topic Re: Form always on top behavior - vb.net in ArcObjects SDK Questions

Form always on top behavior - vb.net

Corbinde_Bruin — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 11:32:26 GMT

Hi all,

I'm programming an addin with a form and I'd like the form stay on top of ArcMap. The always on top property of the form makes it always on top of every window I have open.

I'd like it to behave like all the other ArcMap forms do:
Only the top most form when they have focus.
Always on top of ArcMap.
Never on top of other open programs that have focus.

Thank you,
cdebruin

Re: Form always on top behavior - vb.net

NeilClemmons — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:08:12 GMT

You'll need to set the ArcMap window as the form's owner. In the code below, m_application is a reference to the ArcMap application.

yourForm.Show(System.Windows.Forms.Control.FromHandle((IntPtr)m_application.hWnd));

Re: Form always on top behavior - vb.net

Corbinde_Bruin — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:39:05 GMT

Thanks for responding Neil!

Translated to vb.net

yourForm.Show(System.Windows.Forms.Control.FromHandle(CType(m_application.hWnd, IntPtr)))

Thank you,
cdebruin

Re: Form always on top behavior - vb.net

KenBuja — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:54:59 GMT

Here's how to do it for an addin in VB.Net

MyFormInstanceName.Show(System.Windows.Forms.Control.FromHandle(My.ArcMap.Application.hWnd))

Thanks to Jim Isbell for this

Re: Form always on top behavior - vb.net

Corbinde_Bruin — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 15:48:26 GMT

Interestingly, the tab key stops working if I use .Show() instead of .ShowDialog(). It simply no longer navigates from control to control. Any way to make the tab stops work with .Show()? Any one else even aware of this problem?

Nevermind. I found this forum post:
http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/68761-Add-In-Tab-Key-problems?highlight=tab%2C+stops

Re: Form always on top behavior - vb.net

NeilClemmons — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 16:05:47 GMT

There are several ways to solve the problem. One way is to add code to the form's key press events to handle such things as tabbing, mnemonics, accept/cancel, etc. The drawback to this is that you have to add the code to every modeless form you create. A better way is to create a blank form with the custom code, put it in a code library and have all of your forms inherit from it. I'm attaching a code sample I wrote several years back that shows how you might do this.

Re: Form always on top behavior - vb.net

Corbinde_Bruin — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:08:29 GMT

Thank you Neil,

Very helpful! I've never done anything like that before, but I was able to figure it out with the documentation you provided and some googling. I now have the Enhanced Modeless Dialogs working.

Thank you,
Corbin de Bruin