vb.net textbox that won't let me highlight text - vb.net

I'm working on an upgrade of a VB6 winforms project to VB.Net 2.0. On one form (and only this one form, out of about 25), my text boxes are acting odd.
When a user clicks into (focuses on) a textbox with a value in it, the cursor automatically goes to the beginning (left side) of the textbox and can only be moved with the keyboard arrow keys. I can't re-position the cursor with the mouse, and I can't highlight a section of text with the mouse.
The text box is not readonly and is both visible and enabled. In fact all settings are default as I've dragged out a new textbox and added it to the form and I get the same behavior.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

OK, here is answer:
The startup form was set as an MdiContainer. This form had a split panel container that held another form for Application controls in panel 1 and the working forms in panel 2. When the working forms were loaded into panel 2, they weren't allowed to be top level as there was a .Parent attribute set to the split container panel 2. For some reason, the highlighting of text in a text box is disallowed unless the textbox is on a top level form, and since we couldn't get the working form to top level, we couldn't highlight the text. For reference, check this out.

Related

Is there a way to hide all panels in windows forms using vb.net?

i was wondering if it was possible to hide everything at once in windows forms, i was planning to use a drop down which made things appear and disappear but i wanted everything hidden at the beginning for simplicity.
Thanks!
On the form, add a Panel control (found in the Containers section of the toolbox).
Set the Visible value of the Panel to be False.
Add all controls inside this panel. You can then make the panel visible and hidden via code. (no need to cycle through all controls on the form)

How can a ContextMenuToolStripItem be displayed, without doing it programmatically?

I've taken over a project, which contains some UltraWinGrid controls on some of the forms.
On one of the original forms which has been there since before I took on the project, there is a ContextMenuStrip, which has just one ContextMenuToolstripItem on it, captioned 'Default for Column'.
This ContextMenuStrip is hidden by default, however, when the user right-clicks on the UltraGrid, the ContextMenuStripItem is displayed on the grid (rather than at the top of them form where the ContextMenuStrip is).
I'm trying to replicate this behaviour in a new form that I've added myself, however, after adding the ContextMenuToolstripItem in, I cannot get it to display when right-clicking my grid.
I've put a breakpoint on every subroutine in the in the older forms class, and none of them are triggered when right-clicking it.
Additionally I have also searched the class for DefaultForColumnToolstripMenuItem, and the only place it appears is in the Click event of the ContextMenuToolStripItem itself.
So, how else is it possible to show it when right-clicking the grid? I've copy and pasted the ContextMenuStrip from the old form onto the new form and still nothing occurred.
I'm assuming it's in a property somewhere that I'm missing?
Check for a ContextMenuStrip property on the UltraWinGrid. You can set it in the designer and your context menu will appear on right click without having to deal with the MouseClick handler, checking the mousebutton used, etc.

Program does not tab through controls in the correct order

I have a form with a button which adds text boxes in addition to the 8 text boxes already on the form which are named Textbox1 through 8. When I launch the application and enter the first textbox, I can tab through all the way from 1 - 8.
When I click my button it programmatically creates a textbox below the last textbox with appropriate name such as Textbox9 for the ninth, Textbox10 for the tenth etc.
However when a textbox is added via the button, tabbing through the controls skips from the eighth, to any buttons on the form, and then to the created textbox. Any idea why this happens and how I can resolve it? I've tried google to no avail. Please let me know if you need any code, thank you.
Thanks to Daniel Cook and Grim, I solved my issue by setting the tabindex to match the textbox number, however I also found that setting TabStop to false on the buttons and controls helped me to keep the tab focus within the text boxes.

