using winforms (C#) duplicate a row of the form

Question

I am trying to design a winform. The initial design has several rows, each with a label, a number entry box input, and an output text box. I have got the first row working.

Now I want to programmatically duplicate this row, several times. I have put the components into a panel (an container, with no frame). I was then hoping to clone this panel, and its content, set a now location, and label text for each.

I could probably workout how to do it all programmatically. However I want to layout the header and the first row, with the layout tool.

Am I going about this in a good way? What am I missing.

Sound like you want a `UserControl`. It has full designer support and on the form it acts like a single control. — C.Evenhuis, Oct 16 '18 at 20:07
@BrootsWaymb auto-correct is evil (I did not even know, it was switched on). — ctrl-alt-delor, Oct 16 '18 at 20:07
Why not use a DataGridView for this instead of trying to recreate a grid? — LarsTech, Oct 16 '18 at 20:11
I think you can do some study on [datagridview](https://www.google.com/search?q=datagridview+example+c%23&oq=datagridview+example+&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.14193j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) — Md. Suman Kabir, Oct 16 '18 at 20:44
@ctrl-alt-delor there are a lot of resources about UserControls, my explanation isn't going to be as good as those. Take a look at for instance https://www.akadia.com/services/dotnet_user_controls.html — C.Evenhuis, Oct 16 '18 at 20:52

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 17 '18 at 17:47

Yes, you can proceed with this idea by cloning the main control and all of its child controls.

Here is a sample code for that:

namespace CloneAControl
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        private int yValue = 50;

        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void button3_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            Panel ctrl = panel1.Clone();
            //Control ctrl = ControlFactory.CloneCtrl(this.panel1);

            this.Controls.Add(ctrl);
            //ctrl.Text = "created by clone";
            ctrl.SetBounds(ctrl.Bounds.X, ctrl.Bounds.Y + yValue,
                           ctrl.Bounds.Width, ctrl.Bounds.Height);
            yValue = yValue + 50;
            ctrl.BackColor = Color.Red;
            ctrl.Show();
        }
    }

    public static class ControlExtensions
    {
        public static T Clone<T>(this T controlToClone)
            where T : Control
        {
            PropertyInfo[] controlProperties = typeof(T).GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance);

            T instance = Activator.CreateInstance<T>();

            foreach (PropertyInfo propInfo in controlProperties)
            {
                if (propInfo.CanWrite)
                {
                    if (propInfo.Name != "WindowTarget")
                        propInfo.SetValue(instance, propInfo.GetValue(controlToClone, null), null);
                }
            }

            return instance;
        }
    }
}

Mousa Alfhaily · Answer 2 · 2018-10-19T21:18:15.853

0

You have 2 approaches for this :

The naive approach :

Which is to create the panels in the design view and hide them except the first one, and programmatically you can show and hide them as you want.

-Disatvantages :

The number of panels you want to show is going to be fixed (limited).
You are not using the power of OOP at all.

The better approach :

Which is to create an array of the panels (rows) in your case, to store the panels and all of its child controls.

-Disatvantage :

The number of panels you want to show is still going to be fixed (limited).

-To solve this problem :

Look for the terms Data structures, Generics.

List would be good choice in your case.

Hope that was useful.

edited Oct 19 '18 at 21:18

answered Oct 17 '18 at 17:21

Mousa Alfhaily

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An ArrayList? No. [Always prefer a List to an ArrayList.](https://stackoverflow.com/q/4251166/719186) – LarsTech Oct 17 '18 at 17:26
@LarsTech You're right.. Thanks for mentioning that.. Answer update – Mousa Alfhaily Oct 19 '18 at 21:17

using winforms (C#) duplicate a row of the form

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