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How to find the control that raised an event

I have many custom controls on my main form that utilize an event to signify they have done processing. They all share this same event (~100 controls or so).
The main form consumes this event but I do not have a clue how to find an efficient way at getting to the one that raised the event without having really inefficient code.
My controls are contained within a List<T> called controlList and are hosted on their own project.
My event looks like so:
public void OnTaskComplete(object sender, custom_control_project.TaskCompleteEventArgs e)
{
foreach (var control in controlList)
{
if (control.Visible) // <--- THIS IS WRONG! WHAT COULD THIS BE???
{
try
{
...// LOTS OF PROCESSING!
}
catch
{
...
}
finally
{
...
}
}
}
}
If I want to use less controls, I make them invisible and disabled, hence the control.Visible.
How can I make it so I only do work on the one control that raised the event without having to process so much unneeded iterations?

The sender parameter is the object that raised the event. You can cast this to a control.

Assuming the all of the controls are wired to the same event (which you indicate):
protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
((Button)sender).Visible = true;
// or more generally:
((WebControl)sender).Visible = true;
}
You will need to cast the sender to a common, base type. If you go with a base type, WebControl will allow you to access the Enabled property while Control will not.

How to force a certain Event sequence

I wrote a small control that creates a popup for my Win8 Phone application which does all the nasty things for me like rotation, proper placement etc.
The popup is opened in a Popup control but not on a new phone page.
To close the popup, my control hooks up to the "backKeyPressed" event of the underlying page.
This works like charm until the underlying page has its own implementation of BackKeyPressed event. In this case, the page event is triggered but not the popup control event.
If I would own the event, I could create my own stack to call the last added event first, but I do not own the event of the pages.
As far as I know, I am unable to unregister any previously attached event handler and reassign it once my control unsubscribes from the event.
I could have only one implementation for the BackKeyPressed event which then informs the popup control to close itself (if open), if nothing was open, do the Page specific implementation. But this would require code changes on all pages where I might want to use the popup. Even worse, if I have 5 possible popups, I would have to check all of them :-(
So I am looking for an option to handle this centrally.
What other options do I have to overcome this situation?

Normally you cannot change the order of fired events - they are executed in registered order, but it's not required by specifications - source.
But as Jon Skeet says here:
Summary: For all sane events, you can rely on the ordering. In theory, events can do what they like, but I've never seen an event which doesn't maintain the appropriate ordering.
it is fired in registered order and should be.
BUT for your purpose (I think) you can set an event to invoke your method where you would control the order. I think simple example can show this behaviour:
public partial class MainPage : PhoneApplicationPage
{
private List<EventHandler<CancelEventArgs>> listOfHandlers = new List<EventHandler<CancelEventArgs>>();
private void InvokingMethod(object sender, CancelEventArgs e)
{
for (int i = 0; i < listOfHandlers.Count; i++)
listOfHandlers[i](sender, e);
}
public event EventHandler<CancelEventArgs> myBackKeyEvent
{
add { listOfHandlers.Add(value); }
remove { listOfHandlers.Remove(value); }
}
public void AddToTop(EventHandler<CancelEventArgs> eventToAdd)
{
listOfHandlers.Insert(0, eventToAdd);
}
public MainPage()
{
InitializeComponent();
this.BackKeyPress += InvokingMethod;
myBackKeyEvent += (s, e) => { MessageBox.Show("Added first"); e.Cancel = true; };
AddToTop((s, e) => { MessageBox.Show("Added later"); });
}
}

Adding events to Form designer file

I created a new Event in my user control (SearchControl) like this:
//Event which is triggered on double click or Enter
public event EditRecordEventHandler EditRecord;
public delegate void EditRecordEventHandler(object sender, EventArgs e);
//Supressing the events
private bool _raiseEvents = true;
private void OnEditRecord(System.EventArgs e)
{
if (_raiseEvents)
{
if (this.SearchResultGridView.FocusedRowHandle > -1)
{
if (EditRecord != null)
{
EditRecord(this, e);
}
}
}
}
Now this Event is called when user double click a row in a grid. So from the properties window I selected the MouseDoubleClick Event of the grid view and called the above created EditRecord event.
private void SearchResultListGridControl_MouseDoubleClick(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
// Check whether the user clicked on a real and not a header row or group row
DevExpress.XtraGrid.Views.Grid.ViewInfo.GridHitInfo info = SearchResultGridView.CalcHitInfo(e.Location);
if (info.InRow && !SearchResultGridView.IsGroupRow(info.RowHandle))
{
OnEditRecord(e);
}
}
Now the issue I am facing is every time I double click a row in grid view it calls the SearchResultListGridControl_MouseDoubleClick() which then calls OnEditRecord(), however the value of EditRecord is everytime null.
To solve this I checked the designer file of the Main Control which has SearchControl and could not find the EditRecord Event entry in this. So I manually created it like this:
this.MySearchControl.EditRecord += new performis.BA.Merkmalsleisten.Search.SearchControl.EditRecordEventHandle(this.MySearchControl_EditRecord);
Now the things are working fine, but my question is why it did not create it automatically at the first place? And as far I know it is not recommendable to add anything manually to the designer file..is there any other way I can do it?
Thanks

