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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

...
//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

...
//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.

//

...
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.

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.

//

[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.

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QuestionActuall serialization is not working! Pin
Fadik
4:07 15 Jul '09  
QuestionHow I can save/read controls to file? Pin
drinkmaker
12:43 21 Feb '09  
GeneralHow about the TabControl Pin
Sean_Miller
10:39 19 Feb '09  
GeneralRe: How about the TabControl [modified] Pin
pataguillon
3:48 21 Jul '09  
GeneralThank you very much it helped me a lot Pin
SanShark
1:20 6 Feb '09  
GeneralThank you Pin
hlmc
21:24 29 Apr '08  
QuestionCopying data Pin
Ajmeri
9:26 28 Feb '08  
GeneralJust Great Pin
shapez
3:58 22 Oct '07  
GeneralAssembly.LoadWithPartialName(string)' is obsolete Pin
gajatko
9:03 26 Aug '07  
GeneralSerializing Widows.Forms in C# Pin
SakthiSurya
21:24 29 Apr '07  
GeneralA Suggestion Pin
fonk666
11:27 5 Feb '07  
QuestionAbout Events ? Pin
whithix
2:02 19 Sep '06  
AnswerRe: About Events ? Pin
lxwde
21:23 19 Sep '06  
QuestionUsing this code with personalized controls. Pin
DoXiGen
6:10 29 Aug '06  
AnswerRe: Using this code with personalized controls. Pin
lxwde
17:05 29 Aug '06  
AnswerRe: Using this code with personalized controls. Pin
Hotcut
0:48 17 Oct '06  
GeneralSerialization thoughts ... Pin
BillWoodruff
18:46 13 Feb '06  
GeneralRe: Serialization thoughts ... Pin
lxwde
3:24 14 Feb '06  
GeneralRe: Serialization thoughts ... Pin
Nigel Savidge
8:17 2 Mar '06  
GeneralRe: Serialization thoughts ... Pin
Frank Hileman
3:08 7 Mar '06  
GeneralI wonder... Pin
Super Lloyd
17:16 7 Feb '06  
GeneralRe: I wonder... Pin
lxwde
17:37 7 Feb '06  


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