I work on MDI winform app in VB. One form which become child of my MDI have a mainMenu control with a lot of items. I want to show this mainMenu control on specific panel of MDI, or to add all of it's items on MenuStrip control which is on MDI?
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My application has a main form which is the parent of ALL MDIChild forms. It has its own cool little background.
I want to have 4 buttons on the Main Form that load a different form in the MDI Container. My form is transparent so all the little designs ive made for my picture box buttons overlap the main form nicely UNTIL Visual Studio paints that stupid background grey when you set the IsMDIContainer property to true. The buttons now have greyspots (as they are transparent and its like it bleeds through the background image and into the greyspot of the MDI Container).
I've googled this for hours and no one has answer. I want the buttons to be transparent to the Main Forms BG Image and NOT the grey MDIContainer BG.
Using VS2019, VB.NET The image above shows Form1 with the background and an overlayed Form 5 with all the controls. I wanted the 2 cloud looking buttons at the bottom (which are supposed to be on the Parent Form 1) to not have that grey box around them but to be transparent to the Form1 background image.
First, you could use this code under your mdi parent load event:
For Each ctl As Control In Me.Controls
If TypeOf ctl Is MdiClient Then
ctl.BackColor = Me.BackColor
End If
Next ctl
but it will work only if you set a plain color (e.g. only red or orange or any other color) as backcolor to this mdi parent form, but doesn't work with images.
you must know that mdi parent forms are designed to show only the child forms, so if you want a background image for your form just use a regular form then add a panel or multiple panels to it instead of your mdi child forms which will do the same job plus enabling controls transparency.
for your information, mdi child forms is a very old technique which is rarely used today.
I have an MDI windows form and many child windows forms in vb.net. What exactly done that the Mdi form have a PictureBox control over it. If I call a child form from mdi form then PictureBox of MDI form overlap the child form mean it hides the child form behind the PictureBox of MDI windows form.
How to send PictureBox behind windows forms?
This is how i approached the situation.
Since i am using a MDI-Parent Form and other Child Forms, I thought to Show() the picture box (pbImage.Show()) when the MDI Parent Control is doing nothing. If we open a new Child form, then we Hide() the pictureBox. Worked for me.
There are some facts about MDI Container Form that you should know:
The client area of the form is filled by MdiClient control which hosts all MDI children. So if you add a Control to the MDI parent, it will be located in front of the MdiClient and so it will be shown in front of MDI child forms.
You can not add any control to MdiClient control. It just allow adding MDI child forms.
To show a picture in MDI parent, you can set BackgroundImage and BackgrroundImageLayout, for example:
Dim mdiClient = Me.Controls.OfType(Of MdiClient)().First()
AddHandler mdiClient.Resize, Sub(s, a) mdiClient.Invalidate()
Me.BackgroundImage = My.Resources.SomeImage
Me.BackgroundImageLayout = ImageLayout.Center
I have an MDI container which has a menustrip of its own. I have three child forms which (can) be displayed in the MDI container. All three of these forms have their own menus. The child form which is active has its menu displayed along the menu items from the MDI form but the other two forms (those forms which aren't active) will then display their own menu items. How can I prevent this?
When a child form is not active, I just want the menustrip of that form to be empty. Once I make the form active, it can display its menu items in the MDI form menustrip.
One would imagine that clicking anywhere within the MDI Child form (or on any control) will focus that form. But in my application I can only focus a MDI child by clicking on its titlebar, which is an abnormal behavior on the part of the user. My forms are filled with either controls or panels so I don't have the luxury of just "clicking on the form." But clicking anywhere within it should focus it.
I haven't been able to find a solution to this problem although it seems others are having it as well.
I figured it out. If you are setting the child form mdiParent property after you are calling Form.Show then it messes up the focus of all the child forms.
When I set mdiParent property of the form first and then call .Show(), everything works perfectly as expected.
I have a MDI parent that opens another form like this:
Dim frm As New Form1
frm.ShowDialog(Me)
That form has a button that, when clicked, does this:
CreateObject("Shell.Application").ToggleDesktop()
The button operates as expected (showing the desktop) most of the time but occasionally does not minimize the MDI parent. All the other windows, including the form above get minimized every time.
Why is this happening, and how do I fix it?
Instead of trying to allow a form shown with ShowDialog I changed the angle from which I'm approaching. I'll show the form with Show and assign the MdiParent and just fake the modality of the form instead. The fake modal will disable all other parts of the MDI parent except the system buttons in the title bar. If the user attempts to close the MDI parent, the "modal" window will beep once and blink the title bar a bit.