Windows.forms

Is it possilble to implement a Custom windows.forms window in a Grasshopper Component? And if it is can i Store inputdata within the Component instances ?i looked at the scripting Component... But i Found no hint.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on April 28, 2011 at 3:36am

Hi Michael,

this is definitely possible. If you want to do something like the Scripting Components, then you'll need to:

1) Create a System.Windows.Forms.Form using the Visual Studio form designer or create a form through code.

2) Add a public function to your component that displays this form, I recommend you use form.ShowDialog() for now to avoid weird conditions with non-modal forms.

3) Override the method Menu_AppendCustomComponentItems() on your Component and add an extra menu item that will show the form (i.e. when clicked, it will call the function defined in step [2].

4) Create a new class and derive it from Grasshopper.Kernel.Attributes.GH_ComponentAttributes. (if you don't want to offer double-click functionality, you can skip steps 4 to 6)

5) Override the RespondToMouseDoubleClick() method on the new attributes and also call the function defined in step [2]

6) Override the CreateAttributes() method on your Component class and construct an instance of the custom attributes defined in step [4] instead.

7) Once you've shown the form and the user has clicked OK, you need to assign values and invalidate the Component, then start a new Solution.

Here's some code:

Public Class MySpecialComponentAttributes

Inherits GH_ComponentAttributes

Public Sub New(ByVal comp As MySpecialComponent)

MyBase.New(comp)

End Sub

Public Overrides Function RespondToMouseDoubleClick( _

ByVal sender As GH_Canvas, _

ByVal e As GH_CanvasMouseEvent) As GH_ObjectResponse

DirectCast(Me.Owner, MySpecialComponent).DisplayForm()

Return Canvas.GH_ObjectResponse.Handled

End Function

End Class

Public Class MySpecialComponent

Inherits GH_Component

.....

Protected Overrides Sub Menu_AppendCustomComponentItems( _

ByVal iMenu As ToolStripDropDown)

Menu_AppendGenericMenuItem(iMenu, "Set Values", AddressOf Menu_SetValues)

End Sub

Private Sub Menu_SetValues(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)

DisplayForm()

End Sub

Public Sub DisplayForm()

Dim frm As New MySpecialForm()

Grasshopper.GUI.GH_WindowsFormUtil.CenterFormOnCursor(frm, True)

If (frm.ShowDialog() = DialogResult.OK) Then

'Harvest values from form and assign them to local variables

Me.ExpireSolution(True)

End If

End Sub

End Class

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Turku, Finland

Permalink Reply by michael sprinzl on April 28, 2011 at 4:13am

thx david thats cool...

Permalink Reply by Elcin Ertugrul on December 31, 2013 at 11:01am

Hi David,

I had compiled a test gha in VisualStudio (C#) and was able to run the Form via new dropdown menu item, but the doubleclick response didn't work to run the form. Would you please give some hint what I am missing here, thank you so much.

Happy New Year,

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Windows.Forms;

using Grasshopper;
using Grasshopper.GUI;

using Grasshopper.Kernel;
using Grasshopper.Plugin;
using test_gh.Properties;
using Grasshopper.GUI.Canvas;
using Grasshopper.Kernel.Attributes;
using GH_IO.Serialization;

namespace test_gh
{
    public class Class1: GH_Component
    {

        public Class1() : base("@test", "@test", "@test is a collection of parametric modeling tool", "@test", "")
        {
            //sa = new SettingsComponentAttributes(Class1);

        }

        public override Guid ComponentGuid
        {
            get { return new Guid("B60B6812-C9DB-4D4B-BAEF-170534B846DE"); }
        }

        public override void AppendAdditionalMenuItems(ToolStripDropDown menu)
        {
            base.AppendAdditionalMenuItems(menu);
            Menu_AppendSeparator(menu);

            Menu_AppendItem(menu, "Learn More", Menu_LearnMore);

        }

        private void Menu_LearnMore(Object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            DisplayForm();
            //this.ExpirePreview(true);
            //this.ExpireSolution(true);
        }

        public override GH_Exposure Exposure
        {
            //expose the object in the section on the toolbar
            get { return GH_Exposure.primary; }
        }

        protected override void RegisterInputParams(GH_Component.GH_InputParamManager pManager)
        {

        }

        protected override void RegisterOutputParams(GH_Component.GH_OutputParamManager pManager)
        {

        }

        protected override Bitmap Icon
        {
            get
            {
                //return Resources.Attrct_it;
                return Resources._it;
            }
        }

        protected override void SolveInstance(IGH_DataAccess DA)
        {

        }

        public void DisplayForm()
        {
            MySpecialForm frm = new MySpecialForm();

            Grasshopper.GUI.GH_WindowsFormUtil.CenterFormOnCursor(frm, true);

            if ((frm.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK))
            {
                //Harvest values from form and assign them to local variables

                this.ExpireSolution(true);

            }
        }

        public class MySpecialComponentAttributes : GH_ComponentAttributes
        {
            public MySpecialComponentAttributes(IGH_Component Class1) : base(Class1) { }

            public override GH_ObjectResponse RespondToMouseDoubleClick(GH_Canvas sender, GH_CanvasMouseEvent e)
            {
                ((Class1)Owner).DisplayForm();
                return GH_ObjectResponse.Handled;
            }
        }

    }

}

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on December 31, 2013 at 11:13am

Did you override CreateAttributes on Class1 and set a new MySpecialComponentAttributes instance to m_attributes?

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Permalink Reply by Elcin Ertugrul on December 31, 2013 at 1:18pm

Thank you David,

No I haven't of course ... I looked at again to .chm for custom attribute section, proposed something like below,but what should be the constructor ?

        public override void CreateAttributes()
        {
            //m_attributes = new MySpecialComponentAttributes(Class1);
            m_attributes = new MySpecialComponentAttributes(???);
        }

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on December 31, 2013 at 5:53pm

public override void CreateAttributes()
{
m_attributes = new MySpecialComponentAttributes(this);
}

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Permalink Reply by Vicente Soler on December 31, 2013 at 7:27pm

Need to answer post.

Happy new year.

Permalink Reply by Elcin Ertugrul on January 1, 2014 at 8:57am

Thank you so much, happy new year

Permalink Reply by Anton Szilasi on February 8, 2017 at 3:51pm

Hi David,

I am trying to recreate Elcin's code to prototype some code for custom checklists and number sliders as I described here: http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/creating-custom-number-sl...

I created my own Specialform within the same namespace as the rest the code, it is simply a windows form with one button.

Unfortunately whenever I try to run the method DisplayMethod I get the Exception

Do you have any pointers as to what is going on? I am pretty lost.