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How to Clone/Serialize/Copy & Paste a Windows Forms Control

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6 Feb 2006CPOL2 min read 247.5K   8.6K   71   29
Clone/Serialize/Copy & Paste a Windows Forms control through serializing its properties.

Sample screenshot

Introduction

In the .NET environment, the System.Windows.Forms.Control class and all the concrete controls derived from it don’t have clone methods and they are not serializable. So there is no immediate way to clone, serialize, or copy & paste them.

This article presents an all-purpose approach to let you clone, serialize, or copy & paste a Windows Forms control through serializing its properties.

Background

Recently, I was doing some UI programming with C#. One problem I met is that I can not clone or copy & paste a Windows Forms control directly because the System.Windows.Forms.Control class is neither serializable nor does it have a Clone method. After searching the internet and reading James and Nish’s articles, Clipboard Handling with .NET (Part I, Part II), I came up with my own approach to copy & paste a Windows Forms control by serializing its properties.

Using the code

Using the code in the sample application to clone/serialize/copy & paste a Windows Forms control is very simple. The static methods to do serialization and deserialization are wrapped in the ControlFactory class.

Copy & Paste a control

C#
...
//copy a control to clipboard

ControlFactory.CopyCtrl2ClipBoard(this.comboBox1);
...

//then get it from clipboard and add it to its parent form

Control ctrl = ControlFactory.GetCtrlFromClipBoard();

this.Controls.Add(ctrl);
ctrl.Text = "created by copy&paste";
ctrl.SetBounds(ctrl.Bounds.X,ctrl.Bounds.Y+100, 
               ctrl.Bounds.Width,ctrl.Bounds.Height);
ctrl.Show();

Clone a control

C#
...
//clone a control directly and then add it to its parent form

Control ctrl = ControlFactory.CloneCtrl(this.comboBox1);

this.Controls.Add(ctrl);
ctrl.Text = "created by clone";
ctrl.SetBounds(ctrl.Bounds.X,ctrl.Bounds.Y+350, 
               ctrl.Bounds.Width,ctrl.Bounds.Height);
ctrl.Show();

Implementation Details

When you clone/paste a control, the ControlFactory creates a new control through reflection, with the class name and namespace (partialName) passed to it.

C#
//
...
Assembly controlAsm = Assembly.LoadWithPartialName(partialName);
Type controlType = controlAsm.GetType(partialName + "." + ctrlName);
ctrl = (Control)Activator.CreateInstance(controlType);
...
return ctrl;

If the new control is successfully created, ControlFactory then sets the properties of the new control with the property values it had retrieved from the original control.

C#
public static void SetControlProperties(Control ctrl,Hashtable propertyList)
{
       PropertyDescriptorCollection properties = TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(ctrl);

       foreach (PropertyDescriptor myProperty in properties)
       {
              if(propertyList.Contains(myProperty.Name))
              {
                    Object obj = propertyList[myProperty.Name];
                    myProperty.SetValue(ctrl,obj);
              }
              //...
       }
}

In .NET clipboard programming, to create a custom format that uses a class, you must make the class serializable, that is it needs to have the Serializable attribute applied to it. CBFormCtrl is such a custom data format, it also uses a hash table to store the serializable properties.

C#
//
[Serializable()]
public class CBFormCtrl//clipboard form control
{
       private static DataFormats.Format format;
       private string ctrlName;
       private string partialName;
       private Hashtable propertyList = new Hashtable();
       //
       ...
}

Points of Interest

I’ve tested this approach with almost all the Windows Forms controls, it works fine with most of them. Unfortunately, when I copy & paste a ListView/ListBox/CheckedListBox or a TreeView, their item data will be lost, that is because the “Items” property of a ListView/ListBox/CheckedListBox and the “Node” property of a TreeView are not serializable.

To completely copy & paste these controls with their item data, you need to do some extra handling of the “Items” property or the “Node” property. As a reference, you can look at Tom John’s article to see how to fully serialize a TreeView control.

