FAQ : Windows Forms : Syncfusion

Windows Forms FAQ

Welcome to the Windows Forms FAQ. Questions and answers in this FAQ have been collected from newsgroup posts, various mailing lists and the employees of Syncfusion. I have tried to mention the source wherever possible. If you think that you should be credited for an answer, please send me a note and I will be happy to add a credit mention.

If you have a FAQ, or any other good Windows Forms resource, please e-mail me. The Windows Forms FAQ forum is available if you need more information.

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1. Windows Forms Deployment

1.1	How can I run an EXE from within my application?

1.2	What are the common issues in redirecting assemblies using the publisher policy files?

1.3	How can I get a list of all processes running on my system?

1.4	How can I find all programs with a GUI (not just arbitrary windows) that are running on my local machine?

1.5	How can I make sure there is only one instance of my application running?

1.6	How do I determine which operating system is running?

1.7	How can I get all IP addresses for my local machine?

1.8	My user does not have .NET installed. Will he be able to run my Windows Forms application?

1.9	How do I get the path to my running EXE?

1.10	How can I programmatically obtain the name of the assembly that the code is executing in ?

1.11	How can I see what is installed in the Global Assembly on a machine?

1.12	How do I set the company name that is returned by System.Windows.Forms.Application.CompanyName?

2. Windows Forms Controls

2.1	How do you prevent serialization of certain child controls in your Composite Control?

2.2	How do I get hold of the currently focused Control?

2.3	Why do calling Focus() on a control not set focus on it?

2.4	How do I listen to windows messages in my Control?

2.5	How do I programatically change the color of a control?

2.6	How can I change the Border color of my control?

2.7	Why should I provide a Non-Client border to my Control derived class?

2.8	How do I provide a 2 pixel 3d border in the Non-Client area of my Control derived class?

2.9	How do I provide a 1 pixel border in the NonClient area of my Control?

2.10	How do I invalidate a control including it's NonClient area?

2.11	How can I implement a scrollable picture box?

2.12	How can I put Controls, a ProgressBar for example, into a StatusBar?

2.13	How do I implement an ownerdrawn statusbar so I can put a progressbar in it?

2.14	How would I change the icon that appears on the toolbox for a custom control?

2.15	I would like to prevent validation in my textbox when the user clicks on my Cancel button, how do I do this?

2.16	A control's Validating event is hit even when the user clicks on the Close box. How can I avoid this behavior?

2.17	Why does adding images to an ImageList in the designer cause them to lose their alpha channel?

2.18	Why do the XP Icons that have alpha channel not draw properly when associated with controls like ListView?

2.19	Why do the XP Icons when drawn using Graphics.DrawImage not draw transparently?

2.20	How do I prevent resizing of my Controls by the user, via Docking or anchoring or manual resizing during design-time?

2.21	How do I listen to the screen resolution change in my control?

2.22	How do I determine which button in a Toolbar is clicked?

2.23	I set a Control's Visible property to true and in the immediate next statement, it returns false. Why doesn't setting the Visible property 'take'?

2.24	I'm trying to make the background of my linklabel transparent so a picturebox will show through it. However, if I set the link label's BackColor property to Transparent the label still has a white background. Why?

2.25	How do I dynamically load a control from a DLL?

2.26	How can I make my controls transparent so the form's background image can show through them?

2.27	How do I create an editable listbox with an in-place TextBox and Button?

2.28	What control do I use to insert Separator lines between Controls in my Dialog?

2.29	How can I programmatically manipulate Anchor styles?

2.30	What is the best method to override in custom Controls to perform custom initialization during runtime?

2.31	How do I determine the width/height of the Non-Client area (like the border in a textbox) of a Control?

2.32	What is the (DynamicProperties) item listed on a control's property page in VS.NET?

2.33	In the property browser for a custom control, how do I disable a property initially, but enable it later based on some other property changing?

2.34	How can I have the control designer create the custom editor by calling the constructor with the additional parameters rather than the default constructor?

2.35	How can I make a Panel or Label semi-transparent on a Windows Form?

2.36	How do I make the arrow keys be accepted by a control (such as a button) and not handled automatically by the framework's focus management?

2.37	How can I add a control to a Window Form at runtime?

3. Windows Forms Books

3.1	Windows Forms Programming in C#?

3.2	Programming Microsoft Windows with C#?

3.3	C# Design Patterns?

4. Windows Forms Data Binding

4.1	Does MySql work with ADO.NET?

4.2	Where can I find a discussion of databinding and windows forms?

4.3	How do I test for a null value in DataView.RowFilter?

4.4	I don't have SQL Server. Is there any way to run the samples that need SQL server?

4.5	How can I import a CSV file into a DataTable?

4.6	How can I prevent a ComboBox and DataGrid bound to the same DataTable from sharing the same current position?

4.7	I get a 'This would cause two bindings in the collection to bind to the same property' error message. What might cause this?

4.8	How do I bind a TextBox to a nested relation?

4.9	How do I call a SQL stored procedure?

4.10	I programatically change a bound TextBox value, but the value does not get pushed back into the bound datasource. How can I make sure the DataSource is updated?

4.11	Why does the CheckedListBox lose checked state when placed in a tab page that gets hidden and shown?

4.12	How do I bind a mdb file to a datagrid?

4.13	How do I bind a listbox or a combobox to a MDB file?

4.14	In my databound ComboBox, how do I set the SelectedItem property?

4.15	Are server side cursors supported in .NET?

4.16	I am populating a ListBox by binding it to an ArrayList. The initial display is OK, but later changes to my ArrayList are not shown in my ListBox. How can I get the changes to show properly?

4.17	My SQL server runs on a non-default port. How can I specify this port in my connection string?

4.18	What is a DataSet?

4.19	How do I add updating support to a dataset?

4.20	How can I programmatically move through a dataset that has bound controls?

4.21	When I try to update a dataset I get an error that the system is unable to find "Table"?

4.22	How can I bind an ArrayList to a DataGrid?

4.23	When I try to bind two comboboxes to the same datatable, both boxes show the same values, changing one changes the other. How do I make them have distinct values?