When you create event it has to be used in the form designer similar to how you are using MouseDoubleClick for the Grid (so you need to find event in the Misc category, because you didn't define CategoryAttribute, double clicked there, etc).
If I understand it right you want to subscribe to event automatically, when form is created. You can do this in the control constructor (find parent form control.Parent or control.FindForm()) or perhaps in the special method, which you have to call from the form constructor, which in turn is basically similar to wiring event manually (which you did in the designer created file, but, instead, you can do in the form file, which is totally ok to edit) Up to you.

Sure.
A better practice would be to add your binding line:
this.MySearchControl.EditRecord += new performis.BA.Merkmalsleisten.Search.SearchControl.EditRecordEventHandle(this.MySearchControl_EditRecord);
To the form's constructor. something like:
public MyForm()
{
this.MySearchControl.EditRecord += new performis.BA.Merkmalsleisten.Search.SearchControl.EditRecordEventHandle(this.MySearchControl_EditRecord);
//The rest of your constructor.
}

Is there a "All Children loaded" event in WPF

I am listening for the loaded event of a Page. That event fires first and then all the children fire their load event. I need an event that fires when ALL the children have loaded. Does that exist?

I hear you. I also am missing an out of the box solution in WPF for this.
Sometimes you want some code to be executed after all the child controls are loaded.
Put this in the constructor of the parent control
Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(DispatcherPriority.Loaded, new Action(() => {code that should be executed after all children are loaded} ));
Helped me a few times till now.

Loaded is the event that fires after all children have been Initialized. There is no AfterLoad event as far as I know. If you can, move the children's logic to the Initialized event, and then Loaded will occur after they have all been initialized.
See MSDN - Object Lifetime Events.

You can also use the event: ContentRendered.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms748948.aspx#Window_Lifetime_Events

WPF cant provide that kind of an event since most of the time Data is determining whther to load a particular child to the VisualTree or not (for example UI elements inside a DataTemplate)
So if you can explain your scenario little more clearly we can find a solution specific to that.

One of the options (when content rendered):
this.LayoutUpdated += OnLayoutUpdated;
private void OnLayoutUpdated(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (!isInitialized && this.ActualWidth != 0 && this.ActualHeight != 0)
{
isInitialized = true;
// Logic here
}
};

Put inside your xaml component you want to wait for, a load event Loaded="MyControl_Loaded" like
<Grid Name="Main" Loaded="Grid_Loaded"...>
<TabControl Loaded="TabControl_Loaded"...>
<MyControl Loaded="MyControl_Loaded"...>
...
and in your code
bool isLoaded;
private void MyControl_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
isLoaded = true;
}
Then, inside the Event triggers that have to do something but were triggering before having all components properly loaded, put if(!isLoaded) return; like
private void OnButtonChanged(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
if(!isLoaded) return;
... // code that must execute on trigger BUT after load
}

I ended up doing something along these lines.. your milage may vary.
void WaitForTheKids(Action OnLoaded)
{
// After your children have been added just wait for the Loaded
// event to fire for all of them, then call the OnLoaded delegate
foreach (ContentControl child in Canvas.Children)
{
child.Tag = OnLoaded; // Called after children have loaded
child.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(child_Loaded);
}
}
internal void child_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
var cc = sender as ContentControl;
cc.Loaded -= new RoutedEventHandler(child_Loaded);
foreach (ContentControl ctl in Canvas.Children)
{
if (!ctl.IsLoaded)
{
return;
}
}
((Action)cc.Tag)();
}

How can I create buttons and hook up events from postback

I need to generate buttons initially based on quite a processor and disk intensive search. Each button will represent a selection and trigger a postback. My issue is that the postback does not trigger the command b_Command. I guess because the original buttons have not been re-created. I cannot affort to execute the original search in the postback to re-create the buttons so I would like to generate the required button from the postback info.
How and where shoud I be doing this? Should I be doing it before Page_Load for example? How can I re-construct the CommandEventHandler from the postback - if at all?
namespace CloudNavigation
{
public partial class Test : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (IsPostBack)
{
// how can I re-generate the button and hook up the event here
// without executing heavy search 1
}
else
{
// Execute heavy search 1 to generate buttons
Button b = new Button();
b.Text = "Selection 1";
b.Command += new CommandEventHandler(b_Command);
Panel1.Controls.Add(b);
}
}
void b_Command(object sender, CommandEventArgs e)
{
// Execute heavy search 2 to generate new buttons
Button b2 = new Button();
b2.Text = "Selection 2";
b2.Command += new CommandEventHandler(b_Command);
Panel1.Controls.Add(b2);
}
}
}

