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How do I clear a user control from a winform?

This is probably a basic question, but I can't find answers because the terms are generic.
I am building a WinForm aplication. Its purpose is to set up memory in a certain chip. I think the best way to organize the application is to have a user control for each chip type, derived from a generic parent class. Think of the children as "iphone," "android" and "blackberry," derived from a parent class "phone".
VS2017 Designer has a Panel where I want the control to be. On startup, I generate an object of the base class and add it to the panel. When I press a button, the old object is deleted and replaced with a new one. Each class has just one control, a label with distinctive text.
The problem is, after I press the button, I see both texts. The panel's Controls collection has just one element, but I see the text from both objects. I have tried Refresh, Update and Invalidate withe the same results.
What do I have to do to make the old text "go away" so the only thing I see is the latest object?
private ChipMemBase ChipMemControl = new ChipMemBase();
public Form1()
{
InitializeComponent();
//tbFeedback.Text = string.Format(fmtString, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5);
cbChipName.SelectedIndex = 0;
tbVersion.Text = Version;
OriginalWindowColor = tbFeedback.BackColor;
ShowChipMemControl();
PrintToFeedback(Version);
}
private void ShowChipMemControl()
{
var ctl = pnlChipMem.GetChildAtPoint(new Point(5,5));
if (null != ctl)
{
if (ctl != ChipMemControl)
{
pnlChipMem.Controls.Remove(ctl);
ctl.Dispose();
pnlChipMem.Update();
Refresh();
}
}
if (null != ChipMemControl)
{
pnlChipMem.Controls.Add(ChipMemControl);
}
}
private void btnMakeChipMemory_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
ChipMemControl = new ChipMemGen2();
ShowChipMemControl();
}
Screenshots before and after clicking Create

Your ShowChipMemControl gets the control at point 5,5 and checks if it's a ChipMemControl then removes it.
I'm guessing that the reason it's not getting removed is that the control at point 5,5 is not a ChipMemControl.
You can use:
pnlChipMem.Controls.Clear()
to remove all the controls
Or:
ChipMemControl cmc = pnlChipMem.Controls.OfType<ChipMemBase>().FirstOrDefault();
if (cmc != null)
{
pnlChipMem.Controls.Remove(cmc);
cmc.Dispose();
}
To only remove the first instance of ChipMemBase on your pnlChipMem panel.

Got it. The problem was from inheritance, not window behavior. Control lblDefault in the base class, carrying the inconvenient text, was still present in the child class. I had to make it Public in the base class and remove it in the child class constructor:
InitializeComponent();
Controls.Remove(lblDefault);
lblDefault.Dispose();
lblDefault = null;
The clue was this article and project:
dynamically-and-remove-a-user-control

Can I give controls an index property in C# like in VB?

I've found similar answers to my question before, but not quite to what I'm trying to do...
In Visual Basic (last I used it, in 06/07) there was an "Index" property you could assign to multiple controls with the same name. I used this primarily to loop through controls, i.e.:
For i = 1 to 500
picSeat(i).Print "Hello"
Next i
Is there a way to do this in C#? I know there is a .IndexOf(), but would that really help for what I'm doing? I want to have multiple controls with the same name, just different index.
This is a Windows Form Application, and I'm using Visual Studio 2012. I am talking about controls, not arrays/lists; this was possible in VB and I was wondering if it was possible at all in C#. So I want to have, say, 30 seats in a theatre. I want to have each seat represented by a picturebox named "picSeat". VB would let me name several objects the exact same, and would assign a value to a control property "Index". That way, I could use the above loop to print "Hello" in every picture box with only 3 lines of code.