5. Windows Forms Datagrid

5.1	How can I programatically set the rowheight of a row in my DataGrid?

5.2	How can I autosize the rowheights in my datagrid?

5.3	How do I prevent sorting a single column in my DataGrid?

5.4	How do I programmatically select a row in DataGrid?

5.5	How can I translate a point to a cell in the datagrid?

5.6	I lost the settings in my DataGrid set during design-time?

5.7	How do I prevent a click into the grid highlighting a cell?

5.8	How do I prevent the datagrid from displaying its append row (the row at the end with an asterisk)?

5.9	How can I catch a double-click into a column header cell?

5.10	How can I select the entire row when the user clicks on a cell in the row?

5.11	How can I get text from a column header in a MouseUp event?

5.12	How do I hide a column?

5.13	How do I color a individual cell depending upon its value or some external method?

5.14	How can I put a checkbox in a column of my DataGrid?

5.15	How can I restrict the keystrokes that will be accepted in a column of my datagrid?

5.16	How do I make a field auto increment as new rows are added to my datagrid?

5.17	How can I prevent a particular cell from being editable?

5.18	How do I move columns in a datagrid?

5.19	How can I do cell by cell validation in a datagrid?

5.20	How do I programmatically determine the selected rows in a datagrid?

5.21	How can I bind the datagrid to a datasource without using any wizards?

5.22	How can I bind two datagrids in a Master-Detail relationship?

5.23	How do I get the row or column that has been clicked on?

5.24	How do I add an unbound column to my bound datagrid?

5.25	How do I get the row and column of the current cell in my datagrid?

5.26	How can I prevent the Enter key from moving to the next cell when the user is actively editing the cell and presses Enter?

5.27	How do I set the width of a column in my DataGrid?

5.28	How can I implement OLE Drag & Drop between a DataGrid and another OLE DnD object that supports the Text format?

5.29	How can I tell if the current row has changed and whether I am on the AddNew row or not?

5.30	How do I hide the gridlines or set them to a particular color?

5.31	How can I get the selected text in an active gridcell?

5.32	How do I determine whether a checkbox in my datagrid is checked or not?

5.33	How can I move rows by dragging the row header cell?

5.34	How can I control the cursor over my DataGrid?

5.35	After scrolling with the mouse wheel on a selected row in a DataGrid I cannot get it back into view. Is there a work around?

5.36	How can I make the DataGrid column be blank and not display (null) as the default value?

5.37	How can I add a DateTimePicker column style to the DataGrid?

5.38	How can I put a combobox in a column of a datagrid?

5.39	I want to do custom handling of special keys such as the Tab key or F2 in the TextBox of a column in the DataGrid. How do I subclass this TextBox to get at it virtual members?

5.40	How can I have a column of icons in my datagrid?

5.41	How can I make my DataGrid support a single select mode, and not the default multiselect mode?

5.42	How can I get celltips or tooltips to vary from cell to cell in my DataGrid?

5.43	How can I get notification of the changing of a value in a column of comboboxes within my datagrid?

5.44	How can I make the datagrid have no currentcell?

5.45	How can I make my grid never have an active edit cell and always select whole rows (as in a browser-type grid)?

5.46	I have hidden (column width = 0) columns on the right side of my datagrid, but tabbing does not work properly. How can I get tabbing to work?

5.47	How can I get the number of rows in my DataGrid?

5.48	How do I format a date column in a datagrid?

5.49	How can I change the width of the row headers or hide them?

5.50	How do I catch a doubleclick in my datagrid?

5.51	How can I make my last column wide enough to exactly occupy all the client area of the datagrid?

5.52	How can I prevent my user from sizing columns in my datagrid?

5.53	How can I catch the bool values changing in a DataGridBoolColumn?

5.54	When I click on a row header, the row is selected and no cell is active. How can I do this programmatically?

5.55	How can I force the vertical scrollbar in my DataGrid to always be visible?

5.56	How can I autosize a column in my datagrid?

5.57	How can I get rid of the error icon that appears when there is an editing error?

5.58	How do I find the top-left visible cell in a datagrid?

5.59	I want to display negative values with a CR suffix, instead of a minus sign. How can I perform custom formatting on the cells in my datagrid?

5.60	I want to do sort of a database join of two tables. How can I use data from two DataTables in a single DataGrid?

5.61	How do I display a column of buttons such as pushbuttons or combobox buttons?

5.62	How can I put up a confirmation question when the user tries to delete a row in the datagrid by clicking on the row header and pressing the Delete key?

5.63	How can I enable column selections in my datagrid?

5.64	How do I programmatically scroll the datagrid to a particular row?

5.65	How can I place text in the rowheader column of my datagrid?

5.66	How do I set default values for new rows in my datagrid?

5.67	How do I iterate through all the rows and columns in my datagrid?

5.68	How can I specially color only the currentcell of my readonly datagrid?

5.69	How can I make the Enter Key behave like the Tab Key and move to the next cell?

5.70	How do I use the DataColumn.Expression property to add a computed/combined column to my datagrid?

5.71	How can I change the font used in a grid cell on a cell by cell or row by row basis?

5.72	How can I use a mouse to select cell ranges in my datagrid?

5.73	How do I determine the DataGridTableStyle MappingName that should used for a DataGrid to make sure the grid uses my tablestyle?

