C# - Question about form focus (Firefox example included)

[RastaManBob]

Hi,

I'm currently writing a basic app which carries out some tests and presents the user with a basic pass or fail indicator. I would like the user to have the ability to click a button "Show errors" if the test should fail.

I have completed the stage of showing the pass or fail and am comfortable with how I can implement the main code to give detailed error on failing (I have made a quick and dirty seperate project trying out various coding ideas).

My problem, however, is how to deal with showing this additional information. I do not want the listboxes etc on display at all times (But empty when no errors) as in the majority of cases all tests should be passed. Instead I thought I could either (a) Resize the form or (b) Show a new form that simply displays the fail info and has a "Close" button which closes this information and returns to the main pass/fail screen.

Option (b) is a lot nicer, both from a coding point of view and also from a user point of view (For example with option (a) if the application was being run near the bottom of the screen then when the form is made longer the information would be hidden and the form would need dragging up). With this in mind I'm hoping to implement option (b) but I'm having a bit of a hard time.

I do not want the second form to show in the taskbar, etc, (Easy) but also do not want the user to be able to select/gain focus on the main pass/fail form whilst the detailed results are open...

An example how this implementation is the Tools -> Options screen on Firefox. When open it is apparently self contained in the application (Nothing additional on the task bar) and it does not allow the user to click back in the main browser window - To get back to that the user simply has to close the options dialog.

Can anybody explain how this implementation is achieved and how I could attempt this in C#?

Thank you!

EDIT: Some Google searches are showing this may be achieved through something known as "modal forms". Can anybody confirm this? Thanks!

 

[redeye_uk]

Im assuming you are using java script on your client side? In this case you could just customise the DOM alert box - example here

This seems to have the behaviour you desire?

You could always modify the code and register the JS to the page server side (in your C# code)

 

[Goksly]

Since you are on about forms, I will assume this is for a windows app (C# can be used in applications, websites and mobile apps etc).
When you create a form, to display it there are two options; show and showmodal. The latter will mean that the user needs to close this form before they can interact with the parent form (seems to be what you want).

To hide the form from the taskbar, there is a simple boolean property (showintaskbar iirc); set this to false.

 

[redeye_uk]

yup, my bad, assumed you were developing web app

 

[Haircut]

Since you are on about forms, I will assume this is for a windows app (C# can be used in applications, websites and mobile apps etc).
When you create a form, to display it there are two options; show and showmodal. The latter will mean that the user needs to close this form before they can interact with the parent form (seems to be what you want).

To hide the form from the taskbar, there is a simple boolean property (showintaskbar iirc); set this to false.

It's actually the ShowDialog method that you want if you want to display the form modally.

This method returns a value of type DialogResult, which you can then query to find how the user has closed the form.
Basically if they click OK then you can set the DialogResult property of the modal form to DialogResult.OK and similarly for Cancel etc.

You can then get the return value from the parent form and act appropriately on the actions,