System.Windows.Forms.ToolTip component would seem offer an ideal opportunity to alter the tooltip text to reflect an underlying change. Unfortunately the stack overflow caused by calling ToolTip.SetToolTip will soon put a stop to the attempt.The test...

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",...

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

AutoComplete ComboBox Control From Database

26 Aug 2010 by alrosan

Make the programs work on a specific windows version

27 Sep 2010 by alrosan

Convert XML File to Excel File

27 Nov 2017 by Altaf Ansari

Converting XML Data into DataTable and Exporting DataTable into Excel File

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...

Dragging a Borderless Form

12 Jun 2010 by Anshul R

The original snippet I made is in VB.NETProtected Overrides Sub WndProc(ByRef e As Message) MyBase.WndProc(e) If e.Msg = &H84 AndAlso e.Result = &H1 Then e.Result = &H2 End SubI used Reflector to translate it to C#protected override void WndProc(ref Message...

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;}

Unicode to Krutidev, Krutidev to Unicode Convertor in C#

14 Oct 2012 by AnuragTripathi

Convertor for Unicode to Krutidev and vice-versa.

Implementing shortcut keys for toolstrip

21 Aug 2011 by Armando de la Torre

How to activate a toolstrip button via a shortcut key

An error log class to perform WinForms validations

22 Sep 2011 by Armando de la Torre

Use an error log control to validate forms.

Save WinForm Snapshot Images

2 Aug 2018 by asiwel

Simple C# methods for saving snapshot images of a WinForm to the desktop

data-visualization

Set Error-Control Focus as per TabIndex

28 Jan 2013 by avigodse

This article is created for setting the tab focus on the controls, where the error-provider has error text.

Updating Database from DataGridView Using a Class Two-Tier Architecture

4 Oct 2018 by Awesh Vishwakarma

By reading this trick, you will be able to update your database from DataGridView through external class instead of writing code on each page.

ComboBox DataSource AddItem Extension

19 Nov 2015 by B.O.B.

A simple extension to add an item that has a data source bound to combobox.items

How To Create Rounded Edge Button (or rounded corner button) in Winforms

8 Apr 2015 by basilke7007

How to create rounded edge button (rounded corner button) in Winforms

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...

Connecting Windows Form Application With ADO.NET in C#

2 Dec 2012 by Bikash Karmokar

Connecting Windows Form Application With ADO.NET in C#

DesignTime adding of Controls to a UserForm on a WinForm

15 Jul 2011 by BillWoodruff

An interesting change in behavior in VS 2010 Pro ?

A Simple Number Entry Textbox

2 Dec 2009 by bobishkindaguy

A simple entry box for various numbers, especially phone numbers.

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

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...

WIA Scanner in C# Windows Forms

4 Jul 2014 by Chakravarthi Elchuri

How to use WIA supported scanner using C#

Run Only One Copy Of Application

19 Mar 2011 by charles henington

Run Only One Copy Of Application

Enabling and Disabling TaskManager

27 Jun 2011 by charles henington

19 Oct 2015 by charles922

Another way to implement Falling Blocks Game

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

WinForm Application: Confine the textbox Only to Take Numeric Inputs

18 Dec 2016 by Clivic TR

This are a practical ways to confine inputs into a specific range. The natural thinking is to track them and change. That derives two ways below.

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.

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.

Single Instance Form in a MDI application

20 Sep 2011 by Ctznkane

Assuming you only want a single instance of a form type, I'd suggest you add a Dictionary(Of Type, Form). ShowOrActiveForm would have a single parameter of Type and would be a subroutine.The Form object could be found based on a ContainsKey. The rest of the ShowOrActiveForm function would be...

Set ComboBox/DateTimePicker/CheckedListBox Read-only

14 Oct 2015 by cwfong

Make these controls read-only on WinForm

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...

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...

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 ...

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] ...

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.

Enabling and Disabling TaskManager

28 Jun 2011 by George Swan

Couldn't the class RegEdit be replaced by one simple method?private void SetKey(bool enableTaskManager) { using ( var mKey = Registry.CurrentUser.CreateSubKey("Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Policies\\System")) {...

Hooking Events to Private Members of User Controls

4 Feb 2010 by Gordon Kushner

Say you need capture an event for a control in a User Control and you are not permitted to change the control itself.You can hook into control events, even for private controls with this code://In a Windows Form//Get the private control cboSomePrivateControl from the user control's...

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

WinForms TextBox to accept numbers in a range

10 Jan 2012 by Grasshopper.iics

I will use a label with font color red just below the text box and will adopt the following code private void textBox1_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e) { int min=0,max=256; try { label1.Visible = false; ...

Manual Scroll Panel in a Panel or UserControl with AutoScroll=false

18 Feb 2011 by harbor

Manual Scroll Panel in a Panel or UserControl with AutoScroll=false

Change individual DataGridView row colors based on column value

8 Jan 2010 by Harvey Saayman

Below is an example of changing the individual row colors based on one of the DataGridView's columns.While this is not hard to do, the property isn't always where you think it should be, its hidden within the rows DefaultCellStyle property.Here's the example:foreach (DataGridViewRow...

