this is more of an advise thread I guess.
I've been wondering how one could create a button which display "play" when it's not pressed. And then shows "pause" once it's pressed. And visa versa when it's pressed again.
I had a similar problem when trying to create an expand panel button, but that was easy because I could just set a variable to true or false if PanelCollapsed was true.
But in this case I couldn't find any property in a button that I could query.
So I came up with this but I can't help thinking that this is a rather unsmart way of doing it?
If isPlay = True Then
If isPaused = False Then
btnPlay.Image = Image.FromFile("iconPause.png")
isPaused = True
isPlay = False
End If
GoTo Endline
End If
If isPlay = False Then
If isPaused = True Then
btnPlay.Image = Image.FromFile("iconPlay.png")
isPaused = False
isPlay = True
End If
End If
Endline:
How about using only one variable and code like this:
If isPlay Then
btnPlay.Image = Image.FromFile("iconPause.png")
else
btnPlay.Image = Image.FromFile("iconPlay.png")
End If
isPlay = not isPlay
You can use the "Tag" property. Its type is "object" so you can use any object you want, but in your case a string will do:
If Button1.Tag = "Pause" Then
Button1.Image = Image.FromFile("iconPlay.png")
Button1.Tag = "Play"
Else
Button1.Image = Image.FromFile("iconPause.png")
Button1.Tag = "Pause"
End If
Most .NET WinForm controls have a 'Tag' property (a button has one). You can set the Tag to be anything you want. An easy way to do this is to set the 'Tag' property to a boolean with the state of the button.
Just an idea...sure there are many other approaches.
UPDATE:
Otherwise, you can maintain the state of the button in your application as its own member variable. This might have several advantages because you can pass this state to other controls that might need it. The only weakness with this approach is that the state must be maintained separately.
If you have a fairly straight-forward implementation, use the Tag property.
A contrary opinion ...
... while other answers have given you some techniques to achieve your desired result, I'm going to ask you to reconsider your UI design.
Dual state buttons - ones that alternate purpose when clicked - can be a source of user frustation.
Here are two scenarios.
Scenario #1 ... if the users machine is under load (for any reason), there may be a perceptible delay between the users actual click on your button and when your click handler is executed.
Normally the time between click and handler is a few milliseconds or less, but it can run to several seconds. If this happens when the user clicks on a dual state button, they are likely to click the button again. Net effect, when the application catches up, is to toggle on, then immediately off again.
Scenario #2 ... many users habitually double click everything. Even experienced users who've been using computers for years may have this weird habit. When they try to press a dual state button, guess what happens ... the action toggles on, then immediately off again.
There are at least two solutions ...
Solution #1 ... use two buttons, one for "On", one for "Off".
Solution #2 ... write some debouncing code to suppress the effect of a second click if processed immediately (ie: < 75ms) after the first.
I don't personally use Visual Basic, but I do know that Buttons in Windows Forms have a property called 'Tag'. It is of the generic object type, so you can save whatever state you want, and just use casting to get the value back out.
How about using the "Image" property?
Rem form initialization
ImagePlay = Image.FromFile("iconPlay.png")
ImagePause = Image.FromFile("iconPause.png")
Button1.Image = ImagePlay
.
.
.
Rem on button1 click
If Button1.Image = ImagePlay Then
Button1.Image = ImagePause
Else
Button1.Image = ImagePlay
End If
Related
I have a radio button list set up for sorting with 2 possible choices. when the page loads i need to have one of those selected, however it has to be through code rather than manual section in the design screen.
For the first item selected:
myRbl.Items(0).Selected = True
Or the second:
myRbl.Items(1).Selected = True
Simply set their Checked flags to true/false.
rbFirstOne.Checked = True
rbSecondOne.Checked = False
Edit: Oh, radio button list, not just button. Sorry.
On my form, I have 4 RadioButtons, each with its appearance set to Button. In my program, I change each of these RadioButton's ForeColour, BackColour and AutoCheck status, as below:
ARadioButton.AutoCheck = False
ARadioButton.BackColor = Color.FromKnownColor(KnownColor.ControlLightLight)
ARadioButton.ForeColor = Color.FromKnownColor(KnownColor.ControlDark)
However, later on, I reset these properties back to default:
ARadioButton.AutoCheck = True
ARadioButton.BackColor = DefaultBackColor
ARadioButton.ForeColor = DefaultForeColor
My issue is that instead of the entire button being highlighted, only the outside is, as shown in the images below.
Originally:
After changes are made and RadioButtons reset to default using code above:
I know this may seem trivial, but I would like the entire RadioButton to be highlighted when the user clicks on the RadioButton, not just the outside.
Is there a way I could somehow reset this?