No, this feature does not exist in C#, and was never implemented in the transition from classic VB to VB.Net.
What I normally do instead is put each of the controls in question in a common parent container. The Form itself can work, but if you need to distinguish these from others of the same type a GroupBox or Panel control will work, too. Then, you access the controls like this:
foreach (var picBox in parentControl.Controls.OfType<PictureBox>())
{
// do something with each picturebox
}
If you want to use a specific control, just write by name:
pictureBox6.SomeProperty = someValue;
If you need to change a specific control determined at run-time, normally this is in response to a user event:
void PictureBox_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
var picBox = sender As PictureBox;
if (picBox == null) return;
//picBox is now whichever box was clicked
// (assuming you set all your pictureboxes to use this handler)
}
If you really really want the Control Arrays feature, you can do it by adding code to create the array to your form's Load event:
PictureBox[] pictureBoxes = Me.Controls.OfType<PictureBox>().ToArray();

Are we talking WinForms here? I'm not sure, but I don't think you can have multiple controls in winforms with same name. But I vaguely recall doing something similar and the solution was to name them Button_1, Button_2 etc. Then you can iterate through all controls and get your own index.
Beware though that if you want to instanciate a separate control for each seat in a theatre, you might run into some serious performance issues :) I've done something similar to that as well and ended up drawing the whole thing on a canvas and using mouse coordinates to handle the events correctly.

You may want to check out the Uid property of controls.
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.uielement.uid(v=vs.110).aspx)
You can access Control through Uid property with the following
private static UIElement FindUid(this DependencyObject parent, string uid)
{
var count = VisualTreeHelper.GetChildrenCount(parent);
if (count == 0) return null;
for (int i = 0; i < count; i++)
{
var el = VisualTreeHelper.GetChild(parent, i) as UIElement;
if (el == null) continue;
if (el.Uid == uid) return el;
el = el.FindUid(uid);
if (el != null) return el;
}
return null;
}
And simply use
var control = FindUid("someUid");
I copied code from this post

If you create an indexed dictionary of your user control, it will behave pretty much the same as in VB6, though you'll not see it on the VS C# GUI. You'll have to get around the placement issues manually. Still - and most importantly -, you'll be able to refer to any instance by the index.
The following example is for 3 pieces for clarity, but of course you could automate every step of the process with appropriate loops.
public partial class Form1 : Form
{
...
Dictionary<int, UserControl1> NameOfUserControlInstance = new Dictionary<int, UserControl1>()
{
{ 1, new UserControl1 {}},
{ 2, new UserControl1 {}},
{ 3, new UserControl1 {}}
};
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
NameOfUserControlInstance[1].Location = new System.Drawing.Point(0, 0);
NameOfUserControlInstance[2].Location = new System.Drawing.Point(200, 0);
NameOfUserControlInstance[3].Location = new System.Drawing.Point(400, 0);
Controls.Add(NameOfUserControlInstance[1]);
Controls.Add(NameOfUserControlInstance[2]);
Controls.Add(NameOfUserControlInstance[3]);
}
...
}

I like using Tags to apply any type of meta data about the controls
for (int i = 0; i< 10; ++i)
{
Button button = new Button();
button.Tag = i;
}

Change border or background color on control being validated?

I'm adding validation to an existing asp.net web app built with web form. The input textbox controls I need to validate are created dynamically on the server side.
While creating the textboxes, I can also create RangeValidator controls and set its ControlToValidate to the ID of the textbox.
When validation fails, RangeValidator displays an error message at where the validation control is placed.
But I rather change the border or background-color to red of the textbox instead. How can that be done?

You can add custom logic to your validators both sever side and client side. check this link for help. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/f5db6z8k%28v=vs.90%29.aspx

I'm not sure if you want help validating or changing the color (or both), but I just tried this little two-button app and it seems to work. Granted, I'm not using any dynamic control names and banking that "testText" is the first and only "testText" control on the page. You might also want to add some validation to ensure the control exists.
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
TextBox tb = new TextBox();
tb.Name = "testText";
this.Controls.Add(tb);
}
private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
TextBox tb = (TextBox)this.Controls.Find("testText",true)[0];
tb.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.Red;
}

