vb.net returning string as dialog result - vb.net

I'm creating an AddIn for Autodesk Inventor, the AddIn is a simple button in the ribbon.
When the user presses the button a new form is created as dialog.
Private Sub ButtonClick()
Dim oWindow As New CopyDesignForm(string1, string2)
oWindow.ShowDialog()
End Sub
The user will then do some operations and a file path as string is the result of his actions. I would now like to return this value so my AddIn can process the file.
But I can't seem to find a good example of this. I can only find an excellent sample of how to pass the ok or cancel result. But not how to get to a variable of the dialog.
Link to ok and cancel result sample

You can add a string property to the dialog and set the value of the property in your dialog,Then after showing the dialog, check if the dialog result was OK, then read the property.
Code for your customm dialog:
Public Class MyCustomDialog
Public Property SomeProperty As String
Private Sub OKCommandButton_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) _
Handles OKCommandButton.Click
Me.SomeProperty = "Some Value"
Me.DialogResult = Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK
End Sub
Private Sub CancelCommandButton_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) _
Handles CancelCommandButton.Click
Me.SomeProperty = Nothing
Me.DialogResult = Windows.Forms.DialogResult.Cancel
End Sub
End Class
Code for your usage of custom dialog:
Public Class Form1
Private Sub Button1_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
Dim f As New MyCustomDialog
If (f.ShowDialog() = DialogResult.OK) Then
MessageBox.Show(f.SomeProperty)
End If
End Sub
End Class

