Mouse Wheel Event (C#)

Question

I suspect the OP wants to get scroll events when just the mouse is hovering over the panel even though the panel does not have the focus.

A way to accomplish this behaviour is explained here:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/winforms/thread/eb922ed2-1036-41ca-bd15-49daed7b637c/

and here:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/winforms/thread/6bfb9287-986d-4c60-bbcc-23486e239384/

One of the code snippets taken from the linked forum:

using System;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

namespace WindowsApplication1 {
  public partial class Form1 : Form, IMessageFilter {
    public Form1() {
      InitializeComponent();
      Application.AddMessageFilter(this);
    }

    public bool PreFilterMessage(ref Message m) {
      if (m.Msg == 0x20a) {
        // WM_MOUSEWHEEL, find the control at screen position m.LParam
        Point pos = new Point(m.LParam.ToInt32() & 0xffff, m.LParam.ToInt32() >> 16);
        IntPtr hWnd = WindowFromPoint(pos);
        if (hWnd != IntPtr.Zero && hWnd != m.HWnd && Control.FromHandle(hWnd) != null) {
          SendMessage(hWnd, m.Msg, m.WParam, m.LParam);
          return true;
        }
      }
      return false;
    }

    // P/Invoke declarations
    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    private static extern IntPtr WindowFromPoint(Point pt);
    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    private static extern IntPtr SendMessage(IntPtr hWnd, int msg, IntPtr wp, IntPtr lp);
  }
}

This code will basically intercept all wm_mousewheel events and redirect them to the control the mouse is currently hovering over. The panel doesn't need to have the focus anymore to receive the wheel events.

Your problem arises from the fact that form1 has focus, not panel1. ...which ofcourse means that it is form1's events that will be fired, not panel1's events.

I recreated your scenario with the following changes to the constructor in Form1 and verified that it fires the scroll wheel event.

public Form1()
{
        InitializeComponent(); 

        /*  --- Old code that don't work ---
            this.panel1.MouseWheel += new MouseEventHandler(panel1_MouseWheel);
            this.panel1.MouseMove += new MouseEventHandler(panel1_MouseWheel);
        */

        this.MouseWheel += new MouseEventHandler(panel1_MouseWheel);
        this.MouseMove += new MouseEventHandler(panel1_MouseWheel);

        Form2 f2 = new Form2();
        f2.Show(this);
    }
}

Add another event of panel MouseEnter and in its Callback function get the input focus:

void MouseEnterEvent()
{
   this.Panel.Focus();
}

Thanks to @nitrogenycs 's answer, I've wrote a simple generic class to easily address the issue:

using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Drawing;

namespace MyNamespace
{
  public class MouseWheelManagedForm : Form, IMessageFilter
  {
    private bool managed;

    public MouseWheelManagedForm () : this (true) {
   }

    public MouseWheelManagedForm (bool start) {
      managed = false;
      if (start)
        ManagedMouseWheelStart();
    }

    protected override void Dispose (bool disposing) {
      if (disposing)
        ManagedMouseWheelStop();
      base.Dispose(disposing);
    }

    /************************************
     * IMessageFilter implementation
     * *********************************/
    private const int WM_MOUSEWHEEL = 0x20a;
    // P/Invoke declarations
    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    private static extern IntPtr WindowFromPoint (Point pt);
    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    private static extern IntPtr SendMessage (IntPtr hWnd, int msg, IntPtr wp, IntPtr lp);

    private bool IsChild (Control ctrl) {
      Control loopCtrl = ctrl;

      while (loopCtrl != null && loopCtrl != this)
        loopCtrl = loopCtrl.Parent;

      return (loopCtrl == this);
    }

    public bool PreFilterMessage (ref Message m) {
      if (m.Msg == WM_MOUSEWHEEL) {
        //Ensure the message was sent to a child of the current form
        if (IsChild(Control.FromHandle(m.HWnd))) {
          // Find the control at screen position m.LParam
          Point pos = new Point(m.LParam.ToInt32() & 0xffff, m.LParam.ToInt32() >> 16);

          //Ensure control under the mouse is valid and is not the target control
          //otherwise we'd be trap in a loop.
          IntPtr hWnd = WindowFromPoint(pos);
          if (hWnd != IntPtr.Zero && hWnd != m.HWnd && Control.FromHandle(hWnd) != null) {
            SendMessage(hWnd, m.Msg, m.WParam, m.LParam);
            return true;
          }
        }
      }
      return false;
    }

    /****************************************
     * MouseWheelManagedForm specific methods
     * **************************************/
    public void ManagedMouseWheelStart () {
      if (!managed) {
        managed = true;
        Application.AddMessageFilter(this);
      }
    }

    public void ManagedMouseWheelStop () {
      if (managed) {
        managed = false;
        Application.RemoveMessageFilter(this);
      }
    }

  }
}

From there, you only need to inherit your Form from this class instead of Form for every form you need the MouseWheel to be "managed":

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data;
using System.Linq;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace MyApp
{
  public partial class MyForm : MyNamespace.MouseWheelManagedForm
  {
    public MyForm ()
    {
      InitializeComponent();
    }

  }
}

Hope this will help someone else (than me).