ToolStrip Disappears

Question

In Visual Studio 2005 during design time my toolstrip disappears when I click any part of the form. Selecting the control in the properties window combo brings the control back onto the screen.

At run time the toolbar is no where to be seen.

Can anyone help me with this

thanks

 

Answer 1

OK I sorted this out,

It appears that some joker changed the visible property to false which gives rise to the strange design time behaviour.

nice

 

 

Answer 2

This happens to us on a regular basis when the toolstrip is inside in a tab control. Depending on which which tab is visible, what the last action you did before building/running the app, the phase of the moon on so on the toolbar on the current tab page will magically have its Visible property set to false.

It is annoying to keep having to turn it back on so I ended up writing code to recurse through the form's controls and make all of the toolstrips visible every time on the load event.

We still have to monkey around to select the toolstrip in order to make design time changes but at least we aren't accidentally releasing test builds with missing toolbars (at runtime) anymore.

Jeff

 

 

Answer 3

Jeff,

 

I can confirm the very similar problem. Please read my thread from here:

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1545076&SiteID=1&mode=1

 

Marek

Answer 4

I've been encountering this problem also, whenever I put a toolstrip on a tabpage, it keeps disappearing.  For some reason it keeps getting set to Visible = False even though I am not doing that, is there a proper fix for this yet?

Answer 5

I do not know of any official fix or work-around. Here is the fix that I came up with. Just call EnsureToolbarsAreVisible(this) from your form load code.

 

Jeff

 

        public void EnsureToolbarsAreVisible(Form formFix)
        {
            if (formFix != null)
                EnsureToolbarControlsAreVisible((Control.ControlCollection)formFix.Controls);
        }

        public void EnsureToolbarControlsAreVisible(Control.ControlCollection ctrls)
        {
            if (ctrls != null)
            {
                try
                {
                    foreach (Control ctrl in ctrls)
                    {
                        ToolStrip ts = ctrl as ToolStrip;
                        TabControl tc = ctrl as TabControl;
                        SplitContainer sc = ctrl as SplitContainer;

                        if (ts != null)
                            ts.Visible = true;
                        else if (tc != null)
                        {
                            foreach (TabPage tp in tc.TabPages)
                                EnsureToolbarControlsAreVisible((Control.ControlCollection)tp.Controls);
                        }
                        else if (sc != null)
                        {
                            EnsureToolbarControlsAreVisible((Control.ControlCollection)sc.Panel1.Controls);
                            EnsureToolbarControlsAreVisible((Control.ControlCollection)sc.Panel2.Controls);
                        }
                        else if (ctrl.Controls != null)
                            EnsureToolbarControlsAreVisible((Control.ControlCollection)ctrl.Controls);
                    }
                }
                catch (Exception e)
                {
                    MessageBox.Show(e.Message);
                }
            }
        }

Answer 6

Ah nice, thanks

still annoying in design time when making changes, surprised that Microsoft haven't fixed this obvious bug yet, considering it's been here for so long

Answer 7

If you are using a ToolStripContainer you should also checkout for the TopToolStripPanelVisible property.

Visual Studio Form designer sets this to false when you click on different ToolStrips.

 

If you want all your TopToolStripPanes visible consider extending the code above for a fix, if not set the appropriate TopToolStripPanelVisible property in your own code, otherwise change the Designer generated code and never use the designer again (Thank god )

Answer 8

Visual Studio 2008 still has this problem. It's a bug in the winform designer and has been around for years. It's so irritating and a huge issue for us as we can't release without constantly checking to see that these are still visible. We're starting to lose confidence in the designer, especially after all this time.

 

Answer 9

Hi All,

Because I had to many Toolstrips into tabs controls and it became a nightmare to find the hiden ones, I did a very small add-in to put the visible property to true again.

Here is the add-in:
http://membre.oricom.ca/frabla/controls/FrablaToolstripVisibilityFix/SetupFrablaToolstripVisibilityFix.msi

I hope that it will be usefull for anyone who have the same problem! Cheer!

Frank

Answer 10

Ho! I forgot to say that add-in is made for VS2005, I don't know if it works with 2008!

