winforms - Mouse Wheel Event (C#)

Question

I can't get the Mouse Wheel event in the main form.

As a demo I came up with a simple example:

public partial class Form1 : Form
{
    public Form1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        this.panel1.MouseWheel += new MouseEventHandler(panel1_MouseWheel);
        this.panel1.MouseMove += new MouseEventHandler(panel1_MouseWheel);

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

    private void panel1_MouseWheel(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
    {
        if(e.Delta != 0)
        Console.Out.WriteLine(e.Delta);
    }
}

public partial class Form2 : Form
{
    public Form2()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        this.MouseMove += new MouseEventHandler(Form2_MouseMove);
        this.MouseWheel += new MouseEventHandler(Form2_MouseMove);
    }

    private void Form2_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
    {
        if(e.Delta != 0)
            Console.Out.WriteLine(e.Delta);
    }
}

I get the mouse wheel event in Form2 but not Form1 any ideas?

Cheers,

James

Answer 1

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.