How to get User Control from a PictureBox

Question

I have a PictureBox on my user control and I have added lots of this User Control on my form. Thing is whenever a user clicks on PictureBox he should get that User Control item to which this PictureBox belongs.

So, on my User Control I have added this code

  public usercontrol1()
   {
      InitializeComponent();
      pictureBox1.Parent = this;
   }

Then on my Form

  private void form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
   {
       var c = new usercontrol1();
       c.pictureBox1.Click += item_click;
       c = new usercontrol1();
       c.pictureBox1.Click += item_click;
   }

   private void item_click(object sender, EventArgs e)
   {
       usercontrol1 abc = pictureBox1.Parent; // Giving Error
   }

I tried this approach to set user control as parent control of picturebox and tried to retrieve it from picturebox click event on form. But resulting in failure. How do I get the usercontrol1 object from PictureBox click event?

If the PictureBox is in the UserControl, then its parent is already the UserControl. Your code created new UserControls, but didn't add them to the form. I suspect you want to do something like this: [How do I make an Event in the Usercontrol and have it handled in the Main Form?](https://stackoverflow.com/q/7880850/719186) — LarsTech, Apr 13 '18 at 15:09
the last two lines in Load are redundant. b) the uc c is never added to a controls collection. c) in the item_click you should cast the sender to picturebox (or control); then you can access its Parent. — TaW, Apr 13 '18 at 15:31

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 13 '18 at 15:31

I'm sure the error message (you forgot to tell us) pretty clearly tells you what is wrong: pictureBox1.Parent is of type Control and therefor cannot be assigned directly to variable of type usercontrol1.

You have to cast it to usercontrol1:

usercontrol1 abc = (usercontrol1)pictureBox1.Parent;

Note that this will throw an InvalidCastException if for any reason Parent is some other Control than a usercontrol1. So you better use the as operator:

private void item_click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    usercontrol1 abc = pictureBox1.Parent as usercontrol1;
    if (abc == null) return; // as returns null if the cast fails

    // do something with abc
}

or use the enhanced (pattern matching) is operator in C#7:

private void item_click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (!pictureBox1.Parent is usercontrol1 abc) return;

    // do something with abc
}

How to get User Control from a PictureBox

1 Answers1