5.74	I have a derived DataGridColumnStyle. From within my Paint override, how can I get at other values in the DataGrid?

5.75	How do I retrieve the current row from a DataTable bound to a DataGrid after the grid has been sorted?

5.76	How can I catch when the user clicks off the grid, say to close the form?

5.77	How can I get a CheckBox column in a DataGrid to react to the first click?

5.78	How can I use events to restrict key input to grid cells?

5.79	How can I format columns in my DataGrid without explicitly adding DataGridColumnStyles?

5.80	How can I auto-adjust keyboard input? For example, make typing 12312002 be taken as a valid date, 12/31/2002.

5.81	Can I display the rows in my datagrid in a free-form layout using textboxes on a panel?

5.82	How can I tell whether a scrollbar is visible in my DataGrid is visible?

5.83	How do I autosize the columns in my DataGrid so they always fill the the grid's client area?

5.84	How can I prevent all the cells in my DataGrid from being edited without deriving GridColumnStyle?

5.85	How can I prevent the plus-minus icon that appears next to the row header when I have a datagrid displayed bound to a datasource that has a relation defined?

5.86	How can I display master-details-details in three separate grids?

5.87	In my datagrid, if I press tab to enter a column using a derived columnstyle, the column does not receive focus. Why?

5.88	How can I detect when a cell starts being edited, not when it becomes current?

5.89	How can I have a column of bitmaps in a DataGrid?

5.90	How can I add my custom columnstyles to the designer so I can use them in my DataGrid at design time?

5.91	How can I programatically add and remove columns in my DataGrid without modifying the DataTable datasource?

6. Windows Forms Docking

6.1	How can I make a control occupy all the client area of a form?

6.2	How can I make my control automatically grow when the parent form is sized?

6.3	What is the difference between a form's Anchor property and a form's Dock property?

7. Windows Forms Keyboard Handling

7.1	How can I prevent a control from getting a particular keystroke?

7.2	How can I tell if an ALT, Shift or CTL key is pressed without catching an event?

7.3	How do I check the state of the virtual keys, Caps lock for example?

7.4	How can I simulate keyboard input in my application?

7.5	How can I catch keyboard messages on a application-wide basis?

7.6	How can I listen for certain keys at the Form level irrespective of which Control has the focus?

8. Windows Forms Layout

8.1	How can I programmatically set the initial position of a Form so that it is displayed properly after calling ShowDialog()?

8.2	How do I create a custom layout engine?

8.3	I have a form with several controls on it. As I size the form, the controls are being resized continuously. Is it possible to postpone changing the controls position until the resizing is complete?

9. Windows Forms Licensing

9.1	How does .NET support licensing?

9.2	How do I find the file version of an EXE?

10. Windows Forms Menus

10.1	How do I clone menus, insert menus, use popup menus, etc.

10.2	How do I add a context menu to a control?

10.3	When using the ContextMenu on multiple Controls, how do I know on which Control the right click was performed?

10.4	How do menu shortcuts work?

10.5	How do I prevent the context menu from showing up on certain keyboard keys (like Keys.Apps)?

10.6	How do I know when a menu is closed/started so that I can refresh my status bar?

10.7	How do I make the context menu appear only when clicked at certain portions of the Control?

10.8	How to add a Separator in a menu?

10.9	How can I add an icon to my menu items?

10.10

How do I cancel a context menu programatically?

10.11

Is there an easy way to create the "Window" menu that shows the list of child forms open?

10.12

Is there an Idle event which will get fired from which I could update my menu item's enabled state?

10.13

How can I work around my menu shortcuts from showing up incorrectly when I use Ctrl+Number?

10.14

How do I control the position of the context menu when it is invoked via the keyboard?

10.15

How do I disable the default context menu of a textbox?

10.16

How can I make the context menu to close after a set time interval?

10.17

How can I enable the mnemonics (underline) to show when my application is launched?

11. Windows Forms Mouse Handling

11.1	How can I resize a borderless form with a rubber-band effect?

11.2	How do I get a mouse cursor position in my control's client coordinates?

11.3	How can I catch the mouse being over a control?

11.4	How do I set the mouse cursor position?

11.5	How can I reset the OnMouseHover timer so that it will fire again without the mouse having to leave the client area of a control?

11.6	How can I drag a window if it doesn't have a title bar or border?

11.7	How can I determine if a mouse button is pressed and moving over my form?

11.8	Why am I not receiving MouseLeave messages in a Control in my Form?

12. Windows Forms from MFC

12.1	As a VC++ programmer, what should I look out for when using C#?

12.2	Where can I find a succinct discussion of Windows Forms?

12.3	When I add a destructor to a class, why isn't it hit when my instantiated object goes out of scope?

12.4	How do I convert a string to a double or int? What plays the role of atof and atoi in C#?

12.5	What class or method do I use to retrieve system metrics like the width of a scrollbar?

12.6	In C++, the code "MyClass ht;" creates an object ht on the stack frame. But in C#, this same code compiles, but gives a runtime error. Why?

12.7	I need to encode the LParam argument of a mouse message. How do I do MakeLong , HiWord and LoWord type conversions?

12.8	How do you clear the contents of a list box?

13. Windows Forms from VB6

13.1	How do I draw a line in VB7 as there is no Line command as there was in VB6?

13.2	What is the replacement for VB6's SendKeys statement?

13.3	In VB6, I used control arrays to have a common handler handle events from several controls. How can I do this in Windows Forms?

13.4	What is different about working with forms in VB.NET? For example, how can I reference one form from another form?

14. Windows Forms Patterns

14.1	How to display a status dialog in a background thread during a long operation and allow the user to cancel?

14.2	How can I throw my events asynchronously?

14.3	Why are the Tooltips not being shown on a NumericUpDown control?

14.4	How to get the hyperlink and the hyperlink text dragged from IE in my Control's drag-drop event?

15. Windows Forms Printing

15.1	How do I print a form?

15.2	How do I display the PrintPreview maximized and control its zooming?

16. Windows Forms Resources

16.1	What are the steps to compiling and using multiple language resources?

16.2	How do I load a BMP file that has been added to my solution as an embedded resource?

16.3	Why doesn't a Form containing an ImageList not open in WinRes?

16.4	How do I embed a manifest file into my exe?

16.5	How can I save a temporary disk file from an embedded string resource?

16.6	How do I read embedded resources?

16.7	How can I check if a certain resource is included in a assembly?

16.8	Where can I find information on globalization?

16.9	How do I read or write resources from code?

16.10

How do I create resources to make culture-aware programs without re-compiling code?

