1. What is
StatusStrips?
Status strip is a family of strip controls like MenuStrip
and ToolbarStrips, which is usually used to display some quick
help and information to the user who is using the application. A status strip
control will look like the one shown below:
The C#
status strip control allows you to even add combo and textboxes to the status. In
this example, we will have a look at how we add a status bar to the application and
how will we use it. Then we will look at some of the important properties and
using them efficiently.
2. About the Sample
The
screen shot of the sample in created in C# is shown below:
The
black colored narrow strip is the status strip and it has three slots in it. The
computation section (Sorry for the spelling mistake in the button. Lazy to change
it for now] will calculate the sum of the number you enter. On iteration of the
numbers, a delay is introduced intentionally to simulate that it is a long
running process. During that time Computing please wait appear in the first
status slot. Second slot will show current border style and third one shows your
last input given for the compute summation section.
You can
set two kinds of border styles to the status bar, in the sample we are using the border
style section. Once a border style is picked it can be applied to top side of
the slot or bottom side of the slot or can be applied to all 4 sides. The
applied sides can be revoked by un-checking the check boxes.
The
spring check boxes allow expanding the slot to occupy the remaining free space.
We will start the sample now.
3. Adding Status bar and Setting the properties
From the
Menus & Toolbar section, the status strip control is added to the form.
Once status strip is control is added, the status labels (Three slot has three
labels in the sample) are added using the edit items option of the status bar.
Then inside the property dialog you can the individual property for the status
bar items. This is shown in the below video:
Download
from blog:
Video Link
4. Assigning initial texts in the status
The
statuslabel in the status bar can be accessed by its name. In the form load
event handler we are placing some initial text. Event handler is code given
below:
//Status 001: Set status Labels
private void
StatusBarSample_Load(object
sender, EventArgs
e)
{
//Access the Status Labels by
Name
SLabel1.Text = "Idle";
SLabel2.Text = "Default";
SLabel3.Text = "0.0";
}
SLabel1 to
SLabel3 is added in the previous step and its text property is set during the
form load. So the initial display of the form will show above set texts in the
status labels.
Download
from blog:
Video Link
5. Showing informative text dynamically
When is
it required to show informative text? Say when the application is going on long
process it needs to be informed to the user. Some people display a hour glass
icons and some display a please wait message in the status bar. We are going to
display the please wait message in the status bar. The compute button will
calculate some summation of the given number and a thread delay is introduced to
show it is along running process.
The
compute Summation button click handler is shown below:
//Status 002: Compuate
Summation
private void
btnSum_Click(object
sender, EventArgs
e)
{
//Status 002_1: Declarations
and some initialization
long
endno = long.Parse(txtInput.Text);
long
sum = 0;
lblResult.Text =
"";
//Status 002_2: Set the text
for status and start computation. Do not forget Application.doevents()
SLabel1.Text = "Computing Please Wait..";
for
(long
cnt = 1; cnt < endno + 1; cnt++)
{
Thread.Sleep(10);
Application.DoEvents();
sum = sum + cnt;
}
lblResult.Text =
sum.ToString();
//Status 002_3: Set the status
as Idle
SLabel1.Text = "Idle";
SLabel3.Text = "Last Input: "
+ txtInput.Text;
}
In the
above code,
The Thread.Sleep(10);
is used to hang the sample for 10 milliseconds in each iteration. Before the
long process (Made long) starts we are displaying the status label the please
wait message using the statement: SLabel1.Text = "Computing Please Wait..";
and at the end we are changing the status label
to Idle meaning that application is not busy now. Also we are setting the input
processed in the last status label.
SLabel1.Text =
"Idle";
SLabel3.Text =
"Last Input: "
+ txtInput.Text;
It should be noted that even though we set the status label
Please wait, it will not get displayed when the application too busy. That is
when the application busy it has no time to make any user interface changes and
displaying the new label text appears only when application goes to normal stage
from the busy stage. Then it will be no use when the label does not display
computing please wait when required. The call to Application.DoEvents() will serve the
proceeing of the any waiting events in our case it is updating the status label
from idel to computing please wait. How the status label displays the waiting
message is shown in the below video:
Download from blog:
Video Link
6. Setting Border
Style using Status slot edges
Note that in the section 3 of this article we added three
ToolStripStatusLabels to our status strip. In this section we are
going to set the border style to the edges of the control.
| | Member name | Description |
| | Adjust | The border is drawn outside the specified rectangle, preserving the dimensions of the rectangle for drawing. |
| | Bump | The inner and outer edges of the border have a raised appearance. |
| | Etched | The inner and outer edges of the border have an etched appearance. |
| | Flat | The border has no three-dimensional effects. |
| | Raised | The border has raised inner and outer edges. |
| | RaisedInner | The border has a raised inner edge and no outer edge. |
| | RaisedOuter | The border has a raised outer edge and no inner edge. |
| | Sunken | The border has sunken inner and outer edges. |
| | SunkenInner | The border has a sunken inner edge and no outer edge. |
| | SunkenOuter | The border has a sunken outer edge and no inner edge. |
The above table shows all
the available border styles. In this Example, I had taken only two of them. The
Source code for applying and revoking the BorderStyle to the Sides of the Status
label is explained below.
1.
First a Enumeration type is declared. This enumeration is capable os holding the
value for the sides. The enum variable is initialized to None first.
//Status 003: Used for the
Borderside property
ToolStripStatusLabelBorderSides
applyto = ToolStripStatusLabelBorderSides.None
;
2.