Answer 11

Yeah, this does have to do with the visibility settings.  I found the problem to one similiar issue as well that's been around for 4 years. I already posted the work around solution at the link below.

https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=119591&wa=wsignin1.0

Answer 12

If this problem still exists in Visual Studio 2010, I will become a clocktower sniper.  This is a horrifically annoying bug.  It does it at random too.  It's not consistent, but 1 out of 4 or 5 times, it comes back as visible = false.

Answer 13

this doesn't work either.  Probably doesn't help that I can't read French!!!

Answer 14

Can anyone confirm is this has been fixed for Visual Studio 2010? 

I've manually added the *.Visible = true for each bindngnavigator object in the *Desinger.cs file , do Ctrl+S and "Clean Solution" and Rebuild.

Whenver I add a new bindingNavigator object, i make sure to manually set the .Visible property, even if it's defaulted to true in the Propeties Window. 

So far, it appears to work for me. 

Microsoft should be ashamed as they are not follwing basic Agile Development principles as this was a VS 2005 bug...tsk, tsk, tsk.

 

Answer 15

I can reproduce this bug everytime on my system. Double click on any item in the navigator, including the navigator itself (actually, I haven't tested this for EVERY item, but so far everyone I've tried does the same). When the text editor opens up to the corresponding event (such as BindingNavigatorMoveNextItem_Click), delete that event. When you go back to the form, the visible property will be changed to false.

So, what might help some people is to avoid clicking on certain controls in the navigator as a quick way to open up the editor to the control you want with the intent of then changing the event from the event drop down menu. That's what I had been doing, followed by deleting the first event that came up which I didn't want. That's exactly when the navigator visible property would get set to false.

Tim

Answer 16

Can anyone confirm is this has been fixed for Visual Studio 2010?

I have only just stumbled across this bug. I am using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate.

Answer 17

I'm using VS2010, and I STILL have this issue. It just happened to me twice in a row, and I ended up releasing a version with a hidden toolbar because it happened right before publish. I never change the visible property, but they often disappear on their own. So annoying.

Answer 18

This issue raises my blood pressure.  It's such an obnoxious bug when doing any kind of development with WinForms, tabs and toolstrips.  Everytime the form is refreshed in the designer it sets the visible property for the toolstrips to false. 

Answer 19

I'm using VS2010 SP1 and still having issues :(

Answer 20

I've been working on a project for 8months in VS2008, and just today flipped all my images from 'import' to 'project resource file' (embedded).. and whalla! This glich surfaced for the first time with a vengance! Since I haven't had this error until now, I suspect it has something to do with this, but dunno.

Answer 21

Yep - here it is, 2012, and the bug is still there in Visual Studio 2010 Professional with SP1.

My application has 5 bindingNavigators (and will have a whole lot more soon).  And from time to time, depending on what I'm doing, one or two of them has the Visibility property set False.  It seems to happen if I work on a tabPage or tabControl unrelated to the going-invisible bindingNavigator.

Maybe they'll fix it in a service pack, but more likely it will perpetuate into VS 2012?  2014?

-Dave

Answer 22

Yep - here it is, 2012, and the bug is still there in Visual Studio 2010 Professional with SP1.

My application has 5 bindingNavigators (and will have a whole lot more soon).  And from time to time, depending on what I'm doing, one or two of them has the Visibility property set False.  It seems to happen if I work on a tabPage or tabControl unrelated to the going-invisible bindingNavigator.

Maybe they'll fix it in a service pack, but more likely it will perpetuate into VS 2012?  2014?

-Dave

I don't want to just be negative because it doesn't accomplish much, but the realist in me says that it's been 6 years and the bug has propagated to the current version of Visual Studio even with it's underpinnings changing drastically. I'm not going to hold my breath that it will be fixed in the next version of VS (since there is a workaround, it's more of a irritation than a road block).

I've seen multiple issues on connect.microsoft.com regarding this issue.  MS responses range from "we're looking into it" (6 years ago) to it was fixed (it was not).  All I can suggest it posting the issue to connect with steps to reproduce (or if there is an issue still open for the same problem, vote it up and provice your feedback).  That's the best way to get it in MS's world.  WinForms is probably taking a backseat (as a mature product) to WPF and the technologies that will be driving Windows 8 appliations.  It should be noted, that's just my assumption until someone in the know states otherwise.

