Change application from Form to MDI

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I have an application that looks like ordinary form (Form1), but now form became to big, so the only options that i see is to convert it to MDI.
How to change it? Do i need to start all over again? Will i also have to modify the code?

Posted 26-Jun-13 8:46am

Member 4347041

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Member 4347041 27-Jun-13 3:33am

I was thinking to do like this:
http://www.energetska-ucinkovitost.si/energetska-ucinkovitost-v-stavbah/izracun-energijske-bilance-stavbe/programska-oprema/

Where you don't have one form but 2 or 3 forms that you can move above or under the other,... so you can get more space.
I wrote my app on my screen resolution and when i tested on other pc (resolutions) i had a big problem. labels were moved, spaces between labels, textboxes,... where changed,..., it cut one third of a form and so on. That is why i was thinking to use MDI, so i can have "desktop" in it, with multiple forms, panels,...

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov · Answer 1 · 2013-06-26T11:08:00

Here is the idea: who needs MDI, ever? Why torturing yourself and scaring off your users?
Do yourself a great favor: do not use MDI at all. You can do much easier to implement design without it, with much better quality. MDI is highly discouraged even by Microsoft, in fact, Microsoft dropped it out of WPF and will hardly support it. More importantly, you will scare off all your users if you use MDI. Just don't. Please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_document_interface#Disadvantages[^],
How to Create MDI Parent Window in WPF?[^].

I can explain what to do instead. Please see my past answers:
How to Create MDI Parent Window in WPF? [Solution 2],
Question on using MDI windows in WPF[^],
MDIContainer giving error[^],
How to set child forms maximized, last childform minimized[^].

—SA

Ron Beyer · Answer 2 · 2013-06-26T08:52:00

Changing the application to MDI will not allow you to make a bigger form. The largest form you can make in Visual Studio is your screen resolution + 12px on the top and bottom.

So if your resolution is 1024x768, the biggest form you can make is 1032x780. This is a limitation of the Windows Forms designer and one that has been a pain in my ass for a long time (I write a lot of Kiosk applications where the Kiosk screen is larger than my development screen).

The better thing to do is to put a panel on your form, put all your controls in the panel, and set the panel to Auto Scroll. This will add a scroll bar on the form and be able to show more as you add more controls.

Or, you can re-design your UI to be less busy, using sub-forms and other ways to display data (tabs, panels, etc).

Change application from Form to MDI

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