When you select the Border Style using either Sunken outer or Etched, We are making a call to the user defined function
ApplyBorderStyle. Code is below:
//Status 005: Once we have the
border sides, we can apply the border styple
private void
radSunken_CheckedChanged(object
sender, EventArgs
e)
{
ApplyBorderStyle();
}
3.
In the ApplyBorderStyle function we are assigning the combination
of BorderSides stored in the applyto variable to all three status labels. The
checkbox event handler will assign the sides or revokes it from this variable.
After applying the sides in effect, we setting the border style by checking
radSunken.Checked == true and when it is true, the corrospoding border style
is set followed by updating the status label2 to show shat is current border
style.
//Status 006: Apply Border
style
private void
ApplyBorderStyle()
{
SLabel1.BorderSides =
applyto;
SLabel2.BorderSides =
applyto;
SLabel3.BorderSides =
applyto;
if
(radSunken.Checked == true)
{
SLabel1.BorderStyle = Border3DStyle.SunkenOuter;
SLabel2.BorderStyle = Border3DStyle.SunkenOuter;
SLabel3.BorderStyle = Border3DStyle.SunkenOuter;
SLabel2.Text =
"Sunken Outer";
}
else
{
SLabel1.BorderStyle = Border3DStyle.Etched;
SLabel2.BorderStyle = Border3DStyle.Etched;
SLabel3.BorderStyle = Border3DStyle.Etched;
SLabel2.Text =
"Etched";
}
}
4.
To apply or revoke the sides in effect, the bitwise OR(|), bitwise
XOR(^) is used like below:
applyto = applyto | ToolStripStatusLabelBorderSides.Top;
To apply a
side
applyto = applyto ^ ToolStripStatusLabelBorderSides.Top;
To revoke a
side
The above bitwise
operations are used when you do check and uncheck on the checkboxes that
specifies the edges in which the border style will be applied. Below
is the available border sides, which taken from the ToolStripStatusLabelBorderSides
enumeration:
{
None = 0,
Left = 1,
Top = 2,
Right = 4,
Bottom = 8,
All = 15,
}
The above two statement
that applies and then revokes the Top borderside is depicted as follows:
The checkbox event handler will apply and revoke the
corresponding edge using the method specified above.
Note that after storing the required sides in
the variable applyto, we are making a call to the ApplyBorderStyle
and we already saw that the called function will apply your selected border
styles to the edges that is applicable. The code for that is shown below:
//Status 004: Store the
bordersides for applying the border style
private void
chkTop_CheckedChanged(object
sender, EventArgs
e)
{
//Apply the side using bitwise
Or Operator. Remove the style using the Xor
if(
chkTop.Checked == true
)
applyto = applyto
| ToolStripStatusLabelBorderSides.Top;
else
applyto = applyto
^ ToolStripStatusLabelBorderSides.Top;
ApplyBorderStyle();
}
private void
chkLeft_CheckedChanged(object
sender, EventArgs
e)
{
if
(chkLeft.Checked == true)
applyto = applyto
| ToolStripStatusLabelBorderSides.Left;
else
applyto = applyto
^ ToolStripStatusLabelBorderSides.Left;
ApplyBorderStyle();
}
private void
chkAll4_CheckedChanged(object
sender, EventArgs
e)
{
if
(chkAll4.Checked == true)
{
chkTop.Checked =
true;
chkLeft.Checked =
true;
applyto = applyto
| ToolStripStatusLabelBorderSides.All;
}
else
{
chkTop.Checked =
false;
chkLeft.Checked =
false;
applyto = ToolStripStatusLabelBorderSides.None;
}
ApplyBorderStyle();
}
Below is the video that
shows testing the Border style code explained above.
Download from blog:
Video Link
7.
RenderMode property of the StatusStrip
The rednder mode is just a different style for the status bar. As I applied the
background image for the status bar the rendor mode has very littele effect.
Below is the code that makes use of the RenderMode property:
//Status 008: Set different
Render Mode
private void
radRModeSystem_CheckedChanged(object
sender, EventArgs
e)
{
if
(radRModeSystem.Checked == true
)
statusSt.RenderMode = ToolStripRenderMode.System;
}
private void
radRModeProf_CheckedChanged(object
sender, EventArgs
e)
{
if(radRModeProf.Checked
== true
)
statusSt.RenderMode = ToolStripRenderMode.Professional
;
}
8. Spring
Property of the Status Items
As the name suggestes it
performs the spring action on the status slots. When the Spring
property is set to true, the slot expands to occupy the remaining free area in
the status bar. When more than one slot has Spring property set to true, they
share the ramaning free space on the status strip together.
Below is the checkbox
handler code for setting the spring propery for either first slot or second slot
or for both. I intensionally does not provide setting the spring property for
the third slot so that you can know that third slot always fit to the text it is
holding.
//Status 007: Set the Spring
effect for status bar
private void
chkSpringLb1_CheckedChanged(object
sender, EventArgs
e)
{
if
(chkSpringLb1.Checked == true)
SLabel1.Spring =
true;
else
SLabel1.Spring =
false;
}
private void
chkSpringLb2_CheckedChanged(object
sender, EventArgs
e)
{
if
(chkSpringLb2.Checked == true)
SLabel2.Spring =
true;
else
SLabel2.Spring =
false;
}
Download from blog:
Video Link
See you all in the next article. The sample is developed in
VS2005 IDE. If you have latest one, just accept the conversion asked by the
dialog of your latest IDE.