As Irfan said, you can use a custom validator and implement on the server validate event the logic. However, a more direct aproach would be to check if the page is valid and the check if the rangevalidator is not valid. Keep in mind to set the displaymode to none if you don't want the validator to render any message.
if(!Page.IsValid && !myRangeValidator.IsValid)
{
// simplified, you will need to search for the control in the whole hierarchy
var ctrlToValidate = Page.FindControl(myRangeValidator.ControlToValidate) as WebControl;
if(ctrlToValidate != null)
{
ctrlToValidate.BorderColor = Color.Red;
}
}
this being said, I prefer the custom validator approach. The good thing is you can almost reuse all the code above. Just remove the first if, add the range validation, set the args.IsValid = false and then use the rest of the code.

Loop over all validators and add specific CSS class to controls. I use master page, so need to find controls in content placeholder.
const string ErrorCssClass = "error";
Validate();
if (IsPostBack && !IsValid)
{
var content = Form.FindControl("MainContent") as ContentPlaceHolder;
foreach (BaseValidator validator in Validators)
{
if (validator.IsValid)
continue;
var controlToValidate = content.FindControl(validator.ControlToValidate) as WebControl;
if (controlToValidate != null && !controlToValidate.CssClass.Contains(ErrorCssClass))
controlToValidate.CssClass += " " + ErrorCssClass;
}
}

TabControl AddingTab event

I have a TabControl in which I want to prevent adding existing TabPage (they are identified by a name) and instead set the SelectedTabPage to this precise tab.
I wish to know if there are an event that triggers right before a page is being added to the TabControl. If not, would using the event CollectionChanged of the TabPages (list) be a correct alternative ?

I believe the event you're looking for is the Control.ControlAdded event:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.control.controladded.aspx
If that also detects when things inside the tab pages themselves are added, you should be able to filter out everything but TabPage controls using the ControlEventArgs.Control property in your event handler.
To reject adding a control will be a little more complicated. Since this event seems to only be raised after the control gets added, you'll need to do something like this:
void onControlAdded(object sender, ControlEventArgs e) {
var tab = e as TabPage;
if (tab == null)
return;
this.myTabControlObject.TabPages.Remove(tab);
}
This should remove the tab, but it will likely slow the tab adding process considerably.

Try something like this, I am checking the TabControl page Collection for a page with the same name as the Page that is trying to be added, if it exists I am setting focus to the existing instance, otherwise adding the new page to the TabControl. See if something like this works for you.
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
TabPage tp = new TabPage();
tp.Name = tabPage1.Name;
var temp =tabControl1.Controls.Find(tp.Name,true);
if( temp.Length > 0)
{
tabControl1.SelectedTab = (TabPage) temp[0];
}
else
tabControl1.Controls.Add(tp);
}
Anything having to do with the ControlCollection will most likely be triggered after the control has been added.
From above link:
You can determine if a Control is a member of the collection by passing the control into the Contains method. To get the index value of the location of a Control in the collection, pass the control into the IndexOf method. The collection can be copied into an array by calling the CopyTo method.
If you want you could cleanup your code some by adding an ExtensionMethod to your TabControl Check for an existing page, set focus or add from there.
Example:
namespace ExtensionMethods
{
public static class MyExtensions
{
public static bool AddPage(this TabControl tc, TabPage tp)
{
var matchedPages = tc.Controls.Find(tp.Name, false);
if ( matchedPages.Length > 0)
{
tc.SelectedTab = (TabPage)matchedPages[0];
return true;
}
else
{
tc.TabPages.Add(tp);
tc.SelectedTab = tp;
return false;
}
}
}
}
Usage:
tabControl1.AddPage(tp);

