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Resources » Articles » .NET Framework »

Creating MDI application using C# (Walkthrough)


Posted Date: 30 Jun 2004    Resource Type: Articles    Category: .NET Framework
Author: Irfan PatelMember Level: Silver    
Rating: 1 out of 5Points: 7



Introduction

MDI (Multiple Document Interface) is nothing but a way of displaying windows form where
there is atleast one parent and many child windows eg. word Excel Powerpoint kind of
windows where each document , sheet or slide act as a child under the parent container
window.

SDI(Single document Interface) examples are Windows Explorer,Internet explorer,Notepad
etc...where only one window acts as an interface.
STEP BY STEP WALKTHROUGH:-

1. Goto File->New->Blank Solution
2. Select Visual C# Projects in Project Types
3. Select WindowsApplication in Templates
4. Type for eg. myBestMDI in the Name textbox
5. By Clicking the browse button select the location & Click OK

CREATING ALL THE NECESSARY FORMS & CODE THEM

Creating the main MDI form(frmMDIMain) to act as a container

1. In the View->Solution Explorer click Form1 only once
2. Locate the property FileName and type "frmMDIMain.cs"
3. In the Solution Explorer now doubleclick frmMDIMain
4. Locate the property (Name) and type "frmMDIMain"
5. Locate the property Text and type "This is the Parent"
6. Locate the property IsMDIContainer and set it to true
7. Locate the property WindowState and set it to Maximized

Creating the child form (frmMChild) to demonstrate multiple instance

1. Goto Project Menu-Add Windows Forms & type frmMChild
2. In the Solution Explorer now doubleclick frmMChild
3. Locate the property Text and type "This is the Multi Instance Child"
4. Locate the property size & set it to 568, 464

Creating the child form (frmSChild) to demonstrate Single instance

1. Goto Project Menu-Add Windows Forms & type frmSChild
2. In the Solution Explorer now doubleclick frmSChild
3. Locate the property Text and type "This is the Single Instance Child"
4. Locate the property size & set it to 568, 464

Creating the About form (frmAbout) to give information about this product

1. Goto Project Menu-Add Windows Forms & type frmAbout
2. In the Solution Explorer now doubleclick frmAbout
3. Locate the property Text and type "About My Best MDI"
4. Locate the property size & set it to 448, 304
5. Locate the property FormBorderstyle & set it to FixedToolWindow

Creating the Splash form (frmSplash) to display the welcome information with company logo

1. Goto Project Menu-Add Windows Forms & type frmSplash
2. In the Solution Explorer now doubleclick frmSplash
3. Locate the property size and set it to 448, 320
4. Locate the property ControlBox and set it to False
5. Locate the property FormBoderStyle and set it to None
6. Locate the property StartupPosition and set it to CenterScreen
7. Locate the property BackGroundImage and browse a nice image along with your company logo
8. Locate the property cursor & set it to waitCursor

Adding a timer control to the splash screen for holding it for few seconds so
that the user can read it.


1. Goto View->Toolbox and Double click Timer control
2. Locate timer1 control & click it once
3. Set its Interval property to 2000 i.e. in milliseconds
4. Set its Enabled property to true
5. Double click to reach its Tick event type :-

timer1.Enabled = false;
this.Close();


Adding two classes 1 to act as the Main startup class(clsMain) & 1 for holding
Global objects(clsGlobal)


1. In the Solution explorer right click the Project Name myBestMdi
2. Click Add->New Folder and type classes
3. right click the Folder classes
4. Click Add->Add New Item and class and type clsGlobal in name
Note:- myBestMDI.Classes is automatically taken as the namespace due to folder level
5. change the modifiers for the class from

public class clsGlobal

to

public sealed class clsGlobal

(This is to protect an instantiation of this class)

6. Just after the curly braces of the class starts paste the following line

public static frmMDIMain g_objfrmMDIMain;
//this is to declare a global static reference to our MDI parent so that the same
//instance is referred across all child with no extra line of code

7. Again in the Solution explorer right click the Folder classes
8. Click Add->Add New Item and class and type clsMain in name
9. just below the constructor clsMain function in the clsMain class paste the following
snippet

[STAThread]
static void Main()
{
try
{
frmSplash objfrmSplash = new frmSplash();
objfrmSplash.ShowDialog();
clsGlobal.g_objfrmMDIMain = new frmMDIMain();
Application.Run(clsGlobal.g_objfrmMDIMain);
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
MessageBox.Show(ex.Message,"My Best MDI", MessageBoxButtons.OK,
MessageBoxIcon.Stop);
}
}

// This is the Single Threaded Apartment Model(out of our scope) of the application
// which will run the Main function when the application starts



10. Since we are using Application class and MessageBox functions in the above code we need a add the foolowing line on the top

using System.Windows.Forms;

