Winforms - Embedding form inside a form or container causes form controls to behave differently

Question

EDITED:

When I load a form dynamically inside another form or container control, the editing behaviour of all the form's components is different. Text editing, in a TextBox or ComboBox, does not allow me to select partial text with the mouse, though I can double click to select all the text in the control.

     FormChild form = new FormChild();
     form.TopLevel = false;
     form.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
     Controls.Clear();
     Controls.Add(form);
     form.Show();

The controls work as expected when I show the form normally, using Show() or ShowDialog(), but not inside something.

The initial question was regarding a form inside a panel, but I've now removed the panel and tried loading the form inside the outer form, or any other container control.

NOTE: I'm getting a lot of comments about how "weird" this is. We've been embedding forms inside MFC controls using FormView for years, so I don't know why this is so weird to people. It is a common concept. In any case, saying it is weird isn't a solution.

EDIT: I should have used a User Control in the first place. Thanks guys.

Answer 1

Is it possible to place all the functionality (including controls) in your form into a User Control? If you want this functionality in a separate form, drop the User Control into an empty form, if you want it as part of an existing form, drop it into that.

This isn't a solution to the problem as you presented it, but maybe this suggestion will help.

Answer 2

Judging from what you have posted, you want to dynamically load some ui elements and only show them when all are done loading? I usually will do it with a `Panel' or user control

[not compile tested code]

Panel p = new Panel();
p.TopLevel = false;
p.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
p.Controls.Add( button );
// etc
Controls.Clear();
Controls.Add(p);