How to check whether postback caused by a Dynamic link button

I have a button control. On click of this button I need to add a Link Button dynamically. The Link Button needs an event handler. Hence the dynamic Link button is first added in the Page_Load and cleared and added again in the button click handler. Please read Dynamic Control’s Event Handler’s Working for understanding the business requirement for this.
I have read On postback, how can I check which control cause postback in Page_Init event for identifying the control that caused the postback (inside Page_Load). But it is not working for my scenario.
What change need to be done to confirm whether the postback was caused by link button (inside Page_Load)?
Note: Refer the following for another scenario where it is inevitable https://codereview.stackexchange.com/questions/20510/custom-paging-in-asp-net-web-application
Note 1: I need to get the postback control ID as the first step inside if (Page.IsPostBack). I need to add the dynamic link buttons control only if it is a postback from the button or the link button. There will be other controls that causes postback. For such postbacks we should not execute this code.
Note 2: I am getting empty string for Request["__EVENTARGUMENT"] in the Page_Load
Related Question: By what event, the dynamic controls will be available in the Page (for using in FindControl). #Tung says - "Your GetPostBackControlId method is properly getting the name of the control that caused the postback, but it is unable to find a control with that id through page.FindControl because the linkbutton has not been created yet, and so page does not know of its existence. "
ASPX
<%# Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="PostbackTest.aspx.cs" Inherits="PostbackTest"
MasterPageFile="~/TestMasterPage.master" %>
<asp:Content ID="myContent" ContentPlaceHolderID="ContentPlaceHolder1" runat="server">
<div id="holder" runat="server">
</div>
<asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Button" OnClick="TestClick" />
</asp:Content>
CODE BEHIND
public partial class PostbackTest : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if(Page.IsPostBack)
{
string IDValue = GetPostBackControlId(this.Page);
int x = 0;
holder.Controls.Clear();
LinkButton lnkDynamic = new LinkButton();
lnkDynamic.Click += new EventHandler(LinkClick);
lnkDynamic.ID = "lnkDynamic123";
lnkDynamic.Text = "lnkDynamic123";
holder.Controls.Add(lnkDynamic);
}
}
protected void TestClick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
holder.Controls.Clear();
LinkButton lnkDynamic = new LinkButton();
lnkDynamic.Click += new EventHandler(LinkClick);
lnkDynamic.ID = "lnkDynamic123";
lnkDynamic.Text = "lnkDynamic123";
holder.Controls.Add(lnkDynamic);
}
protected void LinkClick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
}
public static string GetPostBackControlId(Page page)
{
if (!page.IsPostBack)
{
return string.Empty;
}
Control control = null;
// First check the "__EVENTTARGET" for controls with "_doPostBack" function
string controlName = page.Request.Params["__EVENTTARGET"];
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(controlName))
{
control = page.FindControl(controlName);
}
else
{
// if __EVENTTARGET is null, the control is a button type
string controlId;
Control foundControl;
foreach (string ctl in page.Request.Form)
{
// Handle ImageButton they having an additional "quasi-property" in their Id which identifies mouse x and y coordinates
if (ctl.EndsWith(".x") || ctl.EndsWith(".y"))
{
controlId = ctl.Substring(0, ctl.Length - 2);
foundControl = page.FindControl(controlId);
}
else
{
foundControl = page.FindControl(ctl);
}
if (!(foundControl is Button || foundControl is ImageButton)) continue;
control = foundControl;
break;
}
}
return control == null ? String.Empty : control.ID;
}
}
REFERENCE
On postback, how can I check which control cause postback in Page_Init event
Dynamic Control’s Event Handler’s Working
Understanding the JavaScript __doPostBack Function
Access JavaScript variables on PostBack using ASP.NET Code
How does ASP.NET know which event to fire during a postback?
how to remove 'name' attribute from server controls?
How to use __doPostBack()

A postback in asp.net is done by the java script function __doPostback(source, parameter)
so in your case it would be
__doPostback("lnkDynamic123","") something like this
So in the code behind do the following
var btnTrigger = Request["__EVENTTARGET"];
if(btnTrigger=="lnkDynamic123")
{
}
--- this would tell that it is your linkbutton that causes the postback

