Changing application layout via buttons in VB .NET - vb.net

Currently I would like to program an application gathering forms that are callable with buttons on the side. For this, I am using the latest build of Visual Studio Community. One way I thought of would be to literally put all the form elements (textboxes, lists, etc.) in the application window and only enable them whenever the according button is clicked on. However, if this is the way to do it, I find it quite messy and unpractical, and I'm pretty sure there's another way around.
After some research, I have learned about the MDI layouts, but they don't suit my taste. I would like to keep everything in one single frame.
Could you give me a hand?

Related

How to change a ComboBox to display items in a Loader?

I would like to have a ComboBox that handles large amounts of content by loading them asynchronously inside a Loader, so I can display a little BusyIndicator over the drop-down.
Is it maybe possible to achieve this through a style? I want to avoid having to recreate a ComboBox from scratch.
No. It may be possible in the future, though:
This one is a bit tricky to get right, and is still work in progress. It is not difficult to style the popup background, the same way it's currently doable for MenuStyle. What remains, as you pointed out, is to make that API public.
What we can't promise, is to be able to style the popup window shape. If QtQuick was backing store based, then most platforms support shaping the window. But QtQuick is OpenGL based, and desktop platforms support this in different ways. On mobile and embedded platforms, we can't use a separate window, so we need to build an abstraction that would use Item-based popups.
I'd suggest voting for and watching QTBUG-39476 if you're interested in this feature and don't want to write your own ComboBox.

Totally independent forms in tabcontrol

I'm designing an application on VB.net and I'm newbie as well.
I thought about the general architecture of the application and came up with the following idea.
the application is made of different modules
the user can run different modules in the same time
each module will run his main form in a different tab in tabcontrol
each module has his own modal forms, mode-less windows, messages, ... etc.
Before going through much development details, I started first with trying this design. Though, I couldn't first embed dynamically a form in tab during run time and even after some workarounds, I couldn't make the modules run perfectly in parallel. For example when I have a modal window displayed in a module, the whole application freezes while I expect only the related tab to freeze and be able to switch to the others to do some work.
Does anyone know how to make the tab contents completely separate and not have one freezes the other?
Thank you.
There's no need to have separate modules/forms to run more than one task simultaneously. The issue you are having with the UI freezing is you are running all operations on the primary thread. You need to multithread the application. Do a quick search on stackoverflow for multithreading vb.net. If you can't find anything let me know and I'll do the search and provide links.

Custom Windows Form menu in vb.net

I want to make a Custom Windows Forms menu. Now, when I say "menu", I mean where the "Exit", "Maximize" and the "Minimize" icons are. I have seen in Microsoft Office software that Microsoft have done a custom WinForms Menu, and in many other software. I have done research for months, and searched so much and have not found anything! I have, found some companies which are currently selling Component Packages with Visual Basic, C# and Visual C++ components, however I do not have the money to buy one of these packages, therefore I need help making a custom Windows Form menu.
I would like to make a Custom Windows Form Menu as a "Ribbon" type. So, It will have a "Ribbon Form Menu". However, I do not wish to use any products or packages to do this for me, seen as I don't have money for them.
I have tried a number of ways for creating a Custom Form Menu:
Used a ToolStrip docked to the top of the form, and set the property of "Left to right" to True, and used buttons or labels for the "Exit", "Maximize" and "Minimize" buttons, although, this isn't really ideal, and I don't really want that anymore.
Used buttons at the top of the Form and docked a panel behind it to made it look like a custom form, but again, this isn't really ideal either.
Anyway, please can someone help me make a custom Windows Forms Menu? It would be nice if you could help me make it in the "Ribbon Style" too!
Please note this post is aimed at the Visual Basic Programming language.. I am using Visual Basic! :D
Thanks.
You have a few options, Firstly you can extend the ClientArea into the NonClientArea
and you would end up with something like: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/44235/Painting-Vista-s-Aero-NonClientArea-in-VB-NET
After doing some digging i found a .net wrapper for the windows 7 ribbon control, I haven't tried using it yet but you might be able to make it work:
http://windowsribbon.codeplex.com/
Alternatively you can create it all from scratch, setting the FormBorderStyle to None and handling the moving/re-sizing etc by your own code.
As well as painting the Ribbon-like controls yourself.
The latter is a lot more work but is the most customizable, I hope this is helpful and gets you on the right track!

Silverlight - Lync Application nested in a table

I'm very new in Silverlight and the Lync-SDK. So sorry for the question from a beginner.
Long time ago, i wrote al little web application, based on php for reading out contacts from a sql database.
Now the customer expand his envoirement and place Lync. Now he want the little Lync-Status-Square in the webapplication for click to call features.
I playing a little bit with the SDK of lync.
The following problem comes up. The square of Lync is nested in a td of my table. But the Lync-Silverlight-Applet need dynamical space for hover effects or single clicks. But in my table, i have no space, specially dynamic space.
So i switch off all hover and click functionality and place the follwing buttons in the StackPanel separate.
PresenceIndicator
StartInstanceMessagingButton
StartAudiCallButton
SendEmailButton
Two of them are fine.
Clicking on the IM-Button, The Lync Client opens the right Contact in IM-Mode and i can directly type a message. Perfect!
Clicking on the Mail-Icon, an Mail-Client will open, perfect.
The PresenceIndicator just display the color, not the exactly state, thats a problem, when the color is yellow. I can display the state in a TextBlock, but i prefer a label appears while hovering over the icon.
But my mainproblem is the StartAudioCallButton. This Icon is an dropDown-Icon. And i have no space for dropdowns. I would be so nice if this icon has the same behavoior like the IM-Button. The Lync Client will open in Call Modus and i can select, which callernumber i will use. Is that possible?
Thank you for Your time!
Frank
If you're having trouble with the layout of the standard Lync SilverLight controls, then the best thing to do is implement your own SilverLight controls for the function you're having difficulty with.
User Controls are really simple to create, there are plenty of tutorials on how to get started if you're not familiar with the process.
The Lync SDK has some great walkthroughs to get you up and running with signing in to Lync and placing an audio call
I don't know of any way to get Lync to open in a Call Mode as you suggested, but if you're limited with screen space, maybe you could have your custom StartAudioCallButton open a popup with the phone numbers in?

Surface Table Project with Web Browsers

I'm working on a project that will use a Surface table to show web browsers that can be manipulated via the multitouch behaviors. I'd like to be able to show a browser at full screen and then resize, move, etc.
I'd also like to be able to launch a new, separate browser windows that can also be manipulated through multitouch.
Any suggestions on controls to look into for this?
Thanks!
This is a non-trivial task. As far as I know, many have tried and put months of effort into it but none of been very successful. Don't even bother trying to get something to work well based on WPF's built in WebBrowser control. Best bet is to start with the SurfaceScatterView control and trying to put a 'Chromium' control inside of it (http://wpfchromium.codeplex.com/). It appears that even this isn't straightforward though: http://wpfchromium.codeplex.com/discussions/244117