c# - How to capture all the items inside a control?

Question

Suppose there is a picturexox on the panel and there is a datagridview on the picturebox.

I use the following code to capture the panel:

System.Drawing.Bitmap bmp = new System.Drawing.Bitmap(panel1.ClientRectangle.Width, panel1.ClientRectangle.Height);
panel1.DrawToBitmap(bmp, panel1.ClientRectangle);
bmp.Save(@"test.jpg");

But it seems that only the picturebox has been captured, the datagridview on it is missing.

How can capture the picturebox together with the datagridview?

Answer 1

The DrawToBitmap method will capture the graphics drawn in the Paint event and all nested controls. If one is missing it isn't nested either directly of indirectly. Here is how this probably happened:

The designer behaviour of Panels and PictureBoxes is different.

Panels, like GroupBoxes, TabPages and a few more are container controls.

This means that any control you drag onto them with your mouse gets nested in them.

PictureBox is not a Container, like, say a Button or a Label..

To nest your DataGridView in the PictureBox you have a choice of

• moving it there with the keyboard (!)
• nesting it in code ( yourDGV.Parent = yourPBox1;)

Do test the success of the keyboard way by moving the PictureBox to see if the DGV moves with it..

Update:

• If you nest the DGV in the PictureBox, which itself is nested in the Panel, all will be well and the result will looks just like what you see.

• However, if you nest both DGV and PictureBox in the Panel and merely let them overlap, a strange bug will appear: Multiple overlapping controls are drawn in reverse, See here for a post and a link about this issue, which is documented

Controls inside containers are rendered in reverse order.

but obviously still a bug.