Custom Context Menu

Question

I'd like to create a custom context menu. The idea is to create a panel with a textBox a button and a list of labels and be able to show it on right click and make it behave exactly like a contextMenu. I can probably use a form without borders but I was thinking there might be a class I can derive from that would help me handle the positionnig of the context menu and the shading. Any ideas? Thank you

Edit: An example to clear a few ideas: Say you have a label on your form, when you right click on it (or even left click) a menu appears. This menu is NOT the classic context menu but rather a custom panel with controls that I created personnaly. An example is search box ont top with a list of items. As you enter letters the list is trimmed to the matching items and when an item is clicked the context menu disappears and the value selected is wrtitten in the label we first clicked on.

Answer 1

You can use the method described here:

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/22780/Super-Context-Menu-Strip

Since it uses ContextMenuStrip you can set its position:

contextMenuStrip1.Show(Cursor.Position);

and shadow effect:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.controls.contextmenu.hasdropshadow.aspx

Answer 2

The simplest way (since this doesn't appear to be an actual menu) would be to create a borderless form and add shadow to it:

public class ShadowForm : Form
{
    // Define the CS_DROPSHADOW constant
    private const int CS_DROPSHADOW = 0x00020000;

    // Override the CreateParams property
    protected override CreateParams CreateParams
    {
        get
        {
            CreateParams cp = base.CreateParams;
            cp.ClassStyle |= CS_DROPSHADOW;
            return cp;
        }
    }
}

Regarding position, there is not much to it. Just check Cursor.Position or set coordinates using the arguments in your MouseUp event handler.

Complete code would look something like:

public partial class ParentForm : Form
{
    public ParentForm()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    protected override OnMouseUp(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
    {
        if (e.Button == MouseButtons.Right)
        {
            var menu = new CustomMenu();
            menu.Location = PointToScreen(e.Location);
            menu.Show(this);                
        }
    }
}

and for the "menu" form:

public partial class CustomMenu : Form
{
    public CustomMenu()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        this.StartPosition = FormStartPosition.Manual;
    }

    private const int CS_DROPSHADOW = 0x00020000;
    protected override CreateParams CreateParams
    {
        get
        {
            CreateParams cp = base.CreateParams;
            cp.ClassStyle |= CS_DROPSHADOW;
            return cp;
        }
    }

    protected override void OnLostFocus(EventArgs e)
    {
        this.Close();
        base.OnLostFocus(e);
    }
}