Five Questions regarding the use of C# / VisualStudio 2005

Question

I've some questions .. and I really need your help.

1. I have an application.

   First I display a splash screen, a form, and this splash would call another form.

   Problem: When the splash form is displayed, if I then open another application on the top of the splash, and then minimize this newly opened application window, the splash screen becomes white. How do I avoid this? I want my splash to be displayed clearly and not affected by any application.

2. I'm using a DropDownList but I realized that there is 2 types of it . I found "Dropdown" which makes the text inside the DDL editable, and "DropDownList" which doesn't.

   Problem: when I tried to use DropDownList control it doesn't allow me to add a default text while DropDown does so I want a DropDownList control which prevent modifying on the text and allow a default text .. what property should I use?

3. Can I add "?" which denotes to Help button to the FormBorder (with the minimization, maximization, and close buttons )

4. Can I change the colour of the Formborder from its default colour (blue) ?

5. One of my application functionality is to copy files from server to phone into a certain folder in memory card.

   Problem : can I determine the free size of the MMC to notify the user if it's full while copying.

Answer 1

Here are a few...

1) you need to launch the window in another thread so that your app can do what it needs to do to start. When the startup finishes, signal to the splash screen that it can close itself.

2)

dropDownList.SelectedIndex = 0;

4) I would not recommend doing so. It is based on the system color scheme, which the user sets. I would not like an app to decide for itself which scheme to use.

Answer 2

5) if the MMC shows up as a mapped drive you could use one of these techniques

Answer 3

3) You have to set the "HelpButton" property of the form to true. However the "?" button is only visible if you deactivate the maximize and minimize buttons by setting "MinimizeBox" and "MaximizeBox" to false.

Answer 4

Once again there is no answer to this guys question.

1. Yes, do as the other guy said and launch the splash screen in its own thread.

2. There is only one type of ComboBox in .Net, However there is a property called DropDownStyle which sets its functionality.

3. Yes, I am clueless on how this one works and never needed it.

4. Yes you betcha, Its called non-client painting. you can find more info on it here http://www.codeplex.com/CustomerBorderForm/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Painting%20NonClient%20Area&referringTitle=Home

5. I Need more details on this.