AutoLayout by Examples - Part 3 - Dialog 2

  • Article

Dialog 2: Horizontally resizable dialog with textboxes

 

Project Name: TextBoxesFixedHeightDialog.csproj. Download source.

 

Characteristics:

  • Fixed height dialog with resizable width

 

Screen Shots:

 

 

 

 

Designer Layout:

 

Document Outline:

 

Key Notes:

  • The height of the dialog in the designer will not be the actual run-time height. Note the big gap at the bottom in the designer. This gap will be closed at run-time.
  • The “trick” (download source):
    • The dialog AutoSize is set to True in the designer which tells Windows Forms to “wrap” snuggly around its content at run-time
    • Once the dialog is loaded (in the dialog OnLoad override), AutoSize is programmatically changed to False to allow dialog resizing

 

        /// <summary>

  /// Hook dialog loading to pin the height and enable resize.

        /// </summary>

        /// <param name="e"></param>

        protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)

        {

            base.OnLoad(e);

            // AutoSize was turned on in the designer to allow the dialog

            // to fit to its content. Now that the dialog snugly fits

            // its content, we can clip the dialog height but let its

            // width freely sizes.

            MinimumSize = new Size(Width, Height);

            MaximumSize = new Size(int.MaxValue, Height);

            // Now that the dialog has the height restriction enforced,

            // turn off AutoSize to allow horizontal sizing.

            AutoSize = false;

        }

 

  • The fixed dialog height is enforced by setting the dialog’s minimum and maximum height to the same value

 

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