Related

ContextMenuStrip Requires Two Right Clicks to Display

I like to create my contextmenu's programmatically. I generally do not add the items to the contextmenustrip until it is opening as the items that get displayed are dependent on other aspects of the design that are variable.
I have found that the contextmenustrips seem to require two right clicks to display. I've tried adding the menu items in different events (opening, opened, etc) and also manually setting the contextmenustrip's visibility to true to no avail.
I can't for the life of me figure out why two right clicks are necessary. If you create a blank winforms project and then replace all the code with this, it'll demonstrate the issue.
Public Class Form1
Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
Dim currContextMenuStrip As New ContextMenuStrip
Me.ContextMenuStrip = currContextMenuStrip
AddHandler currContextMenuStrip.Opening, AddressOf ContextMenuStrip1_Opening
End Sub
Private Sub ContextMenuStrip1_Opening(sender As Object, e As CancelEventArgs)
Dim currContextMenuStrip As ContextMenuStrip = sender
Dim menuTxt As String = "&Find"
'only add the menu if it doesn't already exist
If (From f In currContextMenuStrip.Items Where f.text = menuTxt).Count = 0 Then
Dim newMenuItem As New ToolStripMenuItem
newMenuItem.Text = menuTxt
currContextMenuStrip.Items.Add(newMenuItem)
End If
End Sub
End Class
EDIT: Just figured out it seems to be connected to the fact that the contextmenustrip doesn't have any items on the first right click. If I add a dummy item, then hide it once other items are added, it works on the first right click. So confused!
This works:
Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
Dim currContextMenuStrip As New ContextMenuStrip
Me.ContextMenuStrip = currContextMenuStrip
AddHandler currContextMenuStrip.Opening, AddressOf ContextMenuStrip1_Opening
'add a dummy item
Dim newMenuItem As New ToolStripMenuItem
newMenuItem.Text = "dummy"
currContextMenuStrip.Items.Add(newMenuItem)
End Sub
Private Sub ContextMenuStrip1_Opening(sender As Object, e As CancelEventArgs)
Dim currContextMenuStrip As ContextMenuStrip = sender
Dim menuTxt As String = "&Find"
'only add the menu if it doesn't already exist
If (From f In currContextMenuStrip.Items Where f.text = menuTxt).Count = 0 Then
Dim newMenuItem As New ToolStripMenuItem
newMenuItem.Text = menuTxt
currContextMenuStrip.Items.Add(newMenuItem)
End If
'hide the dummy item
Dim items As List(Of ToolStripMenuItem) = (From f As ToolStripMenuItem In currContextMenuStrip.Items Where f.Text = "dummy").ToList
items.First.visible = False
End Sub
End Class
If you really need to do things this way, one option is to create your own custom ContextMenuStrip that accounts for the behaviour when there are no items and the requirement for a dummy item. I used this code:
Imports System.ComponentModel
Public Class Form1
Private WithEvents menu As New ContextMenuStrip
Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
ContextMenuStrip = menu
End Sub
Private Sub menu_Opening(sender As Object, e As CancelEventArgs) Handles menu.Opening
If menu.Items.Count = 0 Then
menu.Items.AddRange({New ToolStripMenuItem("First"),
New ToolStripMenuItem("Second"),
New ToolStripMenuItem("Third")})
End If
End Sub
Private Sub menu_ItemClicked(sender As Object, e As ToolStripItemClickedEventArgs) Handles menu.ItemClicked
MessageBox.Show(e.ClickedItem.Text)
End Sub
End Class
and saw the same behaviour you describe. I then defined this class:
Public Class ContextMenuStripEx
Inherits ContextMenuStrip
Private dummyItem As ToolStripItem
Public ReadOnly Property IsInitialised As Boolean
Get
Return dummyItem Is Nothing
End Get
End Property
Public Sub New()
dummyItem = Items.Add(CStr(Nothing))
End Sub
''' <inheritdoc />
Protected Overrides Sub OnItemAdded(e As ToolStripItemEventArgs)
If Not IsInitialised Then
Items.Remove(dummyItem)
dummyItem = Nothing
End If
MyBase.OnItemAdded(e)
End Sub
End Class
and changed my form code to this:
Imports System.ComponentModel
Public Class Form1
Private WithEvents menu As New ContextMenuStripEx
Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
ContextMenuStrip = menu
End Sub
Private Sub menu_Opening(sender As Object, e As CancelEventArgs) Handles menu.Opening
If Not menu.IsInitialised Then
menu.Items.AddRange({New ToolStripMenuItem("First"),
New ToolStripMenuItem("Second"),
New ToolStripMenuItem("Third")})
End If
End Sub
Private Sub menu_ItemClicked(sender As Object, e As ToolStripItemClickedEventArgs) Handles menu.ItemClicked
MessageBox.Show(e.ClickedItem.Text)
End Sub
End Class
and it worked as desired. Note that the last code snippet uses the custom type and its custom property.
Thanks for all the help and suggestions! I ultimately decided to build the superset of menus in the Designer and then just show/hide at run time. That's probably faster on each right click then rebuilding the menu each time.
Microsoft has old style and new style context menus. The Popup event was used for the old style context menus and it received a plain EventArgs object. The new context menus use the Opening event which receives a CancelEventArgs object. If currContextMenuStrip.Items doesn't contain any items, e.Cancel will be set to True when the event handler is called (which caused the problem you encountered). The fix is to add the menu items and then set e.Cancel to False. It should display fine after that. To make sure items were actually added, the assignment of e.Cancel can be guarded with an if statement as follows:
If currContextMenuStrip.Items.Count <> 0 Then
e.Cancel = False
End If

how to manage pass value set by dialog box in VB form application to its caller

I have a form Main that calls open a dialog, which gets a text value response and that value would need to be used in Main. I was wondering how to achieve this where Main would have access to this after the dialog closes. The minimal example of this is as follows:
Private Class Main
Private Sub btn_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnOpenDialog.Click
Dim dialog As New Dialog
dialog.Show()
End Sub
End Class
and Dialog
Private Class Dialog
Private response As String
Private Sub btnOK_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnOK.Click
response = txtResponse.Text
Me.Close()
End Sub
End Class
Just provide a pass-through property for the Text of the TextBox:
Public ReadOnly Property Response As String
Get
Return txtResponse.Text
End Get
End Property
It's hard to know for certain but you probably out to be displaying the form as a modal dialogue:
Dim response As String = Nothing
Using dlg As New Dialog
If dlg.ShowDialog() = DialogResult.OK Then
response = dlg.Response
End If
End Using
'...
Now you don't need a Click event handler for your Button as you can just set its DialogResult property to OK in the designer.
In that case the simple solution could be the following:
Private Class Main
Private Sub btnOpenDialog_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnOpenDialog.Click
Dim AskDialog As New Dialog
Dim Response As String
Response = AskDialog.DialogShow()
End Sub
End Class
and Dialog
Public Class Dialog
Private response As String
Public Function DialogShow() As String
Me.ShowDialog()
Return response
End Function
Private Sub btnOK_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnOK.Click
response = txtResponse.Text
Me.Close()
End Sub
End Class

