How to create selective Drag n Drop handler

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Introduction

I'm writing this code such that the user of my software can just drag n drop anything he wants and from anywhere. The software will decide what will do with the drag objects. But my main purpose is to show how easy to create drag n drop operation.

Background

Many software support drag n drop operation. But many of them need user to drag n drop to specified place. 

Using the code

To create drag n drop operation, we just need 3 important things to do:

1. Allow drop operation in specified control
2. Write drag enter handler
3. Write drag drop handler

1. Allow drop operation 

we need to allow our control to accept drop operation. In this case, I make my main form allowed to receive drop objects.

2. Write drag enter handler 

This will enable the program to receive drag objects. For example, in this case, I make copied objects to dropped in my application. You can makes it like cut n paste if you want by specify DragDropEffects.Move instead of DragDropEffects.Copy.

  private void frmHashCalculator_DragEnter(object sender, DragEventArgs e)
  {
      e.Effect = DragDropEffects.Copy;            
  }

3. Write drop handler

this is the code where your program use the dropped object.

private void frmHashCalculator_DragDrop(object sender, DragEventArgs e)
{
     if (e.Data.GetDataPresent(DataFormats.FileDrop ,true ))
     {
         string[] lokasi = (string[])e.Data.GetData(DataFormats.FileDrop, true);
         txtLink.Text = lokasi[0];
     }
     else if (e.Data.GetDataPresent(DataFormats.Text ,true ))
     {
         txtComparer.Text = e.Data.GetData(DataFormats.Text, true).ToString();
     }
} 

By checking what the data present type, we can decide what to do with specified data type. In this example, if user drag a file, then the file path will appear to file path section. If user drag a text, then the text will copied to text comparator section.

Points of Interest 

Since my application is used to calculate MD5 hash of file, then I'll show you how easy to calculate MD5 hash.

Cursor = Cursors.WaitCursor;
byte[] retval;
StringBuilder sb;
try
{
	FileInfo fi = new FileInfo(txtLink.Text);  //this from file path section
	if (fi.Exists)                             //check if file exist of course
	{
	   file= fi.Open(FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
	}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
	MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
	//throw;
}
if (file != null)
{
	MD5 md5 = new MD5CryptoServiceProvider();  //just easy as 2 lines of code
	retval = md5.ComputeHash(file);
	file.Close();                              // close the streaam so that the file unlocked
	sb = new StringBuilder();                  //since the result is char array, we can create
	for (int i = 0; i < retval.Length; i++)    //string builder for this
	{
		sb.Append(retval[i].ToString("X2"));
	}
	lblHash.Text = sb.ToString();
}
Cursor = Cursors.Default ; 

after obtain the result, we can simply comparing the result with text comparator section

Note

Please note that the windows explorer (or maybe other drag source) will hang up until the drop handler is complete. Therefore, for processing a   large file, you must give the process to background thread and complete the drop handler (in UI thread) as soon as possible.