Dynamically Adding Button to a Form

Introduction

I was writing a small C# application that required buttons to appear depending on a configuration file. I did a quick search of the internet and could not find much, so I thought I would put something simple together.

Background

The concept of adding a button is exactly the same as adding any control to a form (WinForms or WPF form).

Using the Code

Below is a simple piece of code that creates an instance of a button, changes some properties, and adds it to the form.

// Create Instance of a Button
Button myButton = new Button();

// Set some properties

myButton.Visible = true; 

// Button Size
myButton.Width = 100; 
myButton.Height = 20 

// Positon
myButton.Left = 100; 
myButton.Top = 100; 

myButton.Location = new Point(Left, Top); 

// Give to button a name
myButton.Name = Name; 

// Text to appear on Button
myButton.Text = "My Button"; 

// Make the text look nice
Font myFont = new Font(FontFamily.GenericSansSerif, 12, FontStyle.Bold); 
myButton.Font = myFont;

// This line adds this instance of a button to the form
this.Controls.Add(myButton);

For WCF, we need to do something slightly different, as the object model is different.

// Create my Button
Button myButton = new Button();

// Create a grid to go on the button
Grid subGrid = new Grid();

// Create a text block and image to go on the grid
TextBlock myTextBlock = new TextBlock();
Image myImage = new Image();

// Get an image from a file
BitmapImage bi = new BitmapImage();
bi.BeginInit();
bi.UriSource = new Uri("c:\\mylogo.jpg");
bi.EndInit();
// myImage3.Stretch = Stretch.Fill;
myImage.Source = bi;

//put some text on the button
myTextBlock.Text = "My Button";

// add the image and text bock to the grid
subGrid.Children.Add(myImage);
subGrid.Children.Add(myTextBlock);

// set the grid to the content of the button
myButton.Content = subGrid;

// add the button to a grid on the form called grid1.
grid1.Children.Add(myButton);

That's okay up to a point, but the button doesn't do anything. We now need to associate the click event with some code.

//
myButton.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.Button_Click_Code);

// Create a new function
private void Button_Click_Code(object sender, EventArgs e) 
{
     MessageBox.Show("You clicked my button");
}

If you create multiple buttons and associate them with the same Button_Click_Code function, there needs to be some way to work out which button you pressed.

// Create a new function
private void Button_Click_Code(object sender, EventArgs e) 
{
    // Try something like this   
    Button myBut = (Button)sender;
    MessageBox.Show(myBut.Name);

    switch (myBut.Name)
    {
        case "button_one" : 
            // do something
            break;
        case "button_two" :
            // do something else
             break;
        default:
            // everything else
            break;
    }
}

Points of Interest

The idea of dynamically adding controls to a form is the same as above, any object of any type can be added to a form.

Updates

• 15/Dec/2006: Added some code for a WPF button.