change color of all controls inside the form in c#

Question

in one button click event i want to change form color and all control color inside the form(textbox,label,gridview,combobox) ,,so i given code like this:

  foreach (Control c in MyForm.Controls) {
    c.BackColor = Colors.Black;
    c.ForeColor = Colors.White;
}

but this is only changing the the label and group box color.
not able to change form and grid view column heading .
group box heading color.
how i can change color all controls inside the form
any help is very appreciable...

You have to do the loop for the controls inside of the control(example groupbox). — kostas ch., Apr 08 '14 at 11:18
[Similar duplicate](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17454389/generic-all-controls-method) — Sayse, Apr 08 '14 at 11:20

User999999 · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-08T11:34:07.293

You have to use a recursive function

www.dotnetperls.com/recursion

something along the lines of:

foreach (Control c in MyForm.Controls) 
{
   UpdateColorControls(c);
}


public void UpdateColorControls(Control myControl)
{
   myControl.BackColor = Colors.Black;
   myControl.ForeColor = Colors.White;
   foreach (Control subC in myControl.Controls) 
   {
       UpdateColorControls(subC);
   } 
}

Please not that not all controls have a property ForeColor and BackColor

Update

if you wan't for instance only the textboxes to change:

public void UpdateColorControls(Control myControl)
{
   if (myControl is TextBox)
   {
       myControl.BackColor = Colors.Black;
       myControl.ForeColor = Colors.White;
   }
   if (myControl is DataGridView)
   {
      DataGridView MyDgv = (DataGridView)myControl;
      MyDgv.ColumnHeadersDefaultCellStyle.BackColor = Colors.Black;
      MyDgv.ColumnHeadersDefaultCellStyle.ForeColor = Colors.White;
   }

   // Any other non-standard controls should be implemented here aswell...

   foreach (Control subC in myControl.Controls) 
   {
       UpdateColorControls(subC);
   } 
}

sir,,but this code is not changing the grid view column header — user3262364, Apr 08 '14 at 11:26
I've added the possible solution for datagridviews. It might still contain a typo though — User999999, Apr 08 '14 at 11:34

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 08 '14 at 11:23

You can check control's type and do different things for specific controls. For example for datagridviews :

if (c.GetType().ToString().IndexOf("DataGridView") != -1)
{
  DataGridView dgv = (DataGridView)c;
  dgv.DefaultCellStyle.ForeColor = Color.Red;
}

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 08 '14 at 11:43

There are different names for the background color property, depending on the control type. For example the labels background is behind a property named "BackColor", and datagrid uses a name "BackgroundColor".

You can use this code as base for your coloring. The DataGridView is handled as an "exception":

// Loop each control
foreach (Control control in this.Controls)
{
   if (control is DataGridView) { ((DataGridView)control).BackgroundColor = Color.Red; }

   // else if (control is ...) { ... }

   // Everything else is colored by using property "BackColor"
   else { control.BackColor = Color.Red; }
}

Add more "else if"s if needed. You need to use casting, as Visual Studio doesn't know what type the control is.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 25 '20 at 07:35

 var Hex_SET5_Red = DimGray;
            var Hex_SET5_Yellow = Black;
            var Hex_SET5_OrangeRed = Silver;
            var Hex_SET5_Maroon = Black;
            //Transfer String to Hex Colour
            var UseAble_Hex5_Red = System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.FromHtml(Hex_SET5_Red);
            var UseAble_Hex5_Yellow = System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.FromHtml(Hex_SET5_Yellow);
            var UseAble_Hex5_OrangeRed = System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.FromHtml(Hex_SET5_OrangeRed);
            var UseAble_Hex5_Maroon = System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.FromHtml(Hex_SET5_Maroon);
            //Filling the Panels with colors
            pnl17.BackColor = UseAble_Hex5_Red;
            pnl18.BackColor = UseAble_Hex5_Yellow;
            pnl19.BackColor = UseAble_Hex5_OrangeRed;
            pnl20.BackColor = UseAble_Hex5_Maroon;

// visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSLzDm1fXQo&ab_channel=NAASSOFT

Hello and welcome to SO! While this code may answer the question, providing additional context regarding how and/or why it solves the problem would improve the answer's long-term value. Please read the [tour](https://stackoverflow.com/tour), and [How do I write a good answer?](https://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-answer) — Tomer Shetah, Dec 25 '20 at 08:36

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 19 '22 at 14:48

For DataGridView : I could not succeed changing DataGridView Column header color until I change this EnableHeadersVisualStyles to false :

if (myControl is DataGridView)
            {
                DataGridView MyDgv = (DataGridView)myControl;
                MyDgv.EnableHeadersVisualStyles = false;
                MyDgv.ColumnHeadersDefaultCellStyle.BackColor = themebackcolor;
                MyDgv.ColumnHeadersDefaultCellStyle.ForeColor = themeforecolor;

change color of all controls inside the form in c#

5 Answers5