Add a container control (if I remember correctly, there's a containers section in the toolbox?), like a panel. Create usercontrols for what you want to dynamically switch around. So make like a 'HomePage' usercontrol and a 'LoginPage' usercontrol. Dynamically add the usercontrol that you want to display to the container. WHen you want, remove it from the container and add a different usercontrol:
Panel myPanel = new Panel();
LoginPage ctlLoginPage = new LoginPage();
HomePage ctlHomePage = new HomePage();
//add the loginpage to the panel first
myPanel.Controls.Add(ctlLoginPage);
...do stuff...
//remove whatever control is currently in the Panel
myPanel.Controls.Clear();
//add the other control, the HomePage control instead now
myPanel.Controls.Add(ctlHomePage);
..do other stuff...
I usually do it this way so you leave your form itself open to add common controls and stuff that might be shared between your different 'pages'.
EDIT: Note that I normally would add the panel in the designer and not create it dynamically in the code. This was just an example.
EDIT: The interaction between your mainform and usercontrols can be handled in a few different ways, and I am not saying that any of these is the correct method.
- You create a static property for your Panel on the Mainform, so that
you can always access it to swap your controls around.
In this example I'll also add a static method for it
enum PanelControlsEnum {HomePage, LoginPage};
public static Panel MyContainerPanel {get;set;}
public static void SwitchPanelControls(PanelControlsEnum selControl){
..put your switch panels code here..
}
Then inside your usercontrol you call a predefined method, something like:
MainForm.SwitchPanelControls(PanelControlsEnum.HomePage);
- Another method is to bind the button click event on your mainform
instead of inside the form.
Like This:
HomePage ctlHomePage = new HomePage();
ctlHomePage.Click += MyClickEvent;
myPanel.Controls.Add(ctlHomePage)
...
private void MyClickEvent(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
..switch user control code here...
}