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!