How to refer to buttons using strings and add tags

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Hello, i am trying to reference buttons which are named Btn1, Btn2, Btn3.... by converting the names of the button pressed into int and adding a number to get the button i want and then adding one more tag to the already existing tags on that button, help would be much appreciated.

What I have tried:

private void Btn_clicked(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{

    if (sender is Button btn)
    {
             string SelectButton = btn.Name.Remove(0, 3);
             //removes the Btn part and leaves the int

             int BtnNum = Convert.ToInt32(SelectButton);
             var Destination = Convert.ToString(BtnNum + 8);
             Destination.Tag = Destination.tag + "active";
    }

}

Posted 18-Apr-20 4:02am

QuantumNova

Updated 18-Apr-20 6:06am

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OriginalGriff · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-18T04:15:00

Solution 1

Instead of faffing about like that, create a collection in your Form class and have it hold the buttons - an array, or List<Button> would do.

Then all you have to do is find the button in the collection, and you're off.

C#

private List<Button> buttons = new List<Button>();
private void Btn_clicked(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
    if (sender is Button btn)
        {
        int index = buttons.IndexOf(btn);
        Button destination = buttons[(index + 8) % buttons.Count];
        destination.Tag += "active";
        }
    }

And it doesn't depend on the name of the button - so your code can be more readable and maintainable in future as well.

Posted 18-Apr-20 4:15am

OriginalGriff

Comments

QuantumNova 19-Apr-20 2:19am

Hi, this is great thanks. But just out of curiosity, would there be a way to refer to a button directly using its name in string form as i have tried above?

OriginalGriff 19-Apr-20 3:20am

You can, but it's a lot of faffing, and it's horribly easy to break with other changes in your code later.
You could do it - just recursively traverse the Controls array looking for a Control that is a Button that has a specific Name property.
But ... add another button in the middle, or change the name of a button to improve your self documentation, or even obfuscate your code and there is a good risk of it breaking. That's why I'd suggest a collection - it's much clearer what you are trying to do, and more reliable / maintainable.

QuantumNova 19-Apr-20 3:26am

Ok thanks, will use the method you provided then, much apprciated :)

OriginalGriff 19-Apr-20 3:48am

You're welcome!

Maciej Los 19-Apr-20 5:24am

5ed!

BillWoodruff · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-18T06:07:00

Assuming what you really want is to keep track of the current active Button:

C#

private Button ActiveButton = null;

private void Buttons_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    ActiveButton = sender as Button;

    if (ActiveButton is null) throw new NullReferenceException("that's not a Button");

    // calculate the nexf Button ?
}

To go beyond this, I would need to know more about what the buttons do. Can more than one Button be active ? Right now, your code could keep adding "active" to a button tag with each click: that makes no sense.

If a Button loses focus, do you need to track that in code ?

Suggestion: use a Dictionary:

Dictionary<string, Button> BtnNameToButton = new Dictionary<string, Button>();

private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{

    foreach (Button btn in this.Controls.OfType<Button>())
    {
        BtnNameToButton.Add(btn.Name, btn);
    }
}