Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Express Edition: Build a Program Now! (40 page)

notification as well as the reason why the form is closing. If the user is closing the form, setting the Cancel
entering the following keywords:

property to true will stop the closing process and prevent the form from closing. The next instruction is a
CloseReason enumeration.

call to the Hide method. The Hide method is simply a synonym for setting the Visible property to false. The form will simply be hidden.

The UserClosing event would also

When the user selects the Exit choice from the context menu, the FormClosing event will be raised; howev
be called whenever the user press-
es Alt+F4 or if the user selects

er, the reason given will not be UserClosing. Instead it will be ApplicationExitCall, and therefore the applica
Close from the Form Control menu
tion will continue the closing process.

(the menu that appears when you

click on the left corner where the

icon is usually located).

You’ll now add the code for the Open . . . menu choice. To write the code for this event, select 7
cmsNotify
in the component tray and then double-click on the
Open . . .
menu choice on the context menu strip. The click event handler will be created, and you’ll call the Restore method to handle the form’s visibility, which is done by the this.Restore() code. You will add code to make sure the form has the focus so that it ends up on top of any other displayed windows. Add the following code to the tsmiOpen_Click event handler:

35 private void tsmiOpen_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

36 {

37 this.Restore();

38 this.Focus();

39 }

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Now, test the application with the following test scenario:

■ Start the application by pressing
F5.
Right-click on the notify icon and select
Open . . .
The Main form should appear in the middle of your screen. Minimize the Main form by clicking the
Close
button. Once it is minimized, double-click the notify
icon. You should again see the Main Form. Terminate the application by selecting the
Exit
menu choice.

Adding the Splash Screen and About Dialog Box

Since you have done these procedures in Chapter 6, I won't spend too much time on this section. You'll just add forms that are almost finished from the companion content. Follow these steps to add the SplashWeather.cs form and AboutWeatherTracker.cs form to your project.

TO ADD A SPLASH SCREEN AND ABOUT DIALOG BOX

In the Solution Exoplorer, right-click the
Weather Tracker
project, select
Add
, and then select 1
Existing Item
. The Add Existing Item dialog box apears.

Browse to the SplashAbout folder under the Chapter9 companion content. By default the companion 2 content is located at \My Documents\Microsoft Press\VCS 2005 Express\. Select the
AboutWeatherTracker.cs
file and, while pressing the
Ctrl
key, select the
SplashWeather.cs
3 file.

Click
Add
to add the AboutWeatherTracker and SplashWeather forms to your project in Solution 4 Explorer.

Using the following table, set the specified properties on the SplashWeather form. Images are located in the Images folder under Chapter9 of the companion content.
o

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Control Name

Control Type

Property

Value

SplashWeather

Form

BackgroundImage

mountain.jpg

SplashWeather

Form

BackgroundImageLayout

Stretch

Using the following table, set the specified properties on the AboutWeatherTracker form. Images are located in the Images folder under Chapter9 of the companion content.
Component

Property

Value

LogoPictureBox

Image

Sunset.jpg

Now you need to attach these two forms to the rest of the application.
TO ATTACH FORMS TO AN APPLICATION

To attach the splash screen, begin by opening the code for
Main.cs
and modify the constructor so 1 that it looks like the following:

1 public partial class Main : Form

2 {

3 SplashWeather splashScreen = new SplashWeather();

4 public Main()

5 {

6 InitializeComponent();

7 splashScreen.Show();

8 Application.DoEvents();

9 }

The previous step will display the splash screen, but you need to close it and make it disappear. Open 2 the
Main.cs
form in design mode and select the form. Click the
events
button (yellow lightning) at the top of the Properties window and double click the
Load
event.
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3 Add the following code to the Main_Load event handler.

10 private void Main_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

11 {

12 //Splash screen business.

13 Thread.Sleep(2000);

14 splashScreen.Close();

15 }

Place your cursor within the “Thread” text. You should see a familiar yellow and red smart tag. This 4 smart tag is there to let you know that the Thread class is in the System.Threading namespace and that you don’t have it in your using directives at the top of Main.cs. Move your mouse over the smart tag, click the down arrow, and then select
using System.Threading
; to add it to your list of using directives. To attach the About dialog box, you need to tie it to the context About
. . .
menu choice. Go to your 5
Main.cs
form in design mode.