11. Now go to frmMain now and from its code window remove the following piece of code

[STAThread]
static void Main()
{
Application.Run(new Form1());
}
// because we cannot have two Main function.We are invoking everything from clsMain


Creating menus in the main MDI form

1. Click View->Designer of frmMdiMain
2. Goto Toolbox and add a double click MainMenu control
3. Click once on the typehere menu
4. Locate the property Name & set it to mnuFile
5. Locate the property Text & set it to &File
Note:- & is for underscore which will enable the Hot key 'F'
6. Same way click on the sub menu TypeHere box
7. Locate the property Name & set it to mnuFileNewMultiple
8. Locate the property Text & set it to &New Multiple
9. Locate the property ShortCut & choose CtrlN
10. Same way click on the sub menu TypeHere box
11. Locate the property Name & set it to mnuFileNewSingle
12. Locate the property Text & set it to New &Single
13. click on the sub menu TypeHere box
14. Locate the property Name & set it to mnuFileCloseChild
15. Locate the property Text & set it to &Close Child
16. click on the sub menu TypeHere box
17. Locate the property Name & set it to mnuFileSep1
18. Locate the property Text & set it to -
Note - is a hyphen which will automatically put a whole seperator
19. click on the sub menu TypeHere box
20. Locate the property Name & set it to mnuFileExit
21. Locate the property Text & set it to E&xit. Now i am sure by now you should be able to create one more menu
22. Create one more top level menu with Name mnuWindow and text &Window set its MDIList property to true(will show names of opened windows) with 3 sub menus with name

mnuWindowCascade and text &Cascade
mnuWindowTileVertical and text Tile&Vertical
mnuWindowTileHorizontal and text Tile&Horizontal

23. Create one more top level menu with Name mnuHelp and text &Help with a sub menu with name mnuHelpAbout and text &About...'...' as the suffix is just a Microsoft convention to signify that the command will show a dialog box.

Putting life in the menus created by adding code to it

1. Now in the frmSChild code add the following lines

private static frmSChild m_SChildform;
public static frmSChild GetChildInstance()
{
if (m_SChildform ==null) //if not created yet, Create an instance
m_SChildform = new frmSChild();
return m_SChildform; //just created or created earlier.Return it
}

//This is to make sure that when we Click on a 'New Single' menu on Parent form twice
//it should not open two instance of the same child form


2. Click View->Designer of frmMdiMain again

3. Double click New Single Menu on MDI main form add the following code

frmSChild objfrmSChild = frmSChild.GetChildInstance();
objfrmSChild.MdiParent = this;
objfrmSChild.Show();
objfrmSChild.BringToFront();


4. Click View->Designer of frmMdiMain again
5. Double click New Multi Menu on MDI main form add the following code

frmMChild objfrmMChild = new frmMChild();
objfrmMChild.MdiParent = this;
objfrmMChild.Show();

6. Double click CloseChild on MDI main form add the following code

try
{
if(this.ActiveMdiChild.Name =="frmMChild")
{
frmMChild objfrmMChild = (frmMChild)this.ActiveMdiChild;
objfrmMChild.Close();
}
else
{
frmSChild objfrmSChild = (frmSChild)this.ActiveMdiChild;
objfrmSChild.Close();
}

}
catch
{
}

7. Double click Exit on MDI main form add the following code:

Application.Exit();

8. Double click Cascade menu under Windows on MDI main form add the following code

this.LayoutMdi(MdiLayout.Cascade);

9. same way for tile Vertical add

this.LayoutMdi(MdiLayout.TileVertical);

10. and for tile horizontal add

this.LayoutMdi(MdiLayout.TileHorizontal);

11. Now finally double click About menu in Help to add

frmAbout objfrmAbout = new frmAbout();
objfrmAbout.ShowDialog();

12. Press F5 to start with debugging or Ctrl+F5 to start w/o debugging

Njoi programming!!


The author is a Bachelor of Computer Application with Microsoft Certified Solution Developer. He has worked extensively with COM and has been programming since 1998. He has also trained more than 200 students and has taught various languages,RDBMS & platforms from C,C++ to VB with Oracle,Access & MS SQLServer from Vbscript,Javascript
to ASP. His expertise comes from various industries viz Jewellery, Shipping ,Automobiles, Radio Frequency Devices, Photometers to name few. Besides programming he loves music, singing, dancing, bike riding & cricket.



Responses

Author: Net Learner    24 Jul 2004Member Level: Bronze   Points : 0
This is very good example for VB user, Please attach the code instead of retype whole thing.


Author: rajesh    09 Oct 2004Member Level: Bronze   Points : 0
Hello,

I Tried your Code. I Get Error When I try to Re-open Same Child Form after I exit. What I do ?



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