You can move the call to the GetPostBackControlId method after the LinkButton has been added to the page:
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (Page.IsPostBack)
{
holder.Controls.Clear();
LinkButton lnkDynamic = new LinkButton();
lnkDynamic.Click += new EventHandler(LinkClick);
lnkDynamic.ID = "lnkDynamic123";
lnkDynamic.Text = "lnkDynamic123";
holder.Controls.Add(lnkDynamic);
string IDValue = GetPostBackControlId(this.Page);
if (IDValue == lnkDynamic.ID)
LinkClick(lnkDynamic, new EventArgs());
}
}
Calling the click event handler here also more closely mimics the standard ASP.NET Page Life Cycle, where Postback event handling occurs after the Load event.
Edit:
If the control ID must be determined before the LinkButtons are created, you can create a naming scheme for the link button IDs, e.g. lnkDynamic_1, lnkDynamic_2 etc.
Request["__EVENTTARGET"] will then contain the auto-generated control ID such as “ctl00$mc$lnkDynamic_1”, which you can use to identify which LinkButton caused the postback.

If You're getting the post back control id correctly but FindControl returns nothing, then it's probably because You're using a master page. Basically, someControl.FindControl(id) searches through controls that are in someControl.NamingContainer naming container. But in Your case, the Button1 control is in the ContentPlaceHolder1, which is a naming container, and not directly in the Page naming container, so You won't find it by invoking Page.FindControl. If You can't predict in which naming container the control You're looking for is going to be (e.g. post back can be caused by two different buttons from two different content placeholders), then You can write an extension that'll search for a control recursively, like so:
public static class Extensions
{
public static Control FindControlRecursively(this Control control, string id)
{
if (control.ID == id)
return control;
Control result = default(Control);
foreach (Control child in control.Controls)
{
result = child.FindControlRecursively(id);
if (result != default(Control)) break;
}
return result;
}
}
Use it with caution though, because this method will return the first control that it finds with the specified id (and You can have multiple controls with the same id - but they should be in different naming containers; naming containers are meant to differentiate between controls with same ids, just as namespaces are meant to differentiate between classes with same names).
Alternatively, You could try to use FindControl(string id, int pathOffset) overload, but I think it's pretty tricky.
Also, check this question out.

First approach (wouldn't recommend but it's more flexible)
One completely different approach - although I don't really feel like I should promote it - is to add a hidden field to the form.
The value of this hidden field might be something like false by default.
In case of clicking one of the dynamic buttons which should cause the dynamic controls to be added again, you can simply change the hidden fields value to true on client side before performing the postback (eventually you want/have to modify the client side onclick handler to make this happen).
Of course it would be possible to store more information in such a field, like the controls id and the argument (but you can get those values as described in the other answers). No naming schema would be required in this case.
This hidden field could be "static". So it would be accessible in code behind all time. Anyhow, you might want to implement something to make sure that nobody is playing around with its values and fakes a callback which looks like it originated from one of these dynamic links.
However, this whole approach just helps you getting the id of the control. Until you create the control again, you won't be able to get the instance through NamingContainer.FindControl (as mentioned in the other answers already ;)). And in case you create it, you don't need to find it anymore.
Second approach (might not be suitable due to its contraints)
If you want to do it the clean way, you need to create your controls OnLoad, no matter if something was clicked or not. Additionally, the dynamic controls ID has to be the same as the one you sent to the client in the first place. You subscribe to its Click or Command event and set its visibility to false. Inside the click event handler, you set the senders visibility to true again. This implies, that you don't care if that link is created but instead just don't want to send it to the client. The example below only works for a single link of course (but you could easily modify it to cover a whole group of links).
public void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
LinkButton dynamicButton = new LinkButton();
dynamicButton.ID = "linkDynamic123";
// this id needs to be the same as it was when you
// first sent the page containing the dynamic link to the client
dynamicButton.Click += DynamicButton_Click;
dynamicButton.Visible = false;
Controls.Add(dynamicButton);
}
public void DynamicButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// as you created the control during Page.Load, this event will be fired.
((LinkButton)sender).Visible = true;
}