Answer 23

I don't want to be negative either - here's what doesn't work, and here's my workaround:

What doesn't work:

Any fixes that including modifications to form.Designer.CS file, inside the InitializeComponent method, will not work.  Indeed, even if you add code to InitializeComponent such as

this.myBindingNavigator.Visible = true; 

That will not work.  I even tried to move and adjust the "Windows Form Designer generated code" #region and #endregion tags.

Even if you add code to form.Designer.CS, eventually Visual Studio removes it.
For example, if you add the code "this.myBindingNavigator.Visible = true;" to the form.Designer.CS.  Save, Clean build, Save, close solution, open solution, etc.  ... it may seem to work.

BUT - as soon as you move ANY tab page controls (or any controls) which forces Visual Studio to auto-edit the designer.cs file, Visual Studio removes all your code changes.    BAM - all your changes are gone!

The easy work around is:
Add the code (or similar code)

this.myBindingNavigator.Visible = true; 

into a new method in the form.cs file and call it on initialization from form_Load.  Then for sure, your navigators are visible at run time.
To see them during Design-Time - just select the one you want with the mouse, from the gray area below your form.

-Dave

   

Answer 24

namespace

namespace Example

{

   

publicpartialclass ExampleForm: Form

    {

       

publicForm1()

        {

            InitializeComponent();

            toolstripmenu.Show();

        }

Answer 25

I have battled this problem for a few days now, where the toolstrip disappears.  The problem started when I added an image to one of the buttons.  Previously, the toolstrip buttons where without images.

I use Visual Studio 2010 .Net 4.0, so a much newer problem and it seems that Microsoft still has not fixed this issue.

The toolstrip is on one of the tabs in a tab control, like others here.

I did NOT, and I repeat NOT, set the visible property to false.  Why?  Still, the visible property became set to false.  Setting the property to true resolved the issue.

Does adding an image to a button, if the toolstrip is on a tab control cause the visible property to get set to false?

Also, what fool designed a design and runtime behavior where if the visible property is false, the control disappeas unless it is selected and nowhere to be seen at runtime.

This behavior is obviously a bug and Microsoft in over six years has not felt the need to fix it.  I wasted oodles of time on this issue before deciding to do a Google search.  I chose the proper keywords "Toolstrip disappears", first hit.

If any person with clout at Microsoft is reading these posts.  PLEASE FIX THIS BUG!  I did not do anything and ran into this bug.  I suspect that the problem is as old as .Net an was there previously, just no one complained about it before June 2006.  August 2012 and still.  Pathetic.

Answer 26

I have battled this problem for a few days now, where the toolstrip disappears.  The problem started when I added an image to one of the buttons.  Previously, the toolstrip buttons where without images.

I use Visual Studio 2010 .Net 4.0, so a much newer problem and it seems that Microsoft still has not fixed this issue.

The toolstrip is on one of the tabs in a tab control, like others here.

I did NOT, and I repeat NOT, set the visible property to false.  Why?  Still, the visible property became set to false.  Setting the property to true resolved the issue.

Does adding an image to a button, if the toolstrip is on a tab control cause the visible property to get set to false?

Also, what fool designed a design and runtime behavior where if the visible property is false, the control disappeas unless it is selected and nowhere to be seen at runtime.

This behavior is obviously a bug and Microsoft in over six years has not felt the need to fix it.  I wasted oodles of time on this issue before deciding to do a Google search.  I chose the proper keywords "Toolstrip disappears", first hit.

If any person with clout at Microsoft is reading these posts.  PLEASE FIX THIS BUG!  I did not do anything and ran into this bug.  I suspect that the problem is as old as .Net an was there previously, just no one complained about it before June 2006.  August 2012 and still.  Pathetic.

First, another thread where they talk about likely the same bug.  Second, a connect ticket that everyone who has this issue should up vote to see if this can get addressed.  I have the same sentiment about this bug (I can deal with it, but it's one of those really irritating time wasters that pops up over and over).

