I am shamelessly trying to copy "someone's" idea of a MainForm.

My intention is to get rid of the MenuStrip and use the ThemedToolStrip instead. So far, so good. But now I got to the "Window" item, which will show the opened MDI windows list.

Now I would need to have a "Window" ToolStripDropDownButton to behave in the same way as the MenuStrip MdiWindowListItem. Would that be too difficult to implement?

Cheers.

I am shamelessly trying to copy "someone's" idea of a MainForm.

I wonder where I have seen that done before

It really isn't too difficult.  We actually use a list instead of updating the DropDown menu, which is easier and takes less time.  In either case, you just need to "wrap" the loading and closing of your forms.  We have a menu system that wraps all of our menu calls and we create a handler when the form is created.  Also, when the form is created we add it to the list and pass along the window handle.  When the forms "FormClosed" event fires, we then remove the item from the list.

The above is a screen shot from our medical system and shows how we implement the Windows Panel.  Ours is a little more complicated because we actually have a legacy VFP session within the MDI environment as well as the .NET forms.  So both of them have to show up in this panel which is a little more cumbersome.  But for .NET only forms, this is much easier because you are directly in control of the forms.

One other option is to just monitor the MDIChildren property of the MDI form or client.  The MDI client or form has a property called MdiChildren which is a list of all of the visible forms:

In any case, there are a number of ways to monitor the forms and place them in a collection and deal with them.  If this doesn't get you started let me know and I will give you some more snippets.

Yeah, I found your main form pretty sharp, so I'm trying the same.

I got the idea, will work on it. If I feel like completely lost, I will cry for help. I'm looking for the proper way to "wrap" the loading and closing of the forms ... just need to find a nice peace of paper.

Thanks Trent.

Sounds good.

just need to find a nice peace of paper.

I don't know that one exists.  Here is a sample method to load up all of your client forms in the MDI.

Declare the form collection

Create a reusable method to load a child form

Create a handler method that is used to trap the FormClosed event.  This will be assigned in the LoadForm() method

Sample method showing how to call the LoadForm method

I will try to populate a list just like you did. You have put the Themed Containers in a docked form on the left, is that it?

That's it.  Just to improve performance on the ThemedContainer, set the MinimizeBodyBehavior to Snap instead of Scroll if you are going to allow the container to be opened and closed.

Nice, I have been attempting to do the same. Would be nice to have the sample code in a small project

Michael

It is even activating the item when clicked in the ListView.

I can go and enjoy my Friday night now.

THANKS A LOT.

Good job, I really like the way it looks!

I have a main MDI form with the following method that is used to launch a child form.

The child form has a control which needs to open a new child form in the main MDI form.  Any ideas about how to accomplish this?

Thanks for looking!

If you are using an MDIClient control and manually adding it to the form, then you can just expose it through a public property and basically do the same thing:

A couple of questions.... I am using a picture that you used earlier in the post... how did you create that MDI with that control panel on the left?

am i correct in assuming that if the user were to click or double click on the name of a form in the list in the control panel it would show that form?

and second, using the code you provided earlier in this post... how would I create navigation buttons to utilize this code... lets say that I wanted navigation buttons in the MDI to be able to navigate through all the child forms... yknow the basics... first, previous, next, last.

This is a really cool concept! I'm eager to implement it.

This entire explanation would be more of a tutorial rather than a quick post here...and in fact, this is one of the very things that we cover during class.  I know you guys haven't had a chance to make it to class in the past, but if it were at all possible, I think that you guys would gain a lot of first hand experience on items just like this if you were able to make it to the next class  

Your main form looks really good. I too was first thinking of a toolstrip dropdown that would show the open windows.  Now i have decided to use a panel like yours and the one from Practice Studio, so i can use it to show some more info. I do however have issues with this (read - it doesn't look the way i want it)

Can you describe how you did your panel and lists?

TIA.

/Teddy

Thanks - i got it now. My problem was that i set the text of an employee form to the name of the employee after it is loaded from a browsedialog. So i wanted the new text of the form to be renamed/refreshed in the list.