16.11

How do I programmatically use resources to make my programs culturally aware?

16.12

How can I dynamically load a resource file?

17. Windows Forms Scrolling

17.1	How do I add support for custom scrolling to my own user control?

17.2	Are there any events that get fired when the user scrolls?

18. Windows Forms Common Dialogs

18.1	How do I use the ColorDialog to pick a color?

18.2	How do I use the FontDialog class to set a control's font?

18.3	How do I implement a Folder Browser class?

18.4	How can I get just the name of a file from the complete path string?

18.5	How can I get just the extension of a file from the complete path string?

18.6	How do I use the OpenFileDialog?

18.7	How do I specify the path for the FolderBrowser instance when it opens the first time?

19. Windows Forms ListBox

19.1	How do I add and delete items from a ListBox?

19.2	How do I implement Drag and Drop support between ListBoxes?

19.3	How can I drag file names from Windows Explorer and drop them into a listbox?

19.4	How do I implement an ownerdrawn listbox?

19.5	How can I set the width of a listbox to fit the text?

20. Windows Forms ComboBox

20.1	How do I bind the values of an enum to a ComboBox?

20.2	How can I programmatically prevent the combobox from dropping?

20.3	How can I adjust the height of the of my ComboBox dropdown?

20.4	How do I implement an owner drawn combobox?

20.5	How do I add a ComboBox button to a toolbar?

20.6	How do I set the width of a combobox to fit the entries in its list?

20.7	How can I programmatically create a new list for my ComboBox dropdown?

20.8	How can I turn off editing in the textbox portion of a ComboBox, restricting the user to selecting only those options in the drop list?

21. Windows Forms RichTextBox

21.1	How can I create and save a RTF file?

21.2	How can I get a string that contains RTF format codes into a RichTextBox?

21.3	How do I make the RichTextBox support drag and drop?

21.4	How do I set the color and font in a RichEditBox?

21.5	How can I change the FontStyle of a selection without losing the styles that are present?

21.6	How can I programmatically position the cursor on a given line and character of my richtextbox?

21.7	Where can I find more information on the RTF specification?

21.8	How can I add a hyperlink to a RichTextBox control?

21.9	How can I print my rich text?

21.10

How can I load an embedded rich text file into a richtextbox?

22. Windows Forms ListView

22.1	How do I add SubItems to a ListView control?

22.2	When I call ListViewItem.Selected = true;, why doesn't the item get selected?

22.3	How do I unselect the selected items in a ListView programatically?

22.4	I am trying to programmatically change the ForeColor and BackColor properties of subitems in a listview. Why doesn't this work?

22.5	How do I implement custom column sorting in a listview?

22.6	How do I programmatically select an item in my listview?

22.7	How can I sort a column in a ListView?

22.8	How can I tell which column (subitem) has been clicked on in my listview?

23. Windows Forms TreeView

23.1	How do I make the TreeView scroll when I drag an item to the top or bottom?

23.2	How do I implement Drag and Drop support between two TreeViews?

23.3	How do I display checkboxes in the nodes of a treeview?

23.4	When I right-click a tree node, it does not become selected. How can I make it be selected on a right-click?

23.5	When I get the SelectedNode in the treeview's Click event, it is the old selection. How do I get the newly selected node?

23.6	How can I get a tooltip to vary from node to node in my treeview?

23.7	How can I determine the node level of a node in my treeview?

23.8	How can I populate a TreeView Control with XML Data?

23.9	How can I clone/copy all the nodes from one TreeView Control to another?

23.10

How do I programmatically select a node in a TreeView control?

23.11

Can I select multiple nodes in a TreeView Control?

23.12

How can I display a context menu when the user right-clicks on a node in the TreeView control?

23.13

How can I ensure that a node is selected when the user clicks along the line of a node?

24. Windows Forms Button

24.1	How do I autosize a button to fit its text?

24.2	How can I decorate a button face with custom drawing?

24.3	How can I put a bitmap or icon on a button face?

24.4	How can I trigger a button click event?

24.5	How can I get button to fire a click event at specific time intervals while the mouse is down like a scrollbar button?

25. Windows Forms TabControl

25.1	How do color the tabs on my TabControl?

25.2	How can I drag and drop TabPages between TabControls?

25.3	For a TabControl, how do I make the tabs on the tab pages appear on the bottom instead of on the right?

25.4	How do I use code to insert or delete tabpages in a TabControl?

25.5	How do I dynamically hide/unhide tabs in a TabControl?

25.6	How do I prevent the user from changing the selected tab page?

25.7	Why do the order of the tabs keep changing when opening and closing the Form?

25.8	How do I force the focus to be on a text box in a tab page when the application gets loaded?

25.9	How do I programatically select a Tab Page?

26. Windows Forms TextBox

26.1	How can I prevent the beep when enter is hit in textbox?

26.2	How can I disable the right-click context menu in my textbox?

26.3	How do I disable pasting into a TextBox (via Ctrl + V and the context menu)?

26.4	How do I format numbers, dates and currencies in a TextBox?

26.5	How do I browse for, and read a text file into an TextBox?

26.6	How do I send a EM_XXXX message to a textbox to get some value such as line index in C#?

26.7	How do I prevent a control from receiving focus when it receives a mouseclick?

26.8	How do I make my textbox use all upper (or lower) case characters?

26.9	I have a delete key shortcut for my main menu. When my textbox is being edited, pressing delete activates this menu items instead of being processed by the TextBox. How can I get my TextBox to handle this delete?

26.10

How can I use a TextBox to enter a password?

26.11

How can I place a TextBox in overwrite mode instead of insert mode?

26.12

How can I restrict the characters that my textbox can accept?

26.13

How do I set several lines into a multiline textbox?