• http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winformsdesigner/thread/2dae8285-ef9c-4f7b-ab0f-caaf8857f846
• https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/759024/toolstrips-visible-property-set-to-false-if-we-move-more-than-two-toolstrips-at-the-same-time

Answer 27

Wow!  Over eleven thousand views and 26 replies.  "pbell" - don't fret over this not working.  We won't get it to work, but someday MS will fix it.  For now, I just click on the control's icon in the "tools region" below the form.  Or I can select it from the dropdown in the properties window.

-Dave

Answer 28

Like so many others, I too have experienced this problem.

My latest effort, which seems to be working, it to place the ToolStrip on a panel. Set the Dock property of the ToolStrip to "Full", then dock the panel to the "Top" of the tab. You'll need to size the panel manually, but it seems to avoid the disappearing ToolBar issue.

Answer 29

Same problem here.

Environment: Visual Stuido 2010, .NET 4 framework, Windows Forms Application, TabControl, TabPages, ToolStrip
Problem: The ToolStrip or BindingNavigator property "Visible" is sometimes set to false by the Designer.

Steps to reproduce this behaviour with ToolStrip:

1. Create new Windows Forms Application project.
2. Add a TabControl, set dock to fill in properties.
3. Add a ToolStrip on each of the two TabPage(s), notice that the "Visible" property is true for both ToolStrip(s).
4. Select both ToolStrip(s) in the Panel below (either drag mouse to select or click while holding the ctrl key).
5. Click on empty space in the panel. Notice that the "Visible" property value of the ToolStrip that got selected last is now False.

The same is happending if you use a BindingNavigator which internally is derived from ToolStrip. The problem seems to be within
System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripDesigner, which is the designer used when visually editing a ToolStrip or a BindingNavigator.
(BindingNavigator uses the System.Windows.Forms.BindingNavigatorDesigner which itself is derived from ToolStripDesigner)

After starting to write a custom Designer for a custom ToolStrip I soon realized that the programmers at Microsoft didn't do this in just one day.

Anyway here is what I came up with the next day:

1. Changed existing project to .NET 4 framework (not the .NET 4 client profile since we need the System.Design assembly)
2. Added a control library project (.NET 4 framework) to my existing solution, and called it "CustomControls"
3. Added a new class to the control library and called it "ToolStripEx"
4. In the existing project I added a project reference to the library project.
5. In the library project I added a reference to System.Design
6. I derived ToolStripEx from ToolStrip
7. I replaced all System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip occurances in Form1.Designer.vb with CustomControls.ToolStripEx
8. After some time I finally came up with this code:

VB.NET ToolStripEx

Imports System
Imports System.Collections
Imports System.Windows.Forms
Imports System.Windows.Forms.Design
Imports System.Reflection
Imports System.ComponentModel.Design

Public Class ToolStripEx : Inherits ToolStrip
    Private Const WM_GETTEXT As Integer = &HD
    Private components As System.ComponentModel.IContainer

    Public Sub New()
        MyBase.new()
    End Sub

    Public Sub New(ByVal container As System.ComponentModel.IContainer)
        MyClass.New()

        If (container IsNot Nothing) Then
            container.Add(Me)
        End If
    End Sub

    Private Sub InitializeComponent()
        components = New System.ComponentModel.Container()
    End Sub

    Protected Overrides Sub Dispose(ByVal disposing As Boolean)
        Try
            If disposing AndAlso components IsNot Nothing Then
                components.Dispose()
            End If
        Finally
            MyBase.Dispose(disposing)
        End Try
    End Sub

    Protected Overrides Sub WndProc(ByRef m As System.Windows.Forms.Message)
        MyBase.WndProc(m)

        If Me.DesignMode Then
            If m.Msg = WM_GETTEXT Then
                SetVisibleEx()
            End If
        End If
    End Sub