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)


Written By
Technical Lead
China China
liuxiaoweide # gmail.com

Comments and Discussions

 
QuestionHow to Copy and paste multiple controls at a time ? Pin
SachinSutar31-Aug-17 22:57
SachinSutar31-Aug-17 22:57 
QuestionThanks Pin
violinist_tr31-Dec-14 4:53
violinist_tr31-Dec-14 4:53 
QuestionProps to Developer Pin
Member 1067105618-May-14 11:44
Member 1067105618-May-14 11:44 
QuestionMissing executable Pin
Megabyte2618-Sep-13 12:22
Megabyte2618-Sep-13 12:22 
QuestionHow ican clone a system Window? Pin
mesiasrojo12-Aug-11 0:42
mesiasrojo12-Aug-11 0:42 
QuestionActuall serialization is not working! Pin
Fadik15-Jul-09 3:07
Fadik15-Jul-09 3:07 
QuestionHow I can save/read controls to file? Pin
drinkmaker21-Feb-09 11:43
drinkmaker21-Feb-09 11:43 
QuestionHow about the TabControl Pin
Sean_Miller19-Feb-09 9:39
Sean_Miller19-Feb-09 9:39 
AnswerRe: How about the TabControl [modified] Pin
pataguillon21-Jul-09 2:48
pataguillon21-Jul-09 2:48 
GeneralRe: How about the TabControl [modified] Pin
Manavril14-Apr-14 22:50
Manavril14-Apr-14 22:50 
GeneralThank you very much it helped me a lot Pin
SanShark6-Feb-09 0:20
SanShark6-Feb-09 0:20 
GeneralThank you Pin
hlmc29-Apr-08 20:24
hlmc29-Apr-08 20:24 
QuestionCopying data Pin
Ajmeri28-Feb-08 8:26
Ajmeri28-Feb-08 8:26 
GeneralJust Great Pin
shapez22-Oct-07 2:58
shapez22-Oct-07 2:58 
GeneralAssembly.LoadWithPartialName(string)' is obsolete Pin
Lutosław26-Aug-07 8:03
Lutosław26-Aug-07 8:03 
GeneralRe: Assembly.LoadWithPartialName(string)' is obsolete Pin
Member 1067105622-May-14 15:45
Member 1067105622-May-14 15:45 
GeneralSerializing Widows.Forms in C# Pin
SakthiSurya29-Apr-07 20:24
SakthiSurya29-Apr-07 20:24 
GeneralA Suggestion Pin
fonk6665-Feb-07 10:27
fonk6665-Feb-07 10:27 
QuestionAbout Events ? Pin
whithix19-Sep-06 1:02
whithix19-Sep-06 1:02 
AnswerRe: About Events ? Pin
lxwde19-Sep-06 20:23
lxwde19-Sep-06 20:23 
QuestionUsing this code with personalized controls. Pin
DoXiGen29-Aug-06 5:10
DoXiGen29-Aug-06 5:10 
AnswerRe: Using this code with personalized controls. Pin
lxwde29-Aug-06 16:05
lxwde29-Aug-06 16:05 
AnswerRe: Using this code with personalized controls. Pin
Hotcut16-Oct-06 23:48
Hotcut16-Oct-06 23:48 
GeneralSerialization thoughts ... Pin
BillWoodruff13-Feb-06 17:46
professionalBillWoodruff13-Feb-06 17:46 
GeneralRe: Serialization thoughts ... Pin
lxwde14-Feb-06 2:24
lxwde14-Feb-06 2:24 
Smile | :) Hi Bill,
I am also wondering how the VS.net IDE copy&paste a control at design time. What I can tell is that it copies/serializes not only the control properties, but also the non-property members. It is more like a memberwise clone. But I can not figure out how to accomplish that without relying on System.Windows.Forms.DesignD'Oh! | :doh:

Maybe you can find some hint from SharpDevelop.

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