26.14

When I set a TextBox to Readonly or set Enabled to false, the text color is gray. How can I force it to be the color specified in the ForeColor property of the TextBox.

26.15

How can I make the focus move to the next control when the user presses the Enter key in a TextBox?

26.16

How can I make a ReadOnly TextBox ignore the mousedowns so that you cannot scroll the text or set the cursor?

27. Windows Forms Cursors

27.1	I set the wait cursor using Cursor.Current = Cursors.WaitCursor;. Why does does it disappear before I want it to?

27.2	How do I change the cursor for a control?

27.3	How to convert a Cursor class to a .cur file?

27.4	How to load and display a cursor from a resource manifest?

28. Windows Forms WebBrowser

28.1	How can I host a WebBrowser control in a Windows Form?

28.2	How can I enable editing for the WebBrowser?

28.3	How can I catch the BeforeNavigate2 event?

28.4	WebBrowser control does not seem to be cleaning up temp files. How can this be done?

28.5	How can I use MSHTML to edit HTML in a Windows Forms control?

29. Windows Forms Tips

29.1	How do I write a screen saver?

29.2	How do I determine the screen resolution?

29.3	How do I determine the working area of a screen without the systemtray area?

29.4	How do I position my form to the bottom right of the screen when it opens up the first time above the system tray?

29.5	How do I change my screen's resolution programatically?

29.6	How do I determine the current date/time?

29.7	How do I determine the time taken for a long operation that I perform?

29.8	What are the implications of using the Timer class in System.Timers as opposed to the Timer class in System.Windows.Forms?

29.9	Is there an easy way to Create/Delete/Move files in the Windows File System?

29.10

How can I use XP Themes with Windows Forms using the .NET FrameWork 1.1?

29.11

How can I use XP Themes with Windows Forms using the .NET FrameWork 1.0?

29.12

How do I use Windows Forms Controls in Internet Explorer?

29.13

Why would I be getting a NullReferenceException in Windows Forms with no application code in the call stack?

29.14

Can working on WinForms and .Net in general get exciting?

29.15

What mechanisms does .Net provide to convert one type to another?

29.16

How can I display HTML in a Form?

29.17

The MessageBox always appears in the center of the screen. How can I change it's location?

29.18

If I have a button with &Next as the text, the N-accelerator key does not appear until I press Alt. Why?

29.19

When I try to catch the Resize event to handle sizing of MDI children, the event is called even before my form's constructor can create the children throwing an exception. How do I avoid this?

29.20

How can I tell if the user has changed some system preference such as the locale or display settings?

29.21

Its possible that some of my class members will not be initialized when one of my virtual members gets called even before the constructor. How can I avoid this?

29.22

In a Hashtable, why doesn't setting the value for an existing key to be null remove the key from the Hashtable?

29.23

How do I change a directory name?

29.24

How do I beep the computer's speaker in a Windows Form application?

29.25

How do I use the system clipboard?

29.26

How do I add an application to the Window's Tray?

29.27

How can I shut down/restart the OS from my Windows Forms Application?

29.28

How can I add a custom verb to the file and folder context menus in the explorer shell?

29.29

How do I create windows shortcuts on my desktop programatically in .Net?

29.30

I have a long loop. How can I make my application continue to process events while it is executing this loop?

29.31

I get a message 'DragDrop registration' failed. Why?

29.32

What is the purpose of the [STA Thread] attribute for the Main method of a C# program?

29.33

I add my application to the Window's Tray, set ShowInTaskBar to false, but the program still appears in the Alt+Tab list.

30. Windows Forms ProgressBars

30.1	How can I implement a smooth ProgressBar?

31. Windows Forms PictureBox

31.1	How can I place a border around a PictureBox?

31.2	How can I copy a bitmap from the clipboard to a PictureBox?

31.3	How can I copy and paste images/graphs etc from MS Office to a PictureBox?

31.4	How can I drag and drop an image from one PictureBox to another?

32. Windows Forms Form

32.1	How can I programmatically maximize or minimize a form?

32.2	How can I display a pop up a confirmation dialog when the user closes the form?

32.3	How can I center my form?

32.4	How do I prevent users from resizing a form?

32.5	How do I programmatically set an image as Form's Icon ?

32.6	How can I add items to the System Menu of a form.

32.7	How can I have a form with no title bar, but yet keep the resizing borders?

32.8	How can I tell if a form is closed from the controlbox (system menu) or from a call to Form.Close?

32.9	I have two forms. How can I access a textbox on one form from the other form?

32.10

How do I create a non-modal top level form that always stays on top of all the app's windows (like the VS.Net find dialog)?

32.11

How can I display a form that is 'TopMost' for only my application, but not other applications?

32.12

How do I automatically resize the Form when the screen resolution changes between design-time and runtime?

32.13

How can I ensure that my form will always be on the desktop?

32.14

How can I restrict or control the size of my form?

32.15

How can I prevent a form from being shown in the taskbar?

32.16

How do I prevent a user from moving a form at run time?

32.17

How can I create a non rectangular form?

32.18

How can I make my form cover the whole screen including the TaskBar?

32.19

How can I move a Borderless form?

32.20

How do I force a Windows Form application to exit?

32.21

How do I set the default button for a form?

32.22

How do I get an HWND for a form?

32.23

How can I detect if the user clicks into another window from my modal dialog?

32.24

How do I create a form with no border?

32.25

How do I prevent a Form from closing when the user clicks on the close button on the form's system menu?

32.26

How do I display a splash screen type form, one with only client area (no border or titlebar)?

32.27

How do I get the window handle (HWND) of my form or control?

32.28

How can I make sure I don't open a second instance modeless dialog that is already opened from my main form?

32.29

Is there a way to halt a screen from painting until all the controls on the form are initialized?

32.30

How do I return values from a form?

32.31

How can I easily manage whether controls on my form are readonly or not?

32.32

The controls that I've try to add to my form at runtime don't show up. What's wrong?

