Creating MDI Child Window

In this chapter, the development steps of MDI Child window is shown, by the example of MDI Child Window to display Logo image.

Create Project

Press Add PanDA on the tool menu of Application Producer.

Then this dialog appears.

Select MDI Child Window on Select application template.

And specify the name of the project. In this example, set "DisplayLogo".

Press OK then skeleton code is created, and opened by VisualStudio.

Edit Form

Project of MDI Child Window consists of two classes.

Filename	Description
<Project name>.vb	MDI Child window shown on FJ main window
<Project name>_setting.vb	Setting form to set parameters for MDI Child window

Design the appearance by adding the controls to the forms by drag & drop from toolbox, and set properties in property setting window.

In this example, open DisplayLogo.vb with form designer at first.

And select PictureBox on toolbox, and drop it on form designer of DisplayLogo.vb.

Then PictureBox is located on DisplayLogo.vb.

Select added controls and set properties as necessary.

In this example, set property values as below.

Control name	Property	Value
PictureBox1	BackgroundImageLayout	Zoom
PictureBox1	Dock	Fill

And desing setting form as well.

In this example, the file dialog to select logo image, and the button to show the dialog are assigned on the form.

Control name	Property	Value
OpenFileDialog1	Filter	Jpeg image(.jpg)¦.jpg¦ Bitmap image(.bmp)¦.bmp

Note

It is possible to add

FZ_CustomControl as well as Visual Studio standard controls. Using FZ_CustomControl, it is possible to program system control with simple codes.

And add the codes, in order to open file dialog by pressing button.

    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        OpenFileDialog1.ShowDialog()
    End Sub

Define internal setting data

Define the data which is exchanged by MDI Child window and setting form.

The data is defined in DataDef class, which is defined in MDI Child Window Class.

In this example, the file name of selected image is defined in DataDef.

    Public Class DataDef
        Public imageFilePath as String
    End Class

If it is necessary to set initial value, define it on DefaultSetting in MDI Child Window class.

In this example, no need to set initial value.

Note

Setting data is exchanged via Setting property of MDI Child window and Setting form.
In order to have multiple data in setting data, it is necessary to write codes to integrate multiple data into one string data, and extract multiple data from one string data.
The template used in this example already include the procedures to convert DataDef to string and restore DataDef from string, so it is not necessary to program these codes by yourself.

Note

The Setting property of MDI Child window and Setting form is stored in system data.
The length of each entry in system data is limited to 1023 characters. If it is necessary to exchange bigger data, consider another method to share data such as creating your own method to convert string, or using newly created file.

Implement event procedure

In MDI Child Window and Setting Form, it is possible to define event procedure by defining following modules in necessary.

Event procedure of Setting Form
Name	Description	Event timing
SaveSettingData()	Save setting data	When OK button is pressed
LoadSettingData()	Load setting data	When Setting Form starts
SetMessageText()	Load message text	When Setting Form starts

Event procedure of MDI Child Window
Name	Description	Event timing
SettingDataChange()	Reflect hte change of setting data	When MDI Child Window is loaded or OK button pressed on Setting Form
MakeSettingData()	Save setting data	When Data Save is executed or Setting Form starts
SetMessageText()	Load message text	When MDI Child window is loaded
MeasureInitProc()	Event of measurement initialization	On Measurement initialization
MeasureDispProc()	Event of measurement display	On refreshing measurement display
SceneChangeProc()	Event of scene switching	Just after switching scene

In this example, these procedures are implemented.

Event procedure of Setting Form
SaveSettingData()	File path of selected image file is stored as string data.

Event procedure of MDI Child Window
SettingDataChange()	Load image data to PictureBox1, from the image file.

Each codes are as below.

DisplayLogo_setting : SaveSettingData

    Protected Overrides Function SaveSettingData() As Boolean
        Dim dataSet As New DisplayLogo.DataDef

        ' *****************************************************************
        ' Set setting data to dataSet object.
        ' *****************************************************************

        Try
            Dim file As String = OpenFileDialog1.FileName
            If (System.IO.File.Exists(file)) Then

                dataSet.imageFilePath = file
            End If

            Me.SettingData = DisplayLogo.ObjToString(dataSet)
        Catch ex As Exception
            Return False
        End Try

        Return True
    End Function

DisplayLogo : SettingDataChgange

    Protected Overrides Sub SettingDataChange()
        MyBase.SettingDataChange()
        Dim dataSet As DataDef = StringToObj(Me.SettingData)

        '******************************************************************
        ' Apply setting data.
        '******************************************************************

        If Not (dataSet Is Nothing) Then
            If Not (String.IsNullOrEmpty(dataSet.imageFilePath)) Then
                If System.IO.File.Exists(dataSet.imageFilePath) Then
                    PictureBox1.BackgroundImage = System.Drawing.Image.FromFile(dataSet.imageFilePath)
                End If
            End If
        End If

    End Sub

Implement multi-language

In order to switch languages of the messages displayed on the screen according to the system setting, create message files for each language, and implement procedures of loading and setting messages in SetMessageText().

In this example, set message text to button on Setting Form.

    Protected Overrides Sub SetMessageText()
        MyBase.SetMessageText()
        OpenTextData("DisplayLogo")

        ' *****************************************************************
        ' Set message text.
        ' *****************************************************************
        Me.Text = GetText("SettingFormTitle")

        Me.Button1.Text = ("SelectImage")

    End Sub

Message file is written in UTF-8 as below.

SettingFormTitle=DisplayLogo setting
SelectImage=Select image

Build project and test

Build the project from the menu of VisualStudio.

Then the file "DisplayLogo.dll" is created, and copied on "Release_XP" folder on current workspace.

Note

The dll of MDI Child Window must be located on the same folder where FZ-PanDA.exe is located.

Press "Start" from Application Producer menu, then FJ software starts.

Show MDI Child window by the menu shown below.

Debug

Follow these steps to debug created module with Visual Studio.

(1) Build the project in Debug mode.

(2) Start FJ software from "Start" menu of Application Producer toolbox.

(3) On Visual Studio menu, select [Debug] -> [Attouch process] and select process named "FZ-PanDA.exe".

(4) Add MDI Child Window on the screen by the procedure shown above.