A modal form with a parent form as background

Question

How can I have a black form as a background and some modal forms opened one at a time whose owner is the black form? I need these two to retain their order together (when minimized and maximized) that's why I have chosen the modal form.

I have made a simple main form with black background, and opened a form in dialog (modal) form. The main form provides a black background for me and the modal form stays in front of the black background. But when opening new forms, I can't set the owner of new modal form to the aforementioned black form. I have tried passing the black form object and also registering events to no avail.

Do you know any mechanism to implement the following scenario:

A black form as a background and a series of modal forms opened one at a time in front of the black one in a way that the black form is the owner of every modal form.

Thanks

Edit

Please consider this scenario: I have 3 forms named frmBlack, Form1 and Form2. I use frmBlack as the main blacked form. After placing a button on this form I call the Form1Object.ShowDialog(this). Now suppose that I want to navigate to the third form (Form2), [this means that I must close the Form1Object] I put a button on the second form (Form1) and when this button is pressed I must close the Form1 object and navigate to the Form2Object while its owner in the ShowDialog() function must be set to frmBlack.

Making them modal with ShowDialog(owner) doesn't make much sense. Just use Show(owner) instead. — Hans Passant, Mar 31 '12 at 06:36
It does no make it modal, I need the two to stick together! I may try a simple demo later to clarify my need. — Yasser Sobhdel, Mar 31 '12 at 08:08
An owned non-modal window is always displayed on top of the owner. That's as sticky as you should need. If you want it *confined* to the owner as well then you need MDI. — Hans Passant, Mar 31 '12 at 08:11

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 31 '12 at 06:24

0

This is done using MDI Forms.

Your application will look like this: http://www.datadynamics.com/Help/AB3/Images/MDI%20Child%20menu.gif

This works in winform projects, not in WPF project (at least not by default).

answered Mar 31 '12 at 06:24

Luiggi Mendoza

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I need a single form open at a time and meanwhile I need a black background. – Yasser Sobhdel Mar 31 '12 at 08:07

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 31 '12 at 06:32

0

Parent or Owner? That's a difference. Parent is only used in MDI-Applications (see Luigi's post). The owner can be set in the call to ShowDialog( owningForm ).

What is it that you want to achieve?

hth

Mario

answered Mar 31 '12 at 06:32

Mario The Spoon

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Owner is what I want. I don't want to get involved in painting the MDI form as stated in this post:http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1190395/how-to-remove-gray-background-on-mdi-parent-form – Yasser Sobhdel Mar 31 '12 at 08:05
To achieve what you want set the owner in call to ShowDialog (which would be your background window. That's how I do it. – Mario The Spoon Mar 31 '12 at 08:12

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 02 '12 at 05:21

To achieve what you want from the window with the second button post pack to the frmBlack and let it do the work. Or more specifically set a flag within the frmBlack, since in frm1.btnShowNextForm you need to close frm1...

And also take a look at Form.Owner

so something along these lines in frm1.buttonShowNextFormClicked()

{
   if ( null != Owner )
   {
      FrmBlack frmBlackLocal = Owner as FrmBlack;

      if ( null != frmBlackLocal )
      {
         frmBlackLocal.NextAction = FrmBLack.NextActions.ShowForm2; //an enum
      }
   }

   Close();
}

and in frmBlack

{

   frm1.ShowDialog(this);

   if ( NextAction == NextActions.ShowForm2)
   {
      frm2.ShowDialog(this);
   }
}

Well, of course it needs some brush-up (like extracting the next handler in a function of it's own, but you should get the idea.

hth

Mario

A modal form with a parent form as background

3 Answers3