Question editing custom page

[aw48]

hi,
for sure what I'll describe is not what I stated in the title but lacked any idea
I've created a small application that creates a page or form solely graphical.
At the moment I only create tables, defining number of rows and number of columns drawn as a bitmap.
Now I want to edit the "fields" of this table. Selecting a field and add some text is easy. But there are numerous editing options and I will end up with a lot of work.
My Question : exists something like that, that will save me a lot of programming time.
Since English is not my native language, I have no idea how to look it up in google.
Can anyone help me ?
be free to ask for addional information.
thanks in advance
franz

 

[jmcilhinney]

It's not really clear what you're actually asking for. As best I can tell, you should be creating your own custom control. All controls are just a class that inherits Control and then adds its own members and draws itself however is appropriate. I understand that English is not your first language but I think that a better explanation, maybe with a screenshot or two, is in order.

 

[Skydiver]

Since the OP is posting in the GDI+ subforum, then more likely than not, he is also using WinForms.

The real question here is when the OP asks for the behavior of being able to click in a field and add text or other editing options, whether this editing is to be done during design time or runtime.

If at runtime, then it seems to me that the easiest approach is just to use the DataGridView without column and row headers. The DGV already has the basic rows and columns. Using the default text column type lets the user put in text, and other built in types allow for other controls. The OP can also write other custom column types for other things that require special editing or rendering. If all the cells are meant to be freeform (e.g. row 1 col 1 can contain text, and then row 2 col 1 can contain an image, and then row 3 col 1 can contain a Play button to play music) then the author will be forced to write a custom omni type column to accommodate this. It won't be significantly harder than writing a custom column that only takes one type.

Unless the tables rows and columns are dead simple and the user doesn't have any needs for scrolling and resizing, the DGV should save a lot of time.

Now on the other hand, if the OP wants to do all the editing at design time, rather than at runtime, it is time to ensure that the Visual Studio SDK is installed and follow the path of writing a custom UserControl. You don't need the SDK to write a custom control, but you do need it if you want to be able to interact with the control in the Windows Form Designer at design time.

 

[aw48]

thanks for answering and sorry for the delay. I had to make some minor changes on the layout-rendering part of the application.
attached is a small 10 row, 3 column page layout. remember these are only lines and what I want is to edit the fields as if it was a gridview. I'm not asking for programminghelp, I know how I would do it but I also know that's a lot of work to be done especially if I want to control the editing with the keyboard.
Maybe there exists a library where all you have to do is create a collection of items and add the the properties to each item according to the graphical design. All this should be done at runtime.
But I don't know what I have to look for. Something like "Item Generator from graphical design" (omg)

 

[jmcilhinney]

Why aren't you just using a DataGridView? It is designed such that it contains no child controls by default and all the data is simply drawn on, then a single child control is created and embedded when the user edits a cell.

 

[aw48]

The layout rendering application is not new. Originally it was meant just to create a pagelayout and print it.
First addition I made was drawing some autotext so that one can number the lines.
Then came the idea to make it editable and thus I can use it for every form that is scanned, like a bancform for example, where all you have to do is define the editfields.
I'm getting along well right now, with the exception of some minor issues, but it's very timeconsuming. that's why I was looking for some applcation that receives a bitmap or a structure of items and will do all the editing be itself.
Maybe later on I'll be back with some questions.
greetings