    Private Sub SetVisibleEx()
        If Me.DesignMode Then
            Try
                If Me.Site IsNot Nothing Then
                    If Me.Site.Component IsNot Nothing Then
                        If TypeOf Me.Site.Container Is IDesignerHost Then
                            Dim ihost As IDesignerHost = CType(Me.Site.Container, IDesignerHost)
                            Dim idesigner As IDesigner = ihost.GetDesigner(Me)
                            If idesigner IsNot Nothing Then
                                If idesigner.GetType.Name = "ToolStripDesigner" Then
                                    Dim ctrlDesigner As ControlDesigner = CType(idesigner, ControlDesigner)
                                    Dim prop As PropertyInfo = ctrlDesigner.GetType.GetProperty("Visible", BindingFlags.NonPublic Or BindingFlags.Instance)
                                    If prop IsNot Nothing Then
                                        Dim visibleValue As Boolean = CBool(prop.GetValue(ctrlDesigner, Nothing))
                                        If visibleValue <> mVisibleEx Then
                                            visibleValue = mVisibleEx
                                            ctrlDesigner.Control.Visible = visibleValue
                                            prop.SetValue(ctrlDesigner, visibleValue, Nothing)
                                        End If
                                    End If
                                End If
                            End If
                        End If
                    End If
                End If
            Catch ex As Exception
            End Try
        Else
            Me.Visible = mVisibleEx
        End If
    End Sub

    Private mVisibleEx As Boolean = True
    Public Property VisibleEx As Boolean
        Get
            Return mVisibleEx
        End Get
        Set(value As Boolean)
            If mVisibleEx <> value Then
                mVisibleEx = value
                SetVisibleEx()                
            End If
        End Set
    End Property
End Class

C# BindingNavigatorEx

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Windows.Forms.Design;
using System.Reflection;
using System.ComponentModel.Design;

namespace CustomControls
{
    public class BindingNavigatorEx : BindingNavigator
    {
        private const int WM_GETTEXT = 0xD;
        private System.ComponentModel.IContainer components = null;

        public BindingNavigatorEx(System.ComponentModel.IContainer container) : base(container)
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void InitializeComponent()
        {
            components = new System.ComponentModel.Container();
        }

        protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
        {
            if (disposing && (components != null))
            {
                components.Dispose();
            }
            base.Dispose(disposing);
        }

        protected override void WndProc(ref Message m)
        {
            base.WndProc(ref m);

            if (this.DesignMode)
            {
                if (m.Msg == WM_GETTEXT)
                {
                    SetVisibleEx();
                }
            }
        }

        private void SetVisibleEx()
        {
            if (this.DesignMode)
            {
            try
            {
                if (this.Site != null)
                {
                    if (this.Site.Component != null)
                    {
                        if (this.Site.Container is IDesignerHost)
                        {
                            IDesignerHost ihost = (IDesignerHost)this.Site.Container;
                            IDesigner idesigner = ihost.GetDesigner(this);
                            if (idesigner != null)
                            {
                                if (idesigner.GetType().Name == "BindingNavigatorDesigner")
                                {
                                    ControlDesigner ctrlDesigner = (ControlDesigner)idesigner;
                                    PropertyInfo propInfo = ctrlDesigner.GetType().GetProperty("Visible", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);
                                    if (propInfo != null)
                                    {
                                        Boolean visibleValue = (Boolean)propInfo.GetValue(ctrlDesigner, null);
                                        if (visibleValue != mVisibleEx)
                                        {
                                            visibleValue = mVisibleEx;
                                            ctrlDesigner.Control.Visible = visibleValue;
                                            propInfo.SetValue(ctrlDesigner, visibleValue, null);
                                        }

                                    }
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
            }
            }
            else
            {
                this.Visible=mVisibleEx;
            }
        }

        private Boolean mVisibleEx=true;
        public Boolean VisibleEx
        {
            get
            {
                return mVisibleEx;
            }
            set
            {
                if (mVisibleEx != value)
                {
                    mVisibleEx = value;
                    SetVisibleEx();
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Now I can set the visibility of the ToolStrip thru the property "VisibleEx" and the "Visible" property is working in the test scenario.
I'm assuming that the designer reads the Text property everytime the Visible property is set.
I really hope that the designer sends a WM_GETTEXT message to the custom ToolStrip everytime the bug is hit, if so then the problem is solved for me.
If not then removing the WndProc condition WM_GETTEXT or finding an event is the last chance to get it working like this.

Until now it is working.

Regards

 A.J.

---

Don't panic! Debug it.