VB.NET Module-level variable to store count of child forms - vb.net

In this exercise, you’ll create an application with a multiple-document interface that consists of a parent form and two child forms.
Open the project and add a parent form
1. Open the CalculateFlooringCosts project in the CalculateFlooringCostsMDI directory. Then, review the code for the Carpeting Costs and Hardwood Costs forms so you understand how they work.
Add a form to the project, and set the IsMdiContainer property of this form to True to identify it as the parent form. Resize the form so it’s large enough to hold several child forms, and use the Application page of the Project Designer to change the startup form to the new form.
Add the File menu to the parent form
Add a MenuStrip control to the parent form. Then, use the Menu Designer to add a File menu to the parent form. This menu should include four menu items that display a Carpeting Costs form, display a Hardwood Costs form, close the active child form, and exit from the application. Give each menu item an appropriate name, include access keys for the menu and menu items, and include a separator bar between the Close and Exit items.
Add an event handler for the Click event of each item in the File menu. The event handlers for the New Carpeting Costs and New Hardwood Costs items should create a new instance of the appropriate form, set the parent form to the current form, and display the form. The event handler for the Close item should close the active child form, if there is one. And the event handler for the Exit item should exit from the application.
Change the Exit buttons on the Carpeting Costs and Hardwood Costs forms to Close buttons, and change the StartPosition property of these forms to WindowsDefaultLocation.
Test the application to be sure that the items in the File menu work as expected.
Add the Window menu to the parent form
Add a Window menu to the right of the File menu. Then, add three items to this menu that will let the user arrange the forms in a cascaded, vertical, or horizontal layout.
Give each item in the Window menu an appropriate name, and then add an event handler for the Click event of each item that arranges the child forms appropriately.
Set the MdiWindowListItem property of the menu strip so the Window menu will display a list of the open child forms.
Test the application to be sure that the items in the Window menu work as expected.
Add a toolbar to the parent form
Add a ToolStrip control to the parent form. Then, add two buttons to this toolbar with the text “Carpeting Costs” and “Hardwood Costs” on them. Be sure to assign appropriate names to these buttons.
Add an event handler for the Click event of each button that uses the Click event handler for the associated menu to display the form.
Test the application to be sure that the toolbar buttons work.
Add a status bar to the parent form
Add a StatusStrip control to the parent form. Then, add a single ToolStripStatusLabel control to the status bar.
Add a module-level variable to the parent form to store the count of child forms, and give this variable an initial value of 0. Add code to increase or decrease the value of this variable each time a new form is opened or closed.
Add a procedure named DisplayFormCount that sets the Text property of the ToolStripStatusLabel control to “Number of child forms currently displayed: ” appended with the current form count. Then, add code to call this procedure when the form is loaded and each time the form count changes.
Test the application to be sure that the form count is displayed properly.
It's steps 15 and 16 I am stuck on.
I have tried this:
Private Sub DisplayFormCount(Sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Me.MdiChildActivate
Dim activeForm As Form = Me.ActiveMdiChild
Me.sbMain.Items(0).Text = "Number of child forms currently displayed: " & Convert.ToString(Me.MdiChildren.Count)
End Sub
And it works for the most part. Upon form loading, it shows 0, then adding a form will make the count increase by 1. The problem is when I go to close the first child window, it doesn't subract. Afterwards all window closes reduces the count by 1 and when all windows are closed, it still says there's a count of 1.