simple dialog like msgbox with custom buttons (vb)

I want to ask user for example "Do you want to go right or left?".
To have simple Code I use MSGBOX with a prompt like:
"Do you want to go right or left"
Press "YES for 'right' / NO for 'left'"
Then I process Yes/No/Cancel that was pressed. This works but is ugly and in some cases hard to understand.
Also in Addition in some cases I have more than 2 choices - but that is probable another question...
You can create one dynamically
Public Module CustomMessageBox
Private result As String
Public Function Show(options As IEnumerable(Of String), Optional message As String = "", Optional title As String = "") As String
result = "Cancel"
Dim myForm As New Form With {.Text = title}
Dim tlp As New TableLayoutPanel With {.ColumnCount = 1, .RowCount = 2}
Dim flp As New FlowLayoutPanel()
Dim l As New Label With {.Text = message}
myForm.Controls.Add(tlp)
tlp.Dock = DockStyle.Fill
tlp.Controls.Add(l)
l.Dock = DockStyle.Fill
tlp.Controls.Add(flp)
flp.Dock = DockStyle.Fill
For Each o In options
Dim b As New Button With {.Text = o}
flp.Controls.Add(b)
AddHandler b.Click,
Sub(sender As Object, e As EventArgs)
result = DirectCast(sender, Button).Text
myForm.Close()
End Sub
Next
myForm.FormBorderStyle = FormBorderStyle.FixedDialog
myForm.Height = 100
myForm.ShowDialog()
Return result
End Function
End Module
You see you have options as to what buttons are present, the message, and title.
Use it like this
Public Class Form1
Private Sub Button1_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
Dim result = CustomMessageBox.Show(
{"Right", "Left"},
"Do you want to go right or left?",
"Confirm Direction")
MessageBox.Show(result)
End Sub
End Class
In my example, the prompt is "Do you want to go right or left?" and the options are "Right" and "Left".
The string is returned as opposed to DialogResult because now your options are unlimited (!). Experiment with the size to your suiting.
You need to create your own "custom" msgbox form according to your needs, and its better to create a reusable control - pass your "question" string via the constructor of your custom control.
You need some "way" to get the user decision from out side your custom msgbox - one way is use DialogResult Enum for that.
Here is a basic example i just wrote to demonstrate that, please see the comments i have added inside the code.
create a new project with 2 forms, Form1 will be the main form that will call the custom msgbox and Form2 will be the custom msgbox:
Form1:
Form2:
Code for Form1:
Public Class Form1
Private Sub btnOpenCustomMsgbox_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnOpenCustomMsgbox.Click
Dim customMsgbox = New Form2("this is my custom msg, if you press yes i will do something if you press no i will do nothing")
If customMsgbox.ShowDialog() = DialogResult.Yes Then
' do something
MsgBox("I am doing some operation...")
Else
' do nothing (its DialogResult.no)
MsgBox("I am doing nothing...")
End If
End Sub
End Class
Code for Form2:
Public Class Form2
' field that will contain the messege
Private PromtMsg As String
Sub New(ByVal promtmsg As String)
' This call is required by the designer.
InitializeComponent()
' Add any initialization after the InitializeComponent() call.
' set global field with the argument that was passed to the constructor
Me.PromtMsg = promtmsg
End Sub
Private Sub Form2_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
' set the msg label
Me.lblPromtMsg.Text = Me.PromtMsg
End Sub
Private Sub btnCustomYes_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnCustomYes.Click
' user choosed yes - return DialogResult.Yes
Me.DialogResult = DialogResult.Yes
Me.Close()
End Sub
Private Sub btnCustomNo_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnCustomNo.Click
' user choosed no - DialogResult.no
Me.DialogResult = DialogResult.No
Me.Close()
End Sub
End Class
it can be much more sophisticated but if you explore that example i hope you will understand the general idea.