The rest was just cosmetic customations of the properties.

/Teddy

I'm glad Trent could help you, he got all this from me... oh, wait, I think the orther of the words are not set properly...

I am using the LoadForm method posted here to load the forms, but I would like to automate this method by passing the form name stored in a Tag property of a menu item or a DevExpress RibbonControl Item.

The item will have the name of the form as string like this "frmProducers" but the LoadForm method is expecting a System.Type parameter instead of string, how can I either convert the Item.Tag string containing the form name as a System.Type expected by the LoadForm method posted here?

The whole idea is to either type the form name in the Item.Tag property or read it from a database to load all the Items and update the Item.Tag which will make a generic single call to the LoadForm.

Thanks.

Type.GetType("MyNamespace.frmMyFormName")

That will be what you'll have to give it.

Also, it might be the case that that method will not be able to resolve the name because your form type exists in another assembly.  If that's the case, then you'll need to give it the fully qualified assembly name.  It's basically the full name with a comma and the assembly name right after it like this:

"MyNamespace.frmMyFormName, MyAssembly, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null"

That's the difference between the Type.GetType() static method and the GetType() keyword (the keyword turns blue when you type it).  If you use the keyword, it will always resolve because the reference is resolved and at compile-time.  So, you might want to create a method that will resolve the names for you and uses the keyword to get the type.  Like this:

Public Shared Function ResolveFormType(ByVal formName As String) As Type
    Select Case formName
        Case "frmForm1"
            Return GetType(frmForm1)

        Case "frmForm2"
            Return GetType(frmForm2)

        Case "frmForm3"
            Return GetType(frmForm3)

    End Case
End Function

If you use this method, then the string can be any arbitrary value, as long as it's unique and you can assign it a type to return from the method.

Hi Ben,

Thanks for the explanation.  Using

If I were to use the ReolveForm solution, I would then have to make an entry in the Case statement for every form I add to the project and all I am trying to do is to have all forms identified in a Item.Tag so I don't have to manually remember to keep adding it to the Case statement.  Thanks again!!!

Thanks

Mike

Now it is another thing entirely if the handle has already been released.  In that case you just need to handle an event further up the chain to perform your closing logic.

I'm also getting back a different handle to than which the child window was assigned on creation.

And also I've tried changing to formclosing but the handle still changes.

However, I would recommend against using the window handle at this point and add a Guid property to your BaseForm that uniquely identifies the form:

Then you can enumerate the Forms collection of the MDI to find your form and then activate it (this code would be referencing the MDI  form):

If you take this approach you will be much safer across multiple platforms and won't be reliant upon the window handle.

Trent, I hate to ask, but using the GUID logic, where is the MyLookupID value coming from?

On the toolstrip i have a button called tsbVinduer so my code on the main form is

Private Sub tsbVinduer_DropDownOpening(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles tsbVinduer.DropDownOpening

        tsbVinduer.DropDownItems.Clear()

        For Each f As Form In Me.MdiChildren

            Dim item As ToolStripMenuItem = New ToolStripMenuItem(f.Text)

            item.Tag = f

            AddHandler item.Click, AddressOf item_Click

            tsbVinduer.DropDownItems.Add(item)

        Next

    End Sub

    Private Sub item_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)

        Dim item As ToolStripItem = TryCast(sender, ToolStripItem)

        If item IsNot Nothing Then

            Dim f As Form = TryCast(item.Tag, Form)

            If f IsNot Nothing Then

                f.Activate()

            End If

        End If

    End Sub

It gives me this result:

/Teddy

Thanks for sharing this approach, it definitely provide ideas on how to get similar results in different ways which is very good, specially when learning .NET.

Hi,

I would like to use a tabbed form interface similar to the practice studio. Is this a control contained in Strataframe? Could you please help me to create a similar one?

Nope, this is not a StrataFrame control. This is deeply and specificaly built into PracticeStudio. Iwill see if I can get some hints on how to accomplish this and pass them to you.