Class
ContainerControl (deprecated)
Warning
This item was deprecated in version 2021r3. Please use DesktopContainer as a replacement.
Properties
Name |
Type |
Read-Only |
Shared |
|---|---|---|---|
Methods
Name |
Parameters |
Returns |
Shared |
|---|---|---|---|
ContainingWindow As Window, [left As Integer, top As Integer, width As Integer, height As Integer] |
|||
ContainerControl As RectControl, [left As Integer, top As Integer, width As Integer, height As Integer] |
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ContainingPanel As PagePanel, Page As Integer, [left As Integer, top As Integer, width As Integer, height As Integer] |
Property descriptions
ContainerControl.AllowAutoDeactivate
AllowAutoDeactivate As Boolean
Determines whether the control should be deactivated (on macOS) when the parent window is deactivated.
This example turns AllowAutoDeactivate off.
ContainerControl11.AllowAutoDeactivate = False
ContainerControl.AllowFocus
AllowFocus As Boolean
If True, the control will be included in the Tab order and can accept the focus. The GotFocus and LostFocus events are called at the appropriate times.
Some controls automatically allow focus, e.g. text fields or lists, so they do not have AllowFocus property.
Note
Not all controls allow focus on every platform.
This code enables the AllowFocus property. It is in the Open event of the control.
Me.AllowFocus = True
ContainerControl.AllowFocusRing
AllowFocusRing As Boolean
If True, the ContainerControl indicates that it has the focus with a ring around its border; if False, the appearance of the object does not change when it has the focus.
ContainerControl.AllowTabs
AllowTabs As Boolean
If True and AllowFocus is True, then pressing Tab triggers the KeyDown event for processing.
If AllowTabs is False, pressing the Tab key does not trigger the KeyDown event; pressing Tab triggers the LostFocus event and selects the next object in the Window that can accept the focus.
ContainerControl.Composited
Composited As Boolean
When True, reduces flickering on Windows when the ContainerControl is scrolled. Has no effect on macOS or Linux.
ContainerControl.Enabled
Enabled As Boolean
Determines if the ContainerControl should be enabled when the owning window is opened. The default is True.
The following example disables the ContainerControl.
ContainerContol11.Enabled=False
ContainerControl.LockBottom
LockBottom As Boolean
Determines whether the bottom edge of the ContainerControl should stay at a set distance from the bottom edge of the parent control, if there is one, or the owning Window.
Me.LockBottom = True
ContainerControl.LockLeft
LockLeft As Boolean
Determines whether the left edge of the ContainerControl should stay at a set distance from the left edge of the parent control, if there is one, or the owning Window.
Beginning with version 2009r5, LockTop and LockLeft default to True when you add a control to a window. Existing controls will be altered only if LockRight and/or LockBottom are not set.
ContainerControl.LockRight
LockRight As Boolean
Determines whether the right edge of the ContainerControl should stay at a set distance from the right edge of the parent control, if there is one, or the owning Window.
Me.LockRight = True
ContainerControl.LockTop
LockTop As Boolean
Determines whether the top edge of the ContainerControl should stay at a set distance from the top edge of the parent control, if there is one, or the owning Window.
Beginning with version 2009r5, LockTop and LockLeft default to True when you add a control to a window. Existing controls will be altered only if LockRight and/or LockBottom are not set.
Me.LockTop = True
ContainerControl.Parent
Parent As RectControl
Gets the containing control, if any.
ContainerControl.Tooltip
Tooltip As String
Text of help message displayed as a Windows or Linux "tip" or macOS help tag.
Me.Tooltip = "This is a tooltip."
ContainerControl.Transparent
Transparent As Boolean
If True, the background shows through to the ContainerControl; if False, the ContainerControl is opaque. The default is True.
ContainerControls by default are transparent controls, which means the background shows through. The Transparent property can be set (at design time or runtime) to turn this off/on as needed. An opaque ContainerControl flickers less on Windows, is more optimized on macOS, and on Linux child controls on ContainerControl are clipped properly.
This example turns Transparent off:
Me.Transparent = False
ContainerControl.Window
Window As Window
Gets the containing window.
Method descriptions
ContainerControl.EmbedWithin
EmbedWithin(ContainingWindow As Window, [left As Integer, top As Integer, width As Integer, height As Integer])
Embeds the ContainerControl in the specified Container control.
ContainerControl.EmbedWithin
EmbedWithin(ContainerControl As RectControl, [left As Integer, top As Integer, width As Integer, height As Integer])
Embeds the ContainerControl in the specified Container control.
This code is in the Action event of a button and add a container control to a window:
Var tc As New TestContainer
tc.EmbedWithin(Self, 10, 100, 300,400)
If you need to later remove the container, then you'll need to have a reference to it. In this case, use a property for the container. Add the container using EmbedWithin and remove it using Close.