How to return selected item on listbox on the second form to the main form in visual basic?

So basically you have a main form that shows only a label (lblTotalPrice) and a button that when you click it, it opens a second form that contains a listbox with different prices packages (lstPackages). How do do you select an item from lstPackages that is on the second form and return it to lblTotalPrice, which is located on the main form?
I attempted this code using a function (thought it would be useful for calculations), but it seems like it didn't work:
On my second form, I populated the lstPackages with it's name using parallel arrays:
Dim strPackages As String = {"Package 1", "Package 2", "Package 3", "Package 4", "Package 5"}
Dim decPrice As String = {100D, 200D, 300D, 400D, 500D}
Private Sub SecondForm_Activated(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Activate
Dim frmMain as New
Dim i As Integer
For i = 0 To strPackages.Length - 1
lstPackages.Items.Add(strPackages(i))
Next
End Sub
After I tried to select a value on lstPackages, but I just was not too sure if I was using the right code to select the item and return it to the main form:
Function CalcPackage()
Dim decPackages As Decimal = 0D
If lstPackages.SelectedIndex = -1 Then
MessageBox.Show("Select a package")
Else
For i = 0 To lstPackages.SelectedItem - 1
decPackages = lstPackages.SelectedItem(i)
Next i
End If
Return decPackages
End Function
When I have selected the item in the lstPackages, I tried to send the selected item back to the main form, but ran into a problem here:
Private Sub btnExit_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnClose.Click
Dim frmMainForm As New MainForm
Dim decTotal As Decimal
decTotal = CalcPackage()
'I was stuck in this part and wasn't sure how to return it to lblTotalPrice (and also close the second form too)
frmMainForm.lblTotalPrice.Text = decTotal.ToString("c")
frmMainForm.Show()
Me.Close()
End Sub
So yea sorry if my code is weird, but I'm hoping to get help on how to return the value of the item to lblTotalPrice on the main form, thanks guys
Part of your problem is that you are newing up an instance of the main form in the button exit click event handler of the second form, as shown in this code posted:
Private Sub btnExit_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnClose.Click
Dim frmMainForm As New MainForm
Dim decTotal As Decimal
decTotal = CalcPackage()
'I was stuck in this part and wasn't sure how to return it to lblTotalPrice (and also close the second form too)
frmMainForm.lblTotalPrice.Text = decTotal.ToString("c")
frmMainForm.Show()
Me.Close()
End Sub
Instead pass an instance of the main form to the second form via its constructor, like this:
Public Class SecondForm Inherits Form
Dim theMainForm As MainForm
Public Sub New(mainForm As MainForm)
theMainForm = mainForm
End Sub
End Class
Now you can reference the lblTotalPrice in the MainForm class via the theMainForm variable, like this:
theMainForm.lblTotalPrice.Text = lstPackages.SelectedItem
The theMainForm.lblTotalPrice.Text should only be updated in response to an item being selected from lstPackages not when the second form is closed; so handle the updating of the main form's label in the SelectedIndexChanged event of lstPackages, like this:
Protected Sub lstPackages_IndexChanged(sender As Object, e As EventArgs)
Dim decTotal As Decimal
decTotal = CalcPackage()
theMainForm.lblTotalPrice.Text = decTotal.ToString("c")
End Sub
All the exit button click event handler should do is to show the main form and close the second form, like this:
Private Sub btnExit_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnClose.Click
theMainForm.Show()
Me.Close()
End Sub
Just display SecondForm with ShowDialog(), then retrieve the value with the reference to it that you already have:
Public Class MainForm
Private Sub Button1_Click(sender As System.Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
Dim sf As New SecondForm
If sf.ShowDialog = Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK Then
lblTotalPrice.Text = sf.TotalPrice
End If
End Sub
End Class
Over in SecondForm:
Public Class SecondForm
Private _TotalPrice As Decimal
Public ReadOnly Property TotalPrice As Decimal
Get
Return _TotalPrice
End Get
End Property
Private Sub btnExit_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnClose.Click
If lstPackages.SelectedIndex = -1 Then
MessageBox.Show("Select a package")
Else
_TotalPrice = lstPackages.SelectedItem(0)
Me.DialogResult = Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK
End If
End Sub
End Class