Related

How to add existing winform to multiple tabpages

I want to add the same Form in project to five tabpages in TabControl.
This is what i have tried
For i As Integer = 0 To 4
'XtraTabPage instance (DevXpress)
Dim page As New XtraTabPage()
'ExamsTab is the existing form that i want to add tho the page
Dim fm As New ExamsTab
fm.TopLevel = False
fm.Dock = DockStyle.Fill
page.Controls.Add(fm)
fm.BringToFront()
fm.Show()
'Adding the page to the TabControl in Exams_Class
Exams_Class.ExamsTabControl.TabPages.Add(page)
Next
This only adds the form to the last tabpage but doesn't add to others.
If that didn't work I'd try page.Controls.AddRange(fm.Controls) but I'm not in a position to test it.
In the past when I've wanted to keep my code better organized into one form per tab I've:
made a new form
put a tabcontrol on it with a single page, call the control TheTabControl for example
put all the controls into the tab page, put all the events etc in the form code
put a line of code that retrieves the tab:
Public Function GetTab() As TabPage
Return Me.TheTabControl.TabPages(0)
End Function
on the main form, with the one tabcontrol that should contain all the other tab pages, have a code like:
MainTabCobtrol.TabPages.Add(New SomeOtherForm().GetTab())
This way all the controls and their event handlers stay in one form (a good thing) but you can combine them together into one Tab Control on another form. Putting them inside a tab means you can get an idea of how to size it, and you can specify in the designer other things like the tab name etc
From a code organising perspective, it's something the designer can more easily cope with than having all the TabPages in one. Control and all the event handlers etc (makes for a fairly monster form code behind and it doesn't respond well to being split into partial classes)
If you want to add a tab control to the existing form the Document Outline window might be helpful for moving the controls into it with drag and drop. You could also cut all the controls, add a tab and paste, but check the eventbhabdlers are all still wired up afterwards- I find that sometimes this makes them go missing

The ListBox Click event is lost when focus is set to a TabControl

I am working with a Visual Basic.NET project in Visual Studio 2017 (.NET Framework 4.6.1)
I am using a Listbox which is associated with a BindingSource.
The Listbox is contained within one pane of a SplitterControl.
I also have a TabControl is located within the other pane of the SplitterControl. This control contains child data associated with the items in the ListBox and is refreshed when the ListBox is clicked and an item is subsequently selected in the ListBox. The Click event refreshes a Treeview, which then populates the TabControl with data if/when (1) a tree node is clicked and (2) appropriate data is retrieved for that node.
The Listbox Click event works fine while clicking different items consecutively within the Listbox only.
However, once the mouse clicks in the TabControl (in the other pane of the SplitterControl), then once the initial Listbox is clicked, the Click event doesn’t fire.
I have researched this issue (on StackOverFlow as well as other forums) and suggestions have basically revolved around the idea that the Click event could be forced by calling the routine set up as the Click event handler (e.g., myListBox_Click).
I have tried this, but the problem is that I am losing the current SelectedIndex / SelectedValue.
To illustrate by reproducing the issue within the app where I am encountering the problem:
The app in question (note the Listbox highlighted by the red arrow - Screenshot 1):
Screenshot 1
Upon startup of the app, the Listbox behaves as it should, if the user clicks nowhere else, only selecting various items within the Listbox. The TabControl (initial tab shown is always the Profile tab) is refreshed accordingly.
However, if at any point, the mouse is clicked in the TabControl (e.g., to select another tab, note Screenshot 2)
Screenshot 2
Now, when the user clicks on another item in the Listbox, the wrong item is selected (shown in Screenshot 3):
Screenshot 3
The Click event is now being forced via a call to MyListBox_Click within the TabControl_Leave event; my thinking was that this was the appropriate place to put the subroutine call. My reasoning was that when the Listbox was clicked in this scenario, the first event to fire (as far as I could tell) was the TabControl_Leave event.
Not surprisingly, if the same item in the Listbox (in this example scenario, Allegheny) is subsequently clicked, than the result is what should have happened on the previous click (that the SelectedValue is correct, as seen in Screenshot 4):
Screenshot 4
Of course, this is correct, since the last click occurred while the Listbox was already the active control.
I have tried several approaches such as (1) using a global variable to store the current index/value and retrieving it, and (2) using the Tag property of the TabControl to store and retrieve the same value. This has either worked inconsistently or not at all because of the order in which the control events fire.
Hopefully, I've been clear enough on the nature of my problem/issue.
Anyone have any ideas on what my next approach could be? Any ideas/insights/suggestions will, of course, be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Chris Fleetwood
Software Developer
North Carolina Partnership for Children (SmartStart)

Add user control to panel on button click

I'm new to VB.NET and struggling with below.
In my button click event I'm trying to add a user control every time a button is clicked. I only ever see one control, I presume I'm just overwriting each time. How do I get it to display each version in the list?
Dim ucMyCtrl As New MyControl
pnlAddMyControl.Controls.Add(ucMyCtrl )