' Add the container
MyContainer = New TestContainer
MyContainer.EmbedWithin(Self, 10, 100, 300, 400)
Elsewhere you can remove the container:
MyContainer.Close
ContainerControl.EmbedWithinPanel
EmbedWithinPanel(ContainingPanel As PagePanel, Page As Integer, [left As Integer, top As Integer, width As Integer, height As Integer])
Embeds the ContainerControl on a page in the passed PagePanel or TabPanel.
An instance of a ContainerControl can only be embedded into one page.
The ContainerControl is embedded on the passed page and the containing control is the parent of the ContainerControl. The optional Left and Top parameters determine the location of the top-left corner, relative to the containing control, not the parent window. If the ContainerControl itself has Left and Top values (not typical as they default to 0) then they are added to what is specified here. The optional parameters Width and Height determine the size of the ContainerControl.
This example adds a new tab to a TabPanel and then add a ContainerControl to it:
MainTab.AddPanel("New Tab")
Var tabNum As Integer
tabNum = MainTab.PanelCount - 1
Var cc As New MyContainer
cc.EmbedWithinPanel(MainTab, tabNum)
Event descriptions
ContainerControl.GotFocus
GotFocus
Called when the ContainerControl gets focus.
The AllowFocus property must be set to True in order for this event to be called.
ContainerControl.LostFocus
LostFocus
Called when the ContainerControl loses focus.
The AllowFocus property must be set to True in order for this event to be called.
Notes
Warning
In the Layout Editor, do not layer other controls onto ContainerControls that have been added to a Window layout. Controls added this way are not part of the ContainerControl and will not display properly. Instead, add your controls directly to the ContainerControl in its layout.
Warning
ContainerControls can not be part of a Control Set.
ContainerControl is not a Control (despite its name), nor is it a Window. It is a separate class that is similar to Control and to Window, providing many of the same events, properties, and methods. Like a Window, a ContainerControl can encapsulate related Controls (and other ContainerControls) in a self-contained, reusable class. Like a Control, a ContainerControl can be added to a Window, a TabPanel, a PagePanel, or to another ContainerControl.
You can embed a ContainerControl in a Window or ContainerControl in either the IDE or via code. Multiple levels of embedding are supported.
To add the ContainerControl to a window via code, use either the EmbedWithin or EmbedWithinPanel methods. Use EmbedWithin to embed the ContainerControl in either a window or a control, depending on whether the first parameter is a Window or a control. For the special case of embedding within a PagePanel or a TabPanel, use EmbedWithinPanel instead. It allows you to pass the page number on which the ContainerControl will be embedded. To remove the container, use the Close method.
The following statement embeds a ContainerControl at so that its top left corner is 50 points from the left side of the window and 100 points from the top.
ContainerControl1.EmbedWithin(Self, 50, 100)
When the project is run, the controls in the ContainerControl appear in the default window, Window1. Use the same approach to embed the ContainerControl in a control other than a PagePanel or TabPanel; for the latter types of controls, use EmbedWithinPanel and pass the name of the control and the desired panel number.
ContainerControls have multiple uses, You can:
Organize groups of controls into reusable interface components,
Create custom controls made up of several constituent controls,
Increase encapsulation of complex window layouts,
Create dynamic layouts.
For the most part, ContainerControls act as you would expect. For example, if you put code in the MouseMove event of an embedded ContainerControl, the event will fire when your mouse moves over the embedded ContainerControl's boundaries. There are a few things you need to be aware of:
The Handle property of a ContainerControl and the Handle property of controls of an ContainerControl are Nil until the Open event. All of the other properties can be manipulated before the Open event.
A ContainerControl either has its own keyboard focus and menu handling, or it shares these elements with its containing Window. Which behavior is chosen depends on the state of the AllowFocus flag when the ContainerControl is embedded. When AllowFocus is True, the ContainerControl does not share focus with the containing Window. If a containing window has embedded that which share focus with it, those windows will get a first crack at handling it. If none handle it, the containing window will get a try. This applies to KeyDown and MenuCommands. It also affects how menu commands are enabled.
Some properties are new to ContainerControls and relate to its behavior when embedded; these behave like the corresponding properties of the Canvas control. These include the following: LockLeft, LockTop, LockRight, LockBottom, Enabled, AutoDeactivate, HelpTag, UseFocusRing, AllowFocus, AllowTabs, Parent and Window.
Miscellaneous issues
Use the Open event for initialization instead of overriding the Constructor to allow all the controls to finish setting themselves up.
The Moved, Resized, and Resizing events fire on embedded windows when the embedded window is moved or resized.
The Show/Hide and the Visible property can be used to set the visibility of embedded windows.
Nesting ContainerControls is allowed. However, you can't embed a ContainerControl such that the containing ContainerControl or a ContainerControl higher in the containing chain is another instance of the same ContainerControl; in other words, you can't recursively nest ContainerControls in other instances of themselves.
Nested ContainerControl coordinates for controls and events are automatically transformed for you. You don't need to worry about them unless you are dealing with global coordinates as you would for the MenuItem's Popup method.
Compatibility
All project types on all supported operating systems.