Custom control mybase.OnTextChanged not firing

I have a custom text box control which validates input (striped out unwanted chars). This works fine apart from when I also want to do further processing on an implementation of the control.
Example I have 3 "specialTextbox"s on a form. sText1, sText2 and sText3. sText1 & sText2 work as as intended. However, I need to make changes on the forum when the value of sText3 is changed, so I have a handler in the form to handle the ctext changed event:
Private Sub sText3(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles sText3.TextChanged
'do some stuff here
End Sub
However this routine appears to override the OnTextChanged method of the custom text box. I have tried includeing a call to MyBase.OnTextChanged, but this still doesn't cascade up and no matter what I do I can't seem to get the text box to do its validation duties.
Must be something really simple, but I'm stumped!
Here is a class which overrides textbox
Public Class restrictedTextBox
Inherits Windows.Forms.TextBox
Protected validChars As List(Of Char)
Public Sub New(ByVal _validChars As List(Of Char))
MyBase.New()
validChars = _validChars
End Sub
Public Sub setValidChars(ByVal chrz As List(Of Char))
validChars = chrz
End Sub
Protected Overrides Sub OnTextChanged(e As System.EventArgs)
MyBase.OnTextChanged(e)
Dim newValue As String = ""
For Each c As Char In Me.Text.ToCharArray
Dim valid As Boolean = False
For Each c2 As Char In validChars
If c = c2 Then valid = True
Next
If valid Then newValue &= c.ToString
Next
Me.Text = newValue
End Sub
End Class
Here is a form which has a a custom textbox
Public Class frmNewForm
Private Sub btnOK_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs) Handles btnOK.Click
MessageBox.Show("the text from the restricted text is: " & txtRestricted.Text)
End Sub
End Class
Here is a form with a custom text box, which implements the TextChanged event
Public Class frmNewForm2
Private Sub btnOK_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs) Handles btnOK.Click
MessageBox.Show("the text from the restricted text is: " & txtRestricted.Text)
End If
Private Sub txtRestricted_TextChanged(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles txtRestricted.TextChanged
'now that I have implemented this method, the restrictedTextBox.OnTextChanged() doesn't fire - even if I call MyBase.OnTextChanged(e)
'just to be completely clear. the line of code below DOES get executed. But the code in restrictedTextBox.vb does NOT
lblAwesomeLabel.Text=txtRestricted.Text
End Sub
End Class
It fires, but probably not the way you are implementing it.
Your sample code does not have an empty constructor for the textbox, which means you are most likely not using the designer when you are adding the textbox to the form.
But your form shows it was created by the designer:
Private Sub txtRestricted_TextChanged(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) _
Handles txtRestricted.TextChanged
End Sub
That's not possible with your posted code. If you are creating "new" controls programmatically, then you need to wire up the events programmatically, too.
Drop the handler and just leave the stub:
Private Sub txtRestricted_TextChanged(sender As Object, e As EventArgs)
'yada-yada-yada
End Sub
then when you create a new textbox, wire it up:
txtRestricted = new restrictedTextBox(myCharsList)
AddHandler txtRestricted.TextChanged, AddressOf txtRestricted_TextChanged
Me.Controls.Add(txtRestricted)