What's the difference between Control.Select() and Control.Focus()?

.net winforms user-interface behavior
Neil Barnwell picture Neil Barnwell · Apr 29, 2009 · Viewed 20.5k times · Source

In WinForms, to set focus to a specific control, I always seem to wind up calling Control.Select() and Control.Focus() to get it to work.

What is the difference, and is this the correct approach?

Answer

Jonas picture Jonas · Aug 5, 2009

Focus() is the low level function that actually sets the focus.

Select() is a higer-level method. It first looks iteratively upward in the control's parent hierarchy until it finds a container control. Then it sets that container's ActiveControl property (to the called control). The logic in those methods is not straightforward however, and there is special handling for UserControl containers.

Related questions

How do I update the GUI from another thread?

Which is the simplest way to update a Label from another Thread? I have a Form running on thread1, and from that I'm starting another thread (thread2). While thread2 is processing some files I would like to update a Label …

Read More
Adding new line of data to TextBox

I'm doing a chat client, and currently I have a button that will display data to a multi-line textbox when clicked. Is this the only way to add data to the multi-line textbox? I feel this is extremely inefficient, because …

Read More
Making a WinForms TextBox behave like your browser's address bar

When a C# WinForms textbox receives focus, I want it to behave like your browser's address bar. To see what I mean, click in your web browser's address bar. You'll notice the following behavior: Clicking in the textbox should select …

Read More