Re: MDI Application

From: Kurt Barthelmess (kbarthelmess_at_compuserve.com)
Date: 10/12/03 

Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 18:25:03 GMT

"Ed Arthur" <EArthur@carolina.rr.com> wrote:

>I have an MDI Application.
>
>I would like a panel of controls to be the background of the MDI form.
>
>How can I have the child form to lay over this panel of controls, instead of
>behind it?

I'm not sure I understand the question, so if this answer isn't
helpful, please follow up. I think you're saying that you want the
main form's controls (on that TPanel) to sit directly underneath the
MDI children. Any controls covered by an MDI child would then not be
accessible though, right? You don't really want each MDI child to have
that panel with all the controls?

iac, the main MDI form has an MDI client window which occupies the
entire client area, except for space reserved by aligned panels and
such. The MDI client window is forced to the background; otherwise the
main form's controls would not be visible at all. The MDI child
windows are children of this MDI client, so they effectively get
forced to the background also, behind the main form's other controls.
That relationship between the main form, the MDI client window and the
MDI children is hard wired by Windows implementation of MDI. There's
nothing you can do to get around it.

You might (I have not tried this) be able to force the panel and its
controls to be children of the MDI client window. But the MDI client
is not going to understand that those controls are "special", and so
this will probably bollix up Tile and Cascade operations and the
Window menu handling and such. The MDI client will probably try to
treat that panel as another MDI child and get very confused.

Would it be acceptable to "dock" that panel to one side of the MDI
client? That would ensure that it is always visible - not even a
maximized MDI child would cover it.

Good luck.

Kurt

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