Select
cmsNotify
in the component tray and double-click the
About . . .
menu choice in the context 6 menu strip. Add the following code to the tsmiAbout_Click event hander. 16 private void tsmiAbout_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

17 {

18 aboutScreen.ShowDialog();

19 }

At the top of Main.cs, just below SplashWeather splashScreen = new SplashWeather();, add the follow7 ing line of code: 20 AboutWeatherTracker aboutScreen = new AboutWeatherTracker();

In the Solution Explorer, right-click the
Weather Tracker
project and select
Properties
to open the 8 Project Designer.

On the Application tab, click
Assembly Information
and set the assembly information for the project. 9 This information will fill the splash screen and About dialog box fields. 10 On the Application tab, change the application icon to
Sun.ico
. Click the ellipsis (
...
) button next to the Icon drop-down list. Select the
Sun.ico
file in the Chapter9 Images folder.
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Adding the Options Dialog Box

You now have three forms. You will add the final Options dialog box form that will

Figure 9-4

The Options dialog box

appear when the user selects the Options… menu choice in the context menu from the notify icon.

TO ADD THE OPTIONS DIALOG BOX FORM

1 In the Solution Explorer, right-click
Weather Tracker,
select
Add
, and then select
Windows Form
. 2 From the templates, select
Windows Form
, name the form
Options.cs
, and then click
Add
. Using the following table, set properties and add controls to the Options form so that it looks like 3 the form shown in Figure 9-4.

Component

Control Type

Property

Value

Options

Form

Font

Tahoma 8

Options

Form

BackColor

System:MenuHighlight

Options

Form

StartPosition

CenterScreen

Options

Form

ForeColor

Web:White

Options

Form

ControlBox

False

Options

Form

FormBorderStyle

FixedDialog

Options

Form

MaximizeBox

False

Options

Form

MinimizeBox

False

Options

Form

Text

Options

txtCurrentZipCode

Textbox

AcceptReturn

True

txtCurrentZipCode

Textbox

BackColor

System:InactiveCaption

lblCurrentZipCode

Label

Text

Current Zip Code:

Continued on the next page

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Continued from the previous page

Component

Control Type

Property

Value

btnOk

Button

BackColor

System:InactiveCaption

btnOk

Button

FlatStyle

Popup

btnOk

Button

Text

Ok

btnCancel

Button

BackColor

System:InactiveCaption

btnCancel

Button

Text

Cancel

btnCancel

Button

FlatStyle

Popup

Options

Form

AcceptButton

btnOk

Options

Form

CancelButton

btnCancel

TO HOOK UP THE FORM TO THE CONTEXT MENU

1 Display the
Main
form in design mode.

Select
cmsNotify
in the component tray, and double-click the
Options . . .
menu choice in the 2 context menu.

3 Add the following line of code to the tsmiOptions_Click event handler: 1 private void tsmiOptions_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

2 {

3 optionsForm.ShowDialog();

4 }

At the top of Main.cs, just below AboutWeatherTracker aboutScreen = new AboutWeatherTracker();, 4 add the following line of code:

At this point in the chapter, the

Options optionsForm = new Options();

current project state is saved in

the Chapter9 companion content

in a folder named Weather Tracker

Press
F5
to run the application. You should see your splash screen. Use the context menu on the notify 5

UI. To add the Web service func-

icon to open the
About
dialog box and the
Options
dialog box. When finished, exit the application.
tionality, you can continue with

your own project or use the proj-

You are now finished with this part of the project. Be sure to save your project. It is time to add the meat of
ect in Weather Tracker UI.

the project: using Web services.

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Using Web Services

You have constructed a nice shell, but the shell is rather empty at this moment. You need to

access weather data in order to populate the shell. To accomplish this, you will learn to con
The weather Web service you will
use in this part of the chapter

sume Web services. But first: what is a Web service?

requires a free registration. Of

A Web service is an application that runs on a Web server, such as Internet Information
course, when you say free, you

have to think about the availability

Services (IIS). A Web service has a series of exposed public methods that an application
and robustness of the Web service.

I tried to choose a reliable Web

can call. There are numerous examples of Web services on the Internet. You can use Web
service, but I can’t guarantee that

services that perform a variety of operations, such as finding a ZIP code, viewing a map,
it will be available at all times. You