VB.Net UI is missing

I'm using Visual Studio 2012 to make a Vb.Net application.
In short, I added DotNetBar RibbonControl with some RibbonItems on it as my menu.
What happened is one of my tab is suddenly missing along with all the buttons in it.
I have searched for it on my Document Outline still no luck.
But what even more odd is, when I tried to recreate it with the same name, it shows an Alert "Property value is not valid" with message "The name AppPOButton is already in use by another component".
When I checked it on the form's Designer I do found this lines:
Me.AppPOButton = New DevComponents.DotNetBar.ButtonItem()
and
'AppPOButton
'
Me.AppPOButton.ButtonStyle = DevComponents.DotNetBar.eButtonStyle.ImageAndText
Me.AppPOButton.Image = Global.ProjectBMT.My.Resources.Resources.approval
Me.AppPOButton.ImageFixedSize = New System.Drawing.Size(40, 40)
Me.AppPOButton.ImagePosition = DevComponents.DotNetBar.eImagePosition.Top
Me.AppPOButton.Name = "AppPOButton"
Me.AppPOButton.SubItemsExpandWidth = 14
Me.AppPOButton.Text = "Approve"
Me.AppPOButton.Visible = False
and
Friend WithEvents AppPOButton As DevComponents.DotNetBar.ButtonItem
Is there anyone can explain why this is happening?
Thank you
This behavior is weird itself, but it's not a problem actually, All the Ribbon style works on "Containers", if you check your ribbon control and click the left-upper button will see these little arrows that move four containers, these objects hold the buttons, images and other controls. Within your design window in the right panel (Properties) you can still see the names of the controls you "lost" when you deleted your tab, wich is also a container.
Steps:
Add a container within your design view and Dock it into the Ribbon control Form.
Click on the uppper right boton (Right Arrow) and select "Layout Ribbon", this will adjust the lenght and hight of the controls conatained.
Add the tab that will contain all the controls you have.
The fact that they are still in the designer form is the prove that they still exist, This behavior is just a glitch in the position and order of the controls set above your form ;-)

Option Group frame: can I add text boxes that are part of the frame instead of rad button options?

Ok so this maybe a simple/silly question but I don't know so here goes:
In access let's say I want to have a frame control, so I click the option group button and add it to the desgin surface. However, I am not wanting to use this as a option group with radio button selection, instead I would like to add text boxes instead the frame, so that when I reference the frame, it references every control instead of it, hence the text boxes, cbo boxes, etc.....just as it would if they were radio option selections.
So can you do this?
I want whatever controls I add inside the frame to be easily referenced (i.e. make all controls visible just by using frameExample.visible = true) so that I can build my own tab control groupings.....
can this be done?
Thanks!
EDIT:
What I am trying to accomplish is having a form that includes a collection of controls (input controls - cbo boxes, text boxes, etc), that serve as the Main record information. These are saved to a table via an INSERT statement on button_click because this form is unbound.
Next I have 8 categories that are relative per each main record (and data that goes along with it). Each of these categories could have a sub form area and a button click that bring it's relative form into the sub form area. These sub forms would be unbound as well as I would just save data via SQL statement. So i know I could accomplish this by running the insert statement from the parent form, on the main collection control's data that would create the KeyID number, then run a SQL statement that would turn around and load that KeyID number right back onto the page in a hidden text box.
Then when I click one of the sub forms and load its relative collection of controls, I could then save that data along with KeyID for each of these sub-forms/tables.
SO......
I was wondering if instead you could define these controls as a collection so that you could hide and make visible all the ones you need on button clicks and avoid the need for additional forms (subs). I know that if a user enters data into a text box, and then somewhere along the way that box becomes hidden, the data still exists in it and still ends up in the SQL statement....
So I want all these controls to exist on the same form, but I thought what is I could encapsulate them into a frame like an option group, then I could call the frame and all the relative controls would be called up (made visible) as needed.
Sorry for the long explanation but I thought it would help.
I do not think you can do it with an Option Group, but what you are describing is pretty much a subform, yesno?
Some examples of hiding the tab control from an app that went live in March 1998:
Tab driven by transparent command buttons over labels styled to look like colored command buttons:
Same approach, more buttons:
In this case, fake colored command buttons don't drive the tab, but insted show/hide the tab and a subform. In this case, the tab is actually driven by the listbox:
A view of when the tab is hidden and the subform revealed. The listbox drives navigation within the subform, which has a visible tab on it:
So, there's a lot that can be done without showing the tab control.