I have 2 Right click window items with some same name/function items in the drop down. How do I make this possible? Win form seems not to let me have the same exact items in different right click window items.
Code:
.
.
RightClickWindow.Items.AddRange(new ToolStripItem[] { InsertAbove, InsertBelow });
.
.
InsertAbove.DropDownItems.AddRange(new ToolStripItem[] { AddName, AddSSN, AddHeight, AddWeight });
.
.
InsertBelow.DropDownItems.AddRange(new ToolStripItem[] { AddName, AddSSN, AddJob, AddHobby });
.
.
Result: AddName and AddSSN only show in InsertBelow and is not shown in InsertAbove. They only shows in InsertAbove if I remove them in InsertBelow.
I tried copied and pasted then change the names of the items (AddNameAbove, AddNameBelow, AddSSNAbove, AddSSNBelow,…) but it looks like a mess in my designer.cs since I have many same items that need to be on different right click window items.
Tan is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
1
This might be trickier than it sounds. The easy part is making the singleton collection of ToolStripItem:
ToolStripItem[] CommonItems
{
get
{
if (_commonItemsSingleton is null)
{
var clickableItem = new ToolStripMenuItem
{
Text = "Simple click"
};
clickableItem.Click += SimpleClick_Clicked;
var comboBoxItem = new ToolStripComboBox
{
DropDownStyle = ComboBoxStyle.DropDownList,
};
comboBoxItem.Items.AddRange(new[]
{
"Select",
"Item A",
"Item B",
"Item C",
});
comboBoxItem.SelectedIndex = 0;
comboBoxItem.SelectedIndexChanged += async (sender, e) =>{ await Task.Delay(10); ContextMenuStrip?.Close(); };
comboBoxItem.SelectedIndexChanged += ComboBox_SelectedIndexChanged;
_commonItemsSingleton = new ToolStripItem[]
{
clickableItem,
new ToolStripSeparator(),
comboBoxItem,
};
}
return _commonItemsSingleton;
}
}
ToolStripItem[]? _commonItemsSingleton = default;
But as you’ve observed:
Win form seems not to let me have the same exact items in different right click window items.
Since each of these items can only have one Parent at a time, you can’t just AddRange to both InsertAbove and InsertBelow. You have to game the system a little bit by loading them on-demand when InsertAbove or InsertBelow dynamically raise the DropDownOpening event.
public MainForm()
{
InitializeComponent();
ContextMenuStrip = RightClickWindow;
var InsertAbove = new ToolStripMenuItem { Text = "InsertAbove", AutoSize = true };
var InsertBelow = new ToolStripMenuItem { Text = "InsertBelow", AutoSize = true };
foreach (var tsmi in new[] { InsertAbove, InsertBelow })
{
tsmi.DropDownItems.Add(new ToolStripMenuItem()); // Placeholder ensures ► visible
tsmi.DropDownOpening += (sender, e) =>
{
tsmi.DropDownItems.Clear();
tsmi.DropDownItems.AddRange(CommonItems);
};
tsmi.DropDownClosed += async (sender, e) =>
{
// This delay ensures that the handler will still have
// access to the OwnerItem. We'll probably want to know
// whether the call was made by InsertAbove or InsertBelow
await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0.5));
tsmi.DropDownItems.Clear();
tsmi.DropDownItems.Add(new ToolStripMenuItem()); // Placeholder
};
RightClickWindow.Items.Add(tsmi);
}
}
Determine the caller
Since the two drop down menus now do (literally) identical things, it may be important to inspect the OwnerItem to determine whether it was called by [InsertAbove] or [InsertBelow]. For example:
private void SimpleClick_Clicked(object? sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (sender is ToolStripItem tsi)
{
MessageBox.Show(
text: tsi.Text, caption: $"Called by {tsi.OwnerItem?.Text}");
}
}
1