User Inteface problem: A way to get MDI Children to show up in taskbar?

Question

I\'d like your advice on the following issue: We are studying different User Interface solutions for an Windows Forms application we are developing and we have come to the concl

Answer 1

By design, children of an MDI form do not show up in the Taskbar. It's best to stick to this principle.

On Windows 7, you can add a 'thumbnail' for an MDI child to the task bar but this functionality is not available directly in .net. You can check MSDN for the additional APIs.

There is a work-around, though: when selecting a form you can detach it from the MDI parent. You have to make sure that it is re-attached when a new child form is selected. Add the following code to your MDI container form:

    private Form focusedChild;

    private void CreateWindow()
    {
        Form window = new Form();
        window.GotFocus += new EventHandler(Child_GotFocus);
        window.Show();
    }

    void Child_GotFocus(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        Form window = sender as Form;

        if (null != window)
        {
            if (focusedChild != null && window!=focusedChild)
            {
                focusedChild.SuspendLayout();
                focusedChild.MdiParent = null;
                focusedChild.WindowState = FormWindowState.Minimized;
                focusedChild.ResumeLayout();
            }


            window.SuspendLayout();
            window.MdiParent = this;
            window.WindowState = FormWindowState.Maximized;
            window.ResumeLayout();

            focusedChild = window;
        }
    }

I would not recommend this, however. Stick to the default behaviour, or look at the Windows 7 thumbnails if your app will run on Windows 7.