32.33

Setting Form.Visible to false does not make my main form start up invisibly. How can I make my main form start up invisibly?

32.34

How to make a form transparent?

32.35

How can I create an instance of a Form class just from knowing its name in a string?

32.36

I don't want to have the Close box on my form's title bar. How do I remove this system menu box?

32.37

How do I change my application's icon?

33. Windows Forms CheckedListBox

33.1	How do I check/uncheck all items in my checkedlist?

34. Windows Forms MDI

34.1	How can I create an MDI application in the .NET framework with C#?

34.2	I have an MDI application with several child forms. The child form's Activated event is not being fired consistently as different child forms are activated. What's wrong?

34.3	In an MDI application, the MDI child's MaximumSize and MinimumSize properties don't seem to take effect. How can I restrict the size of my MDI child?

34.4	How do I check to see if a child form is already displayed so I don't have two instances showing?

34.5	I need to perform certain custom processing whenever an MDI child form is added to/removed from the MDIContainer form. How do I determine this?

34.6	How do I paint in my mdi container, a logo, for example?

34.7	How do I make my child Form fill the entire mdi client without being maximized?

34.8	How can I change the background of my MDI Client container?

35. Windows Forms In IE

35.1	Where can I get information on hosting Windows Forms Controls in IE?

35.2	How do I clear the download cache in my client machine?

35.3	How can I use a WinForms Control in IE?

35.4	What are some common gotchas while trying to embed a Windows Forms Control in IE?

35.5	What are some common UI limitations while running code in the Internet Zone?

36. Windows Forms Smart Client

36.1	Where are the getting started info. on Smart Client Deployment?

37. GDI+ Colors

37.1	I need to save a color as a string and be able to retrieve it. How can I do this?

37.2	How do I convert a color to integer and vice-versa?

37.3	How do I desaturate a specific color?

37.4	What is alpha blending?

37.5	Is there a way to find out the brightness of a Color?

37.6	How can a translate an OLE_COLOR into a GDI+ Color object?

37.7	How do you translate a HSB color to RGB?

37.8	Is there a way to force some contrast between two colors (like background color and foreground color)?

38. GDI+ Books

38.1	GDI+ Programming: Creating Custom Controls using C#?

38.2	Programming Windows with C#?

39. GDI+ Brushes

39.1	How do I use hatched and gradient brush types?

39.2	How to set the rendering origin for hatch brushes?

39.3	How to create my own hatch styles for brushes?

40. GDI+ Drawing Tips

40.1	Where can I see a basic tutorial on GDI+?

40.2	What are some things to remember when drawing in Window Forms?

40.3	When can I not use AutoScrolling? In other words why would I ever need any other form of autoscrolling?

40.4	Are AutoScrolling bounds setup in World or Device coordinates?

40.5	Why am I not being able to set a Color.Transparent color as a background to my control?

40.6	Why does a Control not draw transparent even after setting it's BackColor to Transparent?

40.7	Why does my transparent Panel whose parent has a gradient background flicker a lot when resized?

40.8	How do I get a count of the gdi handles currently in use in my application?

40.9	How can I get the screen resolution of my display?

40.10

How can I minimize flickering when drawing a control?

40.11

How do I draw circles, rectangles, lines and text?

40.12

How do I get a snapshot of my desktop?

40.13

How do I draw rotated text?

40.14

How can I draw without handling a paint message?

41. GDI+ Hit Testing

41.1	How to HitTest a polygonal region?

42. GDI+ from GDI

42.1	How does text drawing differ between GDI+ and GDI?

42.2	How do I do XOR-type-drawing (SetROP2-Function in MFC) in GDI+?

42.3	Can I mix GDI and GDI+ drawing in my application?

42.4	How do the Win32 System Colors map to the colors provided by System.Drawing.SystemColors?

43. GDI+ Paths & Regions

43.1	What is a GraphicsPath?

43.2	How can I create non-rectangular windows?

43.3	Is there a imagemap like control in Windows Forms?

44. GDI+ Pens

44.1	Using a wide pen, how do I draw a series of line segments with rounded corners?

44.2	With a wide pen, how can I control how the endpoints of my line appear?

45. GDI+ Rendering Primitives

46. GDI+ Bitmaps & Images

46.1	How do I create a "Negative" representation of my image?

46.2	How do I draw my bitmap in a disabled state?

46.3	How can I programmatically create a bitmap?

46.4	How can I swap colors in a bitmap or icon?

46.5	How do I create a new image off a base image with certain portions of the base image modified, in code?

46.6	How do I extract a Bitmap from an icon of a specific size?

46.7	How to draw a shadow for a given transparent image?

46.8	How to draw a faded image?

46.9	How do I programmatically load, modify and save a bitmap?

46.10

How do I draw an image with a gray scale?

46.11

How do I get the color of a pixel in my bitmap?

46.12

How do I create a new bitmap with a new size based on an existing bitmap?

46.13

How can I read individual frames from an animated image?

46.14

How do I capture a bitmap of my form?

46.15

How do I overlay one bitmap over another?

46.16

How can I create a thumbnail of a bitmap?

47. GDI+ Fonts

47.1	How do I set the font for a control?

47.2	When I try to set a particular font style, say italics, I get an error message "Property cannot be assigned to -- it is read only". How can I set this read only property?