Try setting the BackColor property to Color.Transparent
I make two methodes like this:
private void Next(string argument)
{
Current = Clients[Clients.IndexOf(Current) + 1];
((DelegateCommand)NextCommand).RaiseCanExecuteChanged();
}
private void Previous(string argument)
{
Current = Clients[Clients.IndexOf(Current) - 1];
((DelegateCommand)PreviousCommand).RaiseCanExecuteChanged();
}
and bind to the xaml:
Every thing work fine. And the next button becomes inactive/grey out when it hits the last post.
The problem is it (the Next button) still inactive when I click the Previous button. The Next button becomes inactive all the time.
My question is how I could make the Next button active again? Thank for all help.
I assume you are talking about a WPF Application.
There are several reasons your button could become / stay inactive:
Your CanExecute implementation is faulty and returns false even if it should return true
You didnt implement CanExecute or didnt hook it up correctly
The CommandManager didn't realize it's time to requery the commands
You've got a problem with the Focus on your Window / Control
You need to show more of the code so it gives us a broader picture of what you are trying to do.
I need to create a vb.net program that consists of a unmovable, always on top bitmap, with no menu bar or anything, and does not show up in the task bar as program.
It needs to always start in the same place.
Essentially I need to mask a part of the screen by using a bitmap that blends into the scenery.
I am not sure which properties I need to tweak to achieve all of this.
Just to try changing the properties until you get the right result, but the below is probably sort of what you're looking for.
StartPosition = Manual
ShowInTaskBar = False
SizeGripStyle = Hide
TopMost = True
ControlBox = False
FormBorderStyle = None
Location = X, Y 'wherever it should be
Like the title says, I've got a Child form being shown with it's TopLevel property set to False and I am unable to click a MaskedTextBox control that it contains (in order to bring focus to it). I can bring focus to it by using TAB on the keyboard though.
The child form contains other regular TextBox controls and these I can click to focus with no problems, although they also exhibit some odd behavior: for example if I've got a value in the Textbox and I try to drag-click from the end of the string to the beginning, nothing happens. In fact I can't use my mouse to move the cursor inside the TextBox's text at all (although they keyboard arrow keys work).
I'm not too worried about the odd TextBox behavior, but why can't I activate my MaskedTextBox by clicking on it?
Below is the code that shows the form:
Dim newReportForm As New Form
Dim formName As String
Dim FullTypeName As String
Dim FormInstanceType As Type
formName = TreeView1.SelectedNode.Name
FullTypeName = Application.ProductName & "." & formName
FormInstanceType = Type.GetType(FullTypeName, True, True)
newReportForm = CType(Activator.CreateInstance(FormInstanceType), Form)
Try
newReportForm.Top = CType(SplitContainer1.Panel2.Controls(0), Form).Top + 25
newReportForm.Left = CType(SplitContainer1.Panel2.Controls(0), Form).Left + 25
Catch
End Try
newReportForm.TopLevel = False
newReportForm.Parent = SplitContainer1.Panel2
newReportForm.BringToFront()
newReportForm.Show()
I tried your code and got a good repro this time. As I mentioned in my original post, this is indeed a window activation problem. You can see this in Spy++, note the WM_MOUSEACTIVATE messages.
This happens because you display the form with a caption bar. That convinces the Windows window manager that the window can be activated. That doesn't actually work, it is no longer a top-level window. Visible from the caption bar, it never gets drawn with the "window activated" colors.
You will have to remove the caption bar from the form. That's best done by adding this line to your code:
newReportForm.FormBorderStyle = Windows.Forms.FormBorderStyle.None
Which will turn the form into a control that's otherwise indistinguishable from a UserControl. You can still make it distinctive by using this code instead:
newReportForm.ControlBox = False
newReportForm.Text = ""
Either fix solves the mouse click problem.
This is a miserable bug and it took me a long time to find this question. We're doing exactly the same thing as the OP, displaying a Form inside a split container. My workaround was to add an event handler to the MaskedTextBox's Click event:
private void MaskedTextBoxSetFocus(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
var mtb = (MaskedTextBox)sender;
mtb.Focus();
}
This works for the MaskedTextBox but I'm concerned about other odd behavior due to this bug so I will probably set the border style as in the accepted answer.
The text box behavior is a symptom of the same problem. Something is swallowing mouse down notifications. It isn't explained by your code snippet. Forms indeed swallow the mouse click that activates them, but that is a one-time behavior and is turned off by setting its TopLevel property to False.
Not much left. One candidate is the Control.Capture property, turned on at the MouseDown event for a button so that the button can see the MouseUp event, no matter where the mouse moved. That's a one-time effect as well. Watch out for controls that set the Focus in a MouseDown event.
The other is some kind of IMessageFilter code in your form(s) that's eating WM_LBUTTONDOWN messages.