How to: Arrange MDI Child Forms

Article
02/04/2013

Often, applications will have menu commands for actions such as Tile, Cascade, and Arrange, with regard to the open MDI child forms. You can use the LayoutMdi method with the MdiLayout enumeration to rearrange the child forms in an MDI parent form.

One of the four different MdiLayout enumeration values can be used by the LayoutMdi method. The enumeration values will display child forms as cascading, as horizontally or vertically tiled, or as child form icons arranged along the lower portion of the MDI form.

Often, these methods are used as the event handlers called by a menu item's Click event. In this way, a menu item with the text "Cascade Windows" can have the desired effect on the MDI child windows.

To arrange child forms

In a method, use the LayoutMdi method to set the MdiLayout enumeration for the MDI parent form. The following example uses the Cascade setting of the MdiLayout enumeration for the child windows of the MDI parent form (Form1). The enumeration is used in code during the event handler for the Click event of the Cascade Windows menu item.
```
Protected Sub CascadeWindows_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
   Me.LayoutMdi(System.Windows.Forms.MdiLayout.Cascade)
End Sub
```
```
protected void CascadeWindows_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e){
   this.LayoutMdi(System.Windows.Forms.MdiLayout.Cascade);
}
```
Note

In the same way, functionality for tiling windows and arranging windows as icons may be set by changing the MdiLayout enumeration value passed to the LayoutMdi method.

(Visual C#) Place the following code in the form's constructor to register the event handler.
```
this.button1.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.button1_Click);
```

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How to: Arrange MDI Child Forms

To arrange child forms

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