Is there a way to make a UserControl unfocussable?

Question

Is there a way to make a UserControl unfocussable?

EDIT: So SetStyle(ControlStyles.Selectable, false)

is the way to go. But still there is diffe

Answer 1

A UserControl, or any Control, will not be able to receive focus if the CanFocus property returns false. If you look at the code in reflector it basically checks 3 properties and if any are false then it will be un-focusable.

• IsHandleCreated
• IsVisible
• IsEnabled

Setting the first two to false and having a functioning control is pretty much a contradiction. If it's possible though for your control to be functional with IsEnabled being false then that should work.

Answer 2

You can get closer to what you want by setting TabStop to false. That'll prevent the control from getting focused when, for instance, a dialog-box above its owning form closes.

Answer 3

Yes, the SetStyle(ControlStyles.Selectable, false); works only if you are inheriting from a control.

It will not work, if you are inheriting from a user control.

To get around the problem, I added a panel to the user control and docked the panel to "Fill". Added rest of the controls to the panel instead of the user control. It worked!

Answer 4

Enabled = false, perhaps?

Answer 5

Besides ControlStyles.Selectable there is also a ControlStyles.ContainerControl - the documentation is rather sparse on this topic (If true, the control is a container-like control), but it somehow affects if the child controls get focus instead of the control itself.

EDIT:

I have just noticed another interesting fact. Viewing a UserControl in reflector shows that it forces setting the input focus in OnMouseDown. So overriding OnMouseDown without calling base.OnMouseDown(e) resolves the issue with no side-effects.

[EditorBrowsable(EditorBrowsableState.Advanced)]
protected override void OnMouseDown(MouseEventArgs e)
{
    if (!this.FocusInside())
    {
        this.FocusInternal();
    }
    base.OnMouseDown(e);
}

Answer 6

In your constructor after InitializeComponent() you need to call SetStyle and set the ControlStyles.Selectable style to false:

SetStyle(ControlStyles.Selectable, false);