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

Safe Coding

26 Aug 2009 by Henry Minute

Never code whilst holding scissors. That is not what is meantby the 'cut' in cut and paste.

Using ISynchronizeInvoke to Painlessly Create Thread Safe User Interfaces

29 Apr 2020 by honey the codewitch

This tip shows you how to do UI updates without having to worry about locking.

Avoiding InvokeRequired

27 Apr 2012 by Igor Pashchuk, MBA

This is an alternative for "C# Pivot Table"

Windows Forms ToggleButton

10 Jul 2014 by IKalai

A Windows Forms toggle button with Android, Windows and iOS like styles.

Draggable WinForms Controls

8 Apr 2011 by intrueder

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

Retrieving TreeView nodes as IEnumerable

24 Jan 2012 by intrueder

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

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.

WinForms .NET Time Chooser Control

14 Oct 2014 by Jamie Highfield

WinForms .NET Time Chooser grid control.

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.

A method to move rows within a DataTable

13 Jan 2012 by johannesnestler

Nice solution agent154, I'd just suggest to implement it as extension methods for data row: (and I don't liked your "error reporting" with the '0' Value - because '0' could be a valid index). But I have to say, even if you don't have a database behind the datatable you can use sorting (LINQ,...

Ownerdrawn ComboBox Example

5 Jul 2013 by Johnny J.

A sample owner-drawn ComboBox

Managing Application Scoped Connection Strings

25 Dec 2011 by Juan Davel

Managing Application Scoped Connection Strings

How To Hide Or Show .NET Tabs Programmatically

13 Nov 2011 by KazMaxLtd

This article describes how to hide or show TabControl tabs at runtime

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...

Implementing shortcut keys for toolstrip

23 Aug 2011 by KenBonny

This is nice for non standard buttons (like a CTRL + s), but OK and Cancel buttons have standard implementations in a Windows Form. Look for the properties AcceptButton and CancelButton of a Windows Form (not sure if this applies in ASP.NET or WPF, I need confirmation on that). There you can...

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)...

Wait progress bar for long running UI operations

20 Sep 2011 by kris444

Showing progress bar while performing time consume processes.

Dragging a Borderless Form

12 Jun 2010 by Kristian Sixhøj

A code snippet which makes a borderless form draggable.

Change individual DataGridView row colors based on column value

4 Aug 2011 by Lakhan Aanjana

If cell color is depend on criteriaif (ca.con.State == ConnectionState.Closed) { ca.con.Open(); } string qry = "select * From productmaster "; SqlDataAdapter da = new SqlDataAdapter(qry, ca.con); DataSet ds1 =...

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

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"

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;...

Binding Enum-Values to a ComboBox

15 Mar 2015 by manchanx

Tidy, generic solution to bind Enums (with or without a DescriptionAttribute) to a ComboBox or other Controls

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

Single Instance Form in a MDI application

2 Oct 2011 by Manish K. Agarwal

Single Instance Form in a MDI application

WinForms TextBox to accept numbers in a range

7 Jan 2012 by Manish K. Agarwal

Simple Numeric TextBox to accept digits for a given minimum maximum range

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...

Filling PDF Form using iText PDF Library

7 Nov 2013 by MayurDighe

This tip describes how to fill the PDF Form Template programmatically

Disable 'click' sound when accesing WebBrower control

24 Mar 2010 by mdanh2002

Depending on system preferences (in Control Panel/Sounds), the .NET WebBrowser control (just like Internet Explorer) may produce a click sound when changes are made programmatically to its DocumentText property, which is irritating to the user.There are two ways to avoid this:1. Use...

Hiding the form from alt-tab menu

19 Dec 2010 by meaningoflights

Tried it in VB.NET Winforms app, but no luck. It's still shown in the alt-tab menu:Protected Overrides ReadOnly Property CreateParams As System.Windows.Forms.CreateParams Get Dim cp As CreateParams = MyBase.CreateParams cp.ExStyle = cp.ExStyle Or &H80 ...

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...

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:...

Resolve DesignMode for a User Control

23 Sep 2016 by Midi_Mick

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

GuidTextBox

26 Oct 2016 by Midi_Mick

An edit control for the masked input of GUIDs

Simple Custom Collection Designer Support

15 Nov 2015 by Midi_Mick

The simplest solution for adding a custom collection of custom objects to the designer

WinForm DataGridView Loading from objectcollection

30 Nov 2011 by mohanaitec

WinForm DataGridView loading from ObjectCollection.

Working with Excel Using C#

18 Dec 2013 by Nanda Kumar Chintam

Demonstration of Excel manipulations using C#

Run Only One Copy Of Application

29 Mar 2011 by Neil A. Harding

I actually use code like this, which allows me to detect a existing instance and to call the original instance with the command line (I expand any filenames present so that it can access the filenames even if the original path is different).string processName =...

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!

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.

Ensure visibility of your windows when switching computerscreens

18 Nov 2010 by ola halvorsen

When going from a multimonitor environment to a single monitor, windows get stuck on the other screens