47.3	MeasureString seems to have problems with white space and punctuation. Is there a better method to use?

47.4	How can I draw a single line of text with different fonts using DrawString?

47.5	How do I display adjacent text?

47.6	How can I fill a combobox with available fonts?

47.7	How can I draw font samples from the available fonts?

48. Interoperability Books

48.1	Are there any books out there that focus on COM interop?

49. Interoperability COM

49.1	How do you invoke a COM Class in a specific COM DLL in .Net?

49.2	How do you dynamically invoke a COM class from its GUID?

49.3	How do you make .Net components that could be used by COM?

49.4	How can I read and display Excel files from within my C# application?

49.5	Should I try to use Interoperability or migration to use COM with .NET?

49.6	How can I get events fired by an Office XP chart control hosted in my Windows Forms app?

50. Interoperability Win32

50.1	How to add an extern reference to a Win32 API?

50.2	How do I hit a web page from within a button handler in my Windows Forms application?

50.3	How can I capture output from an arbitrary console application from within my Window Form application?

50.4	How do I convert LParam in a message from IntPtr to the Win32 type?

50.5	How do I maximize my main window?

50.6	How can I use 'Hooks' in .NET?

50.7	Is there any way to get to the Edit control or the editHandle of a ComboBox using safe code?

50.8	How do I get the associated Icon from a file in the file system?

50.9	How can I get the directory name for "My Documents" folder and other system directories?

50.10

How can I show a form without making it active?

50.11

How to access a winapi that has a LPTSTR and maxlen param?

50.12

How do I use an exported function (extern "C") from a legacy DLL?

50.13

How can I draw outside my WIndow?

50.14

Is there any way to get detailed error information for Win32 errors when using Platform Invoke?

51. Tools Metadata Viewers

51.1	Are there any tools that allow me to view the rich meta data that .NET assemblies have? Is there a OLEVIEW equivalent for .NET?

51.2	How do I disassemble a .net assembly (dll/exe) into the IL format?

51.3	How do I create a dll/exe off a previously diassembled .il file?

51.4	How can I launch ILDASM from the VS.NET 2003 IDE?

52. Tools Other FAQs

52.1	Are there any easy to use Unit Testing frameworks available for .NET applications?

52.2	Are there any easy to use build tools for .NET applications?

52.3	Are there tools available for generating class library documentation for .NET applications?

52.4	How can I generate PDF files from my .NET application?

52.5	CVS integration using C#?

52.6	How can I read and write zip files in my Windows Forms program.

53. Tools Resource Editor

53.1	I don't like the resource Editor that comes with Visual Studio.NET. Are there any alternatives out there?

54. Design Time Serialization

54.1	How to make my Component add itself to the contained Form's IContainer list?

54.2	How do I prevent the default values of my Localized properties form being set?

54.3	How do I force the changes in base class fields to be serialized via a base class property in the inherited type's designer?

55. Design Time Custom Designers

55.1	How do I implement a custom designer?

55.2	How can I insert custom menu items (verbs) into my Component/Control designer's Context Menu in design time?

55.3	How do I control the state of my custom verb in my designer?

55.4	How do I restrict my Container Control to parent only certain types of Controls, and vice-versa, during design-time?

55.5	How do I prevent the Designer-Grid from being drawn on my Container Control during design-time?

55.6	How do I get Mouse Messages on my Control during design-time?

55.7	Can I do some custom drawing on my control designer's surface during design-time?

55.8	How can I know when a Control/Component has been selected in the designer surface?

55.9	How do I prevent resizing of my Control in the designer?

55.10

I have created a usercontrol and a designer, How can i debug the designer?

56. Design Time Tips

56.1	When a property gets modified, how do you refresh other properties of a Component/Control in the property browser?

56.2	How to Reinitialize extender provider dependencies (the logic within CanExtend) from within the designer?

56.3	How do you detect the designer host getting loaded for the first time in your designer?

56.4	How do you provide "dynamic" default values?

56.5	How to debug your design time code (like designers, typeconverters, etc.)?

56.6	How do you make your custom data types property browser browsable when contained in a Control/Component (as a property)?

56.7	How to make properties in your custom data type appear in a particular order in the property browser?

56.8	How do I provide Intellisense support to my controls while coding against them and also provide Description support for the properties in the property grid?

56.9	How do I change the Zorder of my docked windows at design time?

56.10

How can I tell my form is being used in design time and not runtime?

56.11

How can I persist a collection of items into code?

56.12

How can I supply a list of values to be chosen from a dropdown list at runtime for a specific type similar to enums?

56.13

How to serialize properties of items that do not implement IComponent in a collection?

56.14

What is the function of TypeDescriptor?

56.15

What is the function of TypeConverters?

56.16

How do I make my custom dialog droppable in the design surface like a component?

56.17

How do I prevent my Component from becoming visible in the VS.Net Toolbox?

57. Design Time Type Editors

57.1	In my UITypeEditor for a collection, how do I change the "(collection)" string to a string of my own?

57.2	How can I allow my user to add more than 1 type of object to my collection, during design-time?

57.3	How can I let the user edit my Multi-Dimensional collection?

57.4	What should I do to make my StringCollection property editable during design-time?

57.5	How do I make a class expandable within the property browser?

57.6	How can I paint a representation of enum values using a UITypeEditor?

57.7	From within a PropertyGrid, is there any way to display property names that differ from the actual class property names?

58. Design Time UI

58.1	How do you prevent certain Controls from appearing in the property browser during designtime?

58.2	At designtime, how can I hide a base class property in my derived control from the user?

58.3	How do I make some properties not browsable in the designer, but browsable in the editor?

58.4	How do I prevent my Control's properties from getting combined with properties belonging to other objects in a Properties window?

58.5	How do I add a custom tab to the property grid when it is displaying my object's properties?

59. VS.NET Debugging

59.1	How can I see debug/trace statements when I run my application in debug mode?

59.2	What is fuslogvw.exe?

59.3	How do I set the debugger to Break on Exception?

59.4	If I have a user control and a designer, how can I debug the designer?

59.5	How can I use the debugger paint and focus problems as the stops are always hit too early?

59.6	In a debug build, how do I write debug information to the output window (similar to the TRACE macro from VC6)?

59.7	Why am I getting duplicate trace messages for my trace statements?

59.8	How can I direct debug output to a text file?

59.9	Can I trace the Call Stack at any particular point without breaking into the debugger?

59.10

Can I trace the caught Exception without breaking into the debugger?

59.11

How do I conditionally include certain methods based on some preprocessor defines?

