Tag Archives: forms

Center a form on the screen at run time in C#

Posted on June 16, 2017 by Rod Stephens

You can center a form at design time by setting its StartPosition property to CenterScreen. Note that you cannot do this in the form’s Load event handler because the form’s position is already set when that event handler executes. You … Continue reading →

Posted in forms | Tagged C#, C# programming, center a form, center forms, example, example program, forms, Windows Forms programming | Leave a comment

Understand AutoScaleMode in C#

Posted on April 12, 2017 by Rod Stephens

A form’s AutoScaleMode property lets a form automatically resize itself when its font changes. This can be particularly useful with an aging user population that may have trouble seeing smaller fonts. To try to help users out, you can give … Continue reading →

Posted in fonts, forms, graphics | Tagged AutoScaleMode, C#, C# programming, example, example program, font resizing, fonts, forms, graphics, resize font, Windows Forms programming | 1 Comment

Display a form’s control hierarchy in C#

Posted on March 25, 2017 by RodStephens

This example displays the control hierarchy for a form. It’s actually relatively simple. Some controls can contain other controls. For example, a form is a control and it contains all of a Windows Forms application’s controls. Similarly Panel, TableLayoutPanel, SplitContainer, … Continue reading →

Posted in controls, forms | Tagged C#, C# programming, container controls, control containers, control hierarchy, controls, display control hierarchy, example, example program, forms, TreeNode, TreeView, Windows Forms programming | Leave a comment

Loop over a form’s controls in C#

Posted on March 23, 2017 by RodStephens

This example shows how to loop over controls of various types on a form. The Control class defines a Controls property that is a collection containing references to the controls inside a control. For example, a form’s Controls collection holds … Continue reading →

Posted in controls, forms | Tagged C#, C# programming, control types, controls, example, example program, find controls, forms, generic, generic methods, loop over controls, OfType, Windows Forms programming | 2 Comments

List controls on a form in C#

Posted on January 31, 2017 by RodStephens

There are several ways you can list controls on a form. At design time, you can open the form and then use the dropdown at the top of the Properties window. You can also look inside the file Form1.Designer.cs. At … Continue reading →

Posted in controls, forms, system | Tagged C#, C# programming, controls, example, example program, forms, list controls, list the controls on a form, system, Windows Forms programming | Leave a comment

Easily draw rotated text on a form in C#

Posted on January 26, 2017 by Rod Stephens

The example Draw rotated text in C# shows how to draw rotated text. Unfortunately that method requires you to use code at run time to position the text. It’s not too hard but it’s inconvenient if you’re trying to draw … Continue reading →

Posted in fonts, forms, graphics | Tagged C#, C# programming, draw rotated strings, draw rotated text, draw strings, draw text, example, example program, fonts, forms, graphics, rotated text, Windows Forms programming | 1 Comment

Use a bitmap for an icon in C#

Posted on January 5, 2017 by Rod Stephens

You can’t set a form’s Icon property equal to a bitmap. Fortunately it’s easy enough to create an icon from a bitmap. This example uses the following code to make a form’s icon display the image in a bitmap. // … Continue reading →

Posted in forms, graphics, image processing | Tagged C#, C# programming, convert bitmap to icon, example, example program, forms, graphics, icon, icon from bitmap, image processing, Windows Forms programming | Leave a comment

Remove the Close button from a form’s system menu in C#

Posted on September 13, 2016 by Rod Stephens

C# doesn’t have a built-in way to manipulate the system menu that appears when you click the upper left corner of a form, but it’s not too hard to use API functions to remove some or all of those buttons. … Continue reading →

Posted in API, forms, system | Tagged API, C#, C# programming, example, example program, forms, remove close button, remove system button, remove X button, system, Windows Forms programming | 2 Comments

Draw an analog clock in C#

Posted on August 16, 2016 by Rod Stephens

This example demonstrates several useful techniques including: Context menus Restricting a form to a region to give it a shape. Moving a form with no title bar Double buffering Drawing with transformations Drawing an analog clock When you right-click the … Continue reading →

Posted in animation, drawing, forms, graphics | Tagged analog clock, animation, C#, C# programming, clock, DefWndProc, double buffer, DoubleBuffered, drawing, example, example program, forms, graphics, HTCAPTION, timer, transformations, Windows Forms programming, WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN | 2 Comments

Make two forms open each other in C#

Posted on July 2, 2016 by RodStephens

This is sort of a beginner’s exercise in making two forms work with each other, although it raises some non-beginner issues. Beginners often want to have two forms (or more) open each other. Unfortunately this is surprisingly confusing in C#. … Continue reading →