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The “Spotlight on Controls” series focuses on a single WinForms control in PrimalForms 2011 , details the important Properties, Methods, and Events of the control and demonstrates how to utilize the control. Most of the information about the controls is still applicable to previous versions of PrimalForms. Last time we took a look at the TreeView . This time we will look at the ContextMenuStrip control: ContextMenuStrip [System.Windows.Forms.ContextMenuStrip] Represents a shortcut menu. Default Event: Opening Why use a ContextMenuStrip control? Use the ContextMenuStrip when you want to display a menu of commands when the user right clicks on a specific…   More »

It’s all about getting what you want this holiday season. You want the best PowerShell development environment on the market and you want to treat yourself to a $50 shopping spree on Amazon (trust us, you do!). Just purchase PrimalForms 2011 for $299 during this month of December and we will send you a gift code for $50 which you can use to buy whatever you want on Amazon.com. Even if that means spending your well-deserved gift on a significant other, your family, or sharing your wealth with a non-profit organization. It’s your choice but you really, really want PrimalForms…   More »

The “Spotlight on Controls” series focuses on a single WinForms control in PrimalForms 2011, details the important Properties, Methods, and Events of the control and demonstrates how to utilize the control. Most of the information about the controls is still applicable to previous versions of PrimalForms. In Part 1 of the Spotlight on the TreeView control, we looked at the TreeView properties, methods and event. Now we will focus on the TreeNodes and the TreeView’s Nodes property. TreeView Nodes Property Revisited: The TreeView keeps track of its nodes via the Nodes property, which consists of a collection of TreeNode objects.…   More »

The “Spotlight on Controls” series focuses on a single WinForms control in PrimalForms 2011 , details the important Properties, Methods, and Events of the control and demonstrates how to utilize the control. Most of the information about the controls is still applicable to previous versions of PrimalForms. Last time we looked at the TabControl. This time we will look at the TreeView control. Since the TreeView is one of the most elaborate controls we are going to split this Spotlight article into two parts: Part 1: TreeView Overview Part 2: TreeNode Overview TreeView [System.Windows.Forms.TreeView] Displays a hierarchical collection of labeled…   More »

Is your form suffering from shrinkage? Nobody likes it when your form shrinks to sizes where you can no longer see any controls. How embarrassing! Well there is hope! Stop embarrassing shrinkage with our simple solution! With a single application you will impress instead of depress! The PrimalForms Solution: Click on your form in the designer and alter the MinimumSize property in the Property Pane. Yes, that’s right! You can specify the minimum size your form will shrink to. Enter the minimum width and height and you’re done! And no more shrinkage problems! But what if you have the opposite…   More »

The “Spotlight on Controls” series focuses on a single WinForms control in PrimalForms 2011 , details the important Properties, Methods, and Events of the control and demonstrates how to utilize the control. Most of the information about the controls is still applicable to previous versions of PrimalForms. Last time we took a look at the MaskedTextBox control. This time we will look at the TabControl control: TabControl [System.Windows.Forms.TabControl] Manages a related set of tab pages. Default Event: SelectedIndexChanged Why use a TabControl control? Use the TabControl when you wish to present a series of related controls that are separated into…   More »

The “Spotlight on Controls” series focuses on a single WinForms control in PrimalForms 2011 , details the important Properties, Methods, and Events of the control and demonstrates how to utilize the control. Most of the information about the controls is still applicable to previous versions of PrimalForms. Last time we took a look at the MaskedTextBox control. This time we will look at the ImageList control: ImageList [System.Windows.Forms.ImageList] Provides methods to manage a collection of Image objects. Default Event: N/A Why use the ImageList control? Use the ImageList to store a group of images that can be accessed by other…   More »

The “Spotlight on Controls” series focuses on a single WinForms control in PrimalForms 2011 , details the important Properties, Methods, and Events of the control and demonstrates how to utilize the control. Most of the information about the controls is still applicable to previous versions of PrimalForms. Last time we took a look at the ErrorProvider control. This time we will look at the MaskedTextBox control: MaskedTextBox Control [System.Windows.Forms.MaskedTextBox] Represents an enhanced text box control that supports a declarative syntax for accepting or rejecting user input. Default Event: MaskInputRejected Why use a MaskedTextBox control? Use the MaskedTextBox to distinguish between…   More »

In Part 3 we discussed validating techniques. Now in the final part of this series we will discuss how to validate the form as a whole. How to Trigger Validation when the Form is Closing: If you have worked with validation in the past, you may have noticed that the unfocused controls do not trigger validation when the form closes. To get around the issue, you can explicitly tell the form to validate its child controls and react accordingly. A good place to trigger the validation is in the form’s FormClosing event:$form1_FormClosing=[System.Windows.Forms.FormClosingEventHandler]{ #Event Argument: $_ = [System.Windows.Forms.FormClosingEventArgs] #Validate only on…   More »

In Part 2 we discussed how to validate a control. Now we will cover some techniques that can be utilize for validation. Validating Techniques: Regular Expressions: For more complex validation, such as validating an email address, you may need to rely on Regular Expressions. Regular expressions are useful because it allows you to match complex data by providing formatting information. In addition, PowerShell has built in support for regular expressions in the form of the –match operator. Example use of a regular expression in PowerShell: "PowerShell" -match "shell" In this example we are matching any string that contains the word…   More »