The b_Command Event Handler method is not being executed because on post back buttons are not being recreated (since they are dynamically generated). You need to re-create them every time your page gets recreated but in order to do this you need to explicitly cache information somewhere in state.
If this a page-scoped operation easiest way is to store it in the ViewState (as strings - if you start loading the ViewState with objects you'll see performance go down) so that you can check it on next load (or any other previous event) and re-create buttons when reloading the page.
If the operation is session-scoped, you can easily store an object (array or whatever) in session and retrieve it on next Load (or Init) to re-create your controls.
This scenario means that you need just to store some info about your button in your b_Command EventHandler instead of creating and adding buttons since if you do so you'll lose relative information in the next postback (as it is happening now).
so your code would become something like:
namespace CloudNavigation
{
public partial class Test : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (IsPostBack)
{
this.recreateButtons();
}
else
{
// Execute heavy search 1 to generate buttons
Button b = new Button();
b.Text = "Selection 1";
b.Command += new CommandEventHandler(b_Command);
Panel1.Controls.Add(b);
//store this stuff in ViewState for the very first time
}
}
void b_Command(object sender, CommandEventArgs e)
{
//Execute heavy search 2 to generate new buttons
//TODO: store data into ViewState or Session
//and maybe create some new buttons
}
void recreateButtons()
{
//retrieve data from ViewState or Session and create all the buttons
//wiring them up to eventHandler
}
}
}
If you don't want to call recreateButtons on page load you can do it on PreLoad or on Init events, I don't see a difference since you'll be able to access ViewState/Session variables everywhere (on Init viewstate is not applied but you can access it to re-create your dynamic buttons).
Someone will hate this solution but as far as I know the only way to retain state data server-side is ViewState - Session - Page.Transfer or client-side cookies.

The buttons need to be created before the load event, or state won't be wired up correctly. Re-create your buttons in Init() instead.
As for how to do this without re-running the search, I suggest you cache the results somewhere. The existence of a result set in the cache is how your button code in the Init() event will know it needs to run.
Alternatively, you could place the buttons on the page statically. Just put enough there to handle whatever the search returns. If you're thinking that maybe that would be way too many items, then ask your self this: will your users really want to sort through that many items? Maybe you should consider paging this data, in which case static buttons aren't as big a deal any more.

What happens when the postback event handling tries to find the control it dosen't exists on the collection.
Checkout Denis DynamicControlsPlaceholder # http://www.denisbauer.com/ASPNETControls/DynamicControlsPlaceholder.aspx
Hope it helps
Bruno Figueiredo
http://www.brunofigueiredo.com

Does your ASPX have the event handler wired up?
<asp:Button id="btnCommand" runat="server" onClick="b_Command" text="Submit" />

I agree with Joel about caching the search results. As for the buttons you can create them dynamically at the init or load phases of the page lifecycle but be aware that if you remove a button and then add it back programmatically you will mess up your state.
In one of my projects we have a dynamic form that generates field son the fly and the way we make it work is through an array that is stored in the cache or in the viewstate for the page. The array contains the buttons to display and on each page load it re-creates the buttons so that state can be loaded properly into them. Then if I need more buttons or a whole new set I flag the hide value in the array and add a new set of values in the array for the new set of corresponding buttons. This way state is not lost and the buttons continue to work.
You also need to ensure that you add a handler for the on_click event for your buttons if you create them programmatically which I think I see in your code up at the top.

Here is a sample with custom viewstate handling (note that buttons have EnableViewState = false):
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (!IsPostBack)
{
// Execute heavy search 1 to generate buttons
ButtonTexts = new ButtonState[] {
new ButtonState() { ID = "Btn1", Text = "Selection 1" }
};
}
AddButtons();
}
void b_Command(object sender, CommandEventArgs e)
{
TextBox1.Text = ((Button)sender).Text;
// Execute heavy search 2 to generate new buttons
ButtonTexts = new ButtonState[] {
new ButtonState() { ID = "Btn1", Text = "Selection 1" },
new ButtonState() { ID = "Btn2", Text = "Selection 2" }
};
AddButtons();
}
private void AddButtons()
{
Panel1.Controls.Clear();
foreach (ButtonState buttonState in this.ButtonTexts)
{
Button b = new Button();
b.EnableViewState = false;
b.ID = buttonState.ID;
b.Text = buttonState.Text;
b.Command += new CommandEventHandler(b_Command);
Panel1.Controls.Add(b);
}
}
private ButtonState[] ButtonTexts
{
get
{
ButtonState[] list = ViewState["ButtonTexts"] as ButtonState[];
if (list == null)
ButtonTexts = new ButtonState[0];
return list;
}
set { ViewState["ButtonTexts"] = value; }
}
[Serializable]
class ButtonState
{
public string ID { get; set; }
public string Text { get; set; }
}