60. VS.NET Macros

60.1	Can VB.NET code be formatted using macros?

60.2	Is it possible to call macros as part of a Visual Studio.NET command line build (or from a batch file)?

61. VS.NET Tips

61.1	Is there any easy way to convert C# code to VB.NET?

61.2	Is there any easy way to convert VB.NET code to C#?

61.3	How can I word-wrap the Tooltip that is displayed?

61.4	How do I add a tooltip to my Button control?

61.5	How can I have a multiline tooltip?

61.6	How do I use VS to add an override for a virtual member of a baseclass?

61.7	Whenever I share files between projects it appears that Visual Studio.NET copies the files over into the new project. I want to just share the file and not have it copied over. Is there any way to do this?

61.8	How can I graphically set the tab order for controls on a form?

61.9	How can I speed up my work in Visual Studio?

61.10

I have code snippets that I use often. How can I manage them so I can easily used them?

61.11

In Visual Studio, all my docking windows are out of whack. How can I reset them so things will be docked properly?

61.12

How do I move a docked control around (or change the dock order) in my Form?

61.13

How can I instruct the compiler to use the Main method in Class2 instead of Class1?

61.14

If I create an assembly, how can I see the assembly/components from with the VS.Net "Add..." dialogs?

61.15

How does VS.Net find the referenced assemblies when I build a project from the command line?

61.16

How can I get the default namespace of a C# project in VS.NET?

61.17

How can I open a project created with Visual Studio .NET 2003 in Visual Studio .NET 2002?

61.18

In VS.NET, how can I change the build order of projects in my solution?

61.19

In VS.NET, how can I specify the start up project for my application?

61.20

Can I drag and drop code snippets using the VS.NET IDE?

61.21

How can I change the Word Wrap Property of VS.NET IDE?

61.22

How to convert an application project to class library project, and vice versa?

61.23

How do I start Visual Studio.NET from the command line?

61.24

What are the options with using Visual Studio.NET from the command line?

61.25

How do I create and use a component?

61.26

How do I compile unsafe code in VS.NET?

62. Framework Tips Performance

62.1	Is it possible to cache an assembly to improve performance?

62.2	Why are .Net programs slow to load when running under a domain?

63. Framework Tips Events

63.1	How do I intercept event subscription of a event in my base class?

63.2	How do I control the order in which events are fired to multiple subscribers?

63.3	How do I figure out if a particular client object has subscribed to one of my events?

64. Framework Tips CGI

64.1	Can I write CGI applications using .NET?

65. Framework Tips General

65.1	Is it possible to turn off strong name validation for an assembly?

65.2	How can I catch an exception on a program wide basis?

65.3	Can I generate UML diagrams from C# code?

65.4	Does .Net support "deprecation" as in Java?

65.5	Can .NET applications run on non Microsoft Platforms?

65.6	Can I play audio and video files using .NET?

65.7	Can I create file associations with .NET?

65.8	Is there any way to Shutdown/Restart Windows using .NET?

65.9	How can I Invoke a private interface implementations of an instance using reflection?

65.10

How can I adjust the version number for multiple projects without changing every AssemblyInfo.cs file constantly?

65.11

How do I launch IE or any other process from code?

65.12

How do I pre-JIT an assembly to native code during installation?

65.13

How do I get the install directory for the version of the runtime that is loaded in the current process?

65.14

How to retrieve the assembly version, name, etc. contained in the "AssemblyInfo.cs", from inside the running app?

65.15

Is there a way to access private and protected members of a class instance?

65.16

In VB.NET how do I access the runtime type object of a specified type from it's type name?

65.17

How do I print a document using .NET?

66. Framework Tips General IO

66.1	How do you persist any object in the registry?

66.2	How can I listen to changes in a file/directory in the windows file system?

66.3	While deserializing how do I check whether a name is available in the deserialized info?

66.4	How come some of the objects are not initialized during deserialization?

66.5	How can I access a webpage from a windows form?

66.6	I just want to read a text file into a string. Is there some simple code for this?

66.7	I just want to write a simple text file. Is there some simple code for this?

66.8	I want to iterate through both files and folders in a given folder. Is this possible?

66.9	My application requires a simple ini file. Is there a easy way to implement this without using any parsing?

66.10

How can I convert a long path to a short path?

67. Framework Tips Strings

67.1	How to I introduce culture information into formatted strings?

67.2	How do I convert a string to an double or int?

67.3	How can I convert the string "Red" into the color Color.Red, and vice versa?

67.4	Is there a .Net way of deciding whether a string is numeric or not?

67.5	How can I determine if a string is a valid date?

67.6	How can I convert an Enumeration member to string and vice-versa?

67.7	My program dynamically builds lots of strings. Is there a way to optimize string performance?

67.8	I hate string processing. Is there an easier way to do string manipulation?

67.9	How do I use the CSV clipboard format supported by Excel?

67.10

Is there a easy way to test Regular Expressions?

68. Framework Tips Threading

68.1	Why do I have to use the STAThread attribute for my main method in my app.?

68.2	When I close my application, my secondary thread does not exit.

68.3	I call invoke Abort on my threads, but they still do not terminate.

69. Framework Tips XML

69.1	How do I add an XmlNode from one XmlDocument to an XmlNode in another XmlDocument?

70. Framework Tips 1.1

70.1	What's new in the 1.1 framework?

70.2	Is EnableVisualStyles method to support XP styles in my app broken?

70.3	How come I don't get to see the full call stack while debugging in VS2003?

71. Framework Tips Math

71.1	Are there any libraries to do numerical analysis with .NET?

72. Network Tips

72.1	How do I access an FTP server using .NET?

72.2	How do I send email using .NET?

72.3	How do I read email from a POP server using .NET?

72.4	I want to UUENCODE and decode data? Does the .NET framework have support for this?

72.5	Is there a way to Ping servers using .NET?

72.6	Is there a easy way to add Socks Proxy support?

72.7	Is there a easy way to query Whois information?