ADD CONTROLS TO THE CAPTIONDLG FORM
			Action						Result
3		Before adding any controls, lock
		the toolbox open.
		How-to
		Open the Toolbox window and click
		the push-pin graphic at the top
		right of this window.
									Note: The order of controls in your toolbox may dif-
									fer from those shown here. You can sort this list
									alphabetically by right-clicking on the Windows
									Forms title and selecting the Sort Items Alphabeti-
									cally option.
4		Add an OK button to the base of
		the form.
		How-to
		Drag a Button control from the
		toolbox onto the form, and assign
		its properties as indicated.
			Settings
			Property			Value
			(Name)			btnOK
			DialogResult			OK
			Text			&OK
		Note: We discuss the meaning of
		the DialogResult property later
		in the chapter.
5		Add a Cancel button to the form,
		and position the two buttons as
		shown in the graphic.
			Settings
			Property			Value
			(Name)			btnCancel
			DialogResult			Cancel
			Text			&Cancel
									Note: There is a bit of black magic involved in posi-
									tioning controls. The Format menu in Visual Studio
									.NET provides commands for positioning and align-
									ing controls. These appear on the Layout toolbar,
									and you can experiment with these while creating
									this form.

MODAL DIALOG BOXES

243

ADD CONTROLS TO THE CAPTIONDLG FORM (continued)

					Action					Result
6	Create the Image and Caption
	labels on the form.
	How-to
	Drag two Label controls onto the
	form, and resize and position them
	as in the graphic.
					Settings
			Label		Property		Value
			Image		Text		Image:
					TextAlign		MiddleRight			Note: For the Visual C++ programmers among us,
			Caption		Text		Caption:
										the Label class is similar to the CStatic class
					TextAlign		MiddleRight			found in the MFC library.
7	Create a lblImage label on the
	form.
		Note: We could also use a read-
		only TextBox control here. Labels
		and text boxes are discussed in
		detail in chapter 9.
					Settings
			Property				Value
			(Name)				lblImage
			BorderStyle				Fixed3D
			Text			image file name
			TextAlign				MiddleLeft
8	Create a text box to hold the image
	caption.
	How-to
	Drag a TextBox control onto the
	form.
					Settings
			Property				Value
			(Name)				txtCaption
			Text			image caption
										Note: Again for Visual C++ programmers, the
										TextBox class is similar to the CEdit class found
										in the MFC library.

244	CHAPTER 8 DIALOG BOXES

ADD CONTROLS TO THE CAPTIONDLG FORM (continued)

Action

Result

9Set the tab order for the controls on the form.

How-to

a.Click the top-level View menu.

b.Select the Tab Order item.

c.Click the controls in the desired order, starting with number 0, as shown in the graphic.

d.Press the Esc key to save the new tab order.

Well, that took a while. Placing controls on a form is not a difficult task, but it can take some time. This is another reason sketching out your interface up front is a good idea before you spend too much time in the designer window.

As you might expect, the code generated in the CaptionDlg.cs source file is quite similar to what we have seen for our MainForm class in previous chapters. As a quick recap, here is a summary of the code you will find in this file.

• The CaptionDlg class is derived from the Form class.

public class CaptionDlg : System.Windows.Forms.Form

{

•Each control is created as a private member of the class. The organization used by Visual Studio can be a bit confusing, so I have used the power of cut and paste to rearrange these code excerpts to be a bit more logical. If you recall, the

components member is required by Visual Studio to manage certain controls on the form.

private System.Windows.Forms.Button btnOK; private System.Windows.Forms.Button btnCancel; private System.Windows.Forms.Label label1; private System.Windows.Forms.Label label2; private System.Windows.Forms.Label lblImage; private System.Windows.Forms.TextBox txtCaption;

///<summary>

///Required designer variable.

///</summary>

private System.ComponentModel.Container components = null;

•The controls are initialized in the InitializeComponent method, which is called from the CaptionDlg constructor.

#region Windows Form Designer generated code

/// <summary>

MODAL DIALOG BOXES

245

///Required method for Designer support - do not modify

///the contents of this method with the code editor.

///</summary>

private void InitializeComponent()

{

•Inside the InitializeComponent method, the controls are first created using the new keyword.

this.btnOK = new System.Windows.Forms.Button (); this.btnCancel = new System.Windows.Forms.Button (); this.label1 = new System.Windows.Forms.Label (); this.label2 = new System.Windows.Forms.Label (); this.lblImage = new System.Windows.Forms.Label (); this.txtCaption = new System.Windows.Forms.TextBox ();

•Next the nondefault properties are set for each control. This section is quite long, so the following code is only an excerpt of this portion of the file:

this.SuspendLayout();

//

//btnOK

this.btnOK.DialogResult = System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK; this.btnOK.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(82, 88);

this.btnOK.Name = "btnOK"; this.btnOK.TabIndex = 0;

this.btnOK.Text = "&OK";

//btnCancel

//

this.btnCancel.DialogResult

= System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult.Cancel; this.btnCancel.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(187, 88); this.btnCancel.Name = "btnCancel";

this.btnCancel.TabIndex = 1; this.btnCancel.Text = "&Cancel";

//

// label1

//

this.label1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(32, 8); this.label1.Name = "label1";

this.label1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(48, 23); this.label1.TabIndex = 2;

. . .

•Finally, the Form itself is initialized, and the controls are added to the form using the Form.Controls property.

//

// CaptionDlg

//

246	CHAPTER 8 DIALOG BOXES