Loading new form within a navigation tab in ms Access 2010

I have created the following navigation structure in a Microsoft access 2010 database:
You can see that there are two tabs, and the data for the tabs is populated with information linked to the ClientID, which is stored in an un-editable textbox at the top of the form. When the Communications Forms tab is selected, a list of communications forms that have been completed for the specific ClientID is shown. And there is a button to create a new form. My question is how do I write the macro so that clicking on the Create New Form button will cause a blank new form to be loaded in the space that is currently occupied by the List of Forms?
Below is what I have so far. It sends the user to a new form instead of embedding the new form underneath the Communication Forms tab in the current form. How can I change the below so that the blank new form is loaded under the Communication Forms tab in the current form, so that all the navigation controls remain visible/usable?
EDIT:
To address HK1's assumptions below, I am adding the following description of the steps I took to create the form in the screenshot above:
1.) I created a blank form in design view.
2.) I added a listbox to list client fullname and id, and a textbox to filter the listbox.
3.) I added the clientid and fullname textboxes to the form, and set them to change based on
what the user selects from the listbox
4.) I dragged a navigation control onto the form next to the listbox
5.) I dragged a form called "ListOfForms" onto a new tab in the navigation control to create the tab
6.) I added the CreateNewForm command button to the ListOfForms form while embedded in the main form
Here is the result of HK1's suggested code:
While I appreciate it, it does not do what I need. You can see that it just adds an additional row to the list in ListOfForms. Instead, I need the code to place a blank MyForm in the place of MainForm where ListOfForms is currently located. Thus, under the CommunicationsForms tab, all the user would see would be a blank MyForm object, which is a different form than ListOfForms.
When I click on the place where ListOfForms is located in Layout View, I see that it is called NavigationSubForm in the Property Sheet. Thus, NavigationSubForm would swap in MyForm in place of ListOfForms when the user clicks on the Create New Form command button. But if the user clicks on CommunicationForms tab again, ListOfForms would again be placed in NavigationSubForm.
I tried the following:
Private Sub cmdCreateNewForm_Click()
Forms!MainForm!NavigationSubform = MyForm
End Sub
But it generates a Runtime Error '438': Object doesn't support this property or method.
Next, I tried:
Private Sub cmdCreateNewForm_Click()
Forms!MainForm.NavigationSubform.SourceObject = MyForm
End Sub
This causes the NavigationSubForm to go blank, so that ListOfForms disappears. This seems like I am on the correct track, but what do I need to do to get it to put a blank MyForm in the NavigationSubForm instead of just an empty space?
The form you have labeled as "List of Forms" appears to be what's called a continuous form, and I'm guessing it's inside a subform control located on a another form. I'm also guessing that your Create New Form button is probably located on the header section of your continuous form. I'm also making the assumption that your continuous form/subform is bound to an editable recordset/recordsource but there's no way I can tell this by looking at the screenshot.
With these assumptions in place, the code for your Create New Form button would probably be something like this:
Private Sub cmdCreateNewForm_Click()
Me.AllowAdditions = True
DoCmd.GoToRecord, , acNewRec
End Sub
If any of my assumptions above are incorrect than it's likely this code won't work as expected.
Be aware that New Records in continuous forms (and datasheet forms) always appear at the bottom of the list. I'm not aware of any easy way of making them appear anywhere else.

Access forms and sub-forms

I am building a database on MS 2003. I have one form which calls for a series of options. This form is based on the table "Categories" which is linked to the main table by Customer ID.
Now, both forms appear together on the same screen, what I am trying to do is have the person select one or more of the categories and in pressing a command button then those categories which were selected will show its respective forms. The forms are invisible until selected and until the command button is pressed.
Since they are two different forms (categories in one) and the entry form on another, How do I program the command button to make the entry form visible FROM the other form?
The sub-form is located in a tab. I dont want to show it as a pop-up but to become visible within the tab where it's located
If the form is open but invisible then you can refer to it as a member of the forms collection and make it visible:
forms("myForm").Visible = true
If the form isn't open then get its name from the AllForms collection of the project and then use the OpenForm method:
docmd.OpenForm currentproject.AllForms("myForm").Name, acNormal
Pseudologic: you are basically going to want to set the Visible property with all of your forms to False during the form's Open event. You should place this Visible = False code in a separate subroutine so that the code structure can be called during other events too. (For example you may want to provide a Reset button so that the user can reset the form, or trigger the "set false" code when a new customer id is selected.) Then with every selected category you would set its associated form property visible by setting Visible = True.