Controls in container form come over child form?

Question

In a container form I have menu and buttons to open ther forms.

Here I am fac

Answer 1

It appears as though that form is a sibling of those other child controls. Do you have to open it as a child of that window? Can't it be like a non-modal dialog box and not a child window of that main form?

If it has to be within that main form and a sibling of those controls, then you're going to have to set the Z-Order of it. There's no property for that, so you're going to have to look toward the Win32 API call, SetWindowPos:

[DllImport("user32.dll", EntryPoint = "SetWindowPos")]
public static extern bool SetWindowPos(
int hWnd, // window handle
int hWndInsertAfter, // placement-order handle
int X, // horizontal position
int Y, // vertical position
int cx, // width
int cy, // height
uint uFlags); // window positioning flags


const uint SWP_NOSIZE = 0x1;
const uint SWP_NOMOVE = 0x2;
const uint SWP_SHOWWINDOW = 0x40;
const uint SWP_NOACTIVATE = 0x10;

And call it something like this:

SetWindowPos((int)form.Handle,   // that form
             (int)insertAfter.Handle,  // some other control
             0, 0, 0, 0,
             SWP_NOMOVE | SWP_NOSIZE | SWP_SHOWWINDOW | SWP_NOACTIVATE);

Answer 2

@Hans Passant has the correct answer, but you could also solve your issue by not using MDI forms at all. Some options:

• Use separate forms: have a menu form, typically large/maximized, and launch child forms in front of it by setting their Parent property to the menu form, or
• Use a single form, but with a docking library (I've used DockPanel Suite in the past). This is essentially a re-implementation of MDI forms, with extra features. This is a bit of work to get running, but it can let you build some nice UIs.

Both of these would require significant changes to your UI code, though.

Answer 3

I've also got the same problem. I got an alternative solution as described below:

1. Insert a timer control
2. I've added the controls in a panel container

3. And did the following

   private void timer1_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
   {
       if ((int)MdiChildren.GetLength(0) > 0)
       {
           panel1.Visible = false;
       }
       else
       {
           panel1.Visible = true;
       }
   }
   

Answer 4

If it is a MDI application and you put controls in the parent window then they will be shown on top of any created child windows. You need to have your menu in a child window also, not on the parent form.

Look at this Article and this.

expecially this:

The parent Form may not contain any controls. >

Edit: Added Additional Information

Answer 5

Call BringToFront() on each child form after showing them. Alternately, hook it to each child form's OnLoad method:

childForm.OnLoad += (s, e) => (s as Form).BringToFront();

Answer 6

The main trick here is to treat child forms as Controls. You'll create a child form just like any other control. When you use this method, you have to set it's TopLevel to false - otherwise it won't work.

The following lines of code are used to create a child form:

Form childForm = new Form(); //initialize a child form

childForm.TopLevel = false; //set it's TopLevel to false

Controls.Add(childForm); //and add it to the parent Form
childForm.Show(); //finally display it

childForm.BringToFront(); //use this it there are Controls over your form.

more details here