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Creating a simple ButtonDropdown Control

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25 Sep 2013CPOL 33.2K   745   21   10
How to create a simple ButtonDropdown control

Introduction

This post helps to create a ButtonDropDown in Windows Form (I was not able to find a control in Visual Studio for my requirement, so I made one and I’m not sure whether there is one already). For this, I’m using a combination of Button control and ContextMenuStrip control.

SimpleButtonDropdownCtrl/Image01.jpg

The arrow in the button is an image with middle-right aligned.

  1. Initialize a ContextMenuStrip with the required MenuItems
  2. Register the click events of ContextMenuStripMenuItems
  3. Pop out the context menu on Button click with the given x, y axis (w.r.t to the button), y axis value should be the height of the button:
C#
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace ButtonDropDownTest
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        private ContextMenuStrip _contextMenuAutoFill;

        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            CreateContextMenuStrip();
        }

        private void CreateContextMenuStrip()
        {
            _contextMenuAutoFill = new ContextMenuStrip();
            _contextMenuAutoFill.Items.Add("Dropdown item 1");
            _contextMenuAutoFill.Items.Add("Dropdown item 2");
            _contextMenuAutoFill.Items.Add("Dropdown item 3");
            _contextMenuAutoFill.Items.Add("Dropdown item 4");

            foreach (ToolStripMenuItem mItem in _contextMenuAutoFill.Items)
                mItem.Click += 
                new System.EventHandler(this.AutoFillToolStripMenuItem_Click);
        }

        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            button1.ContextMenuStrip = _contextMenuAutoFill;
            button1.ContextMenuStrip.Show
		(button1, new System.Drawing.Point(0, button1.Height));
        }

        private void AutoFillToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            string m = ((ToolStripMenuItem)sender).Text;
            MessageBox.Show("You have clicked '" + m + "'");
        }
    }
}

This link explains how to create this control using custom control.

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)


Written By
Software Developer UVJ Technologies
India India
This member has not yet provided a Biography. Assume it's interesting and varied, and probably something to do with programming.

Comments and Discussions

 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
fredatcodeproject27-Sep-13 5:34
professionalfredatcodeproject27-Sep-13 5:34 
GeneralMy vote of 4 Pin
Champion Chen26-Sep-13 23:12
Champion Chen26-Sep-13 23:12 
GeneralMy vote of 3 Pin
ridoy21-Jun-13 23:55
professionalridoy21-Jun-13 23:55 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
Nomardus6-Feb-13 1:37
Nomardus6-Feb-13 1:37 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
solowilliam6-Aug-11 3:09
solowilliam6-Aug-11 3:09 
GeneralMy vote of 3 Pin
Jason Vogel12-May-11 10:28
Jason Vogel12-May-11 10:28 
GeneralIdea is good, need to be better Pin
Ethan Woo12-May-11 4:12
Ethan Woo12-May-11 4:12 
GeneralRe: Idea is good, need to be better Pin
GregoryW22-Jun-13 0:04
GregoryW22-Jun-13 0:04 
QuestionRe: My vote of 1 Pin
Warrick Procter11-May-11 20:08
Warrick Procter11-May-11 20:08 
Hello Hossein Montazeri

I think it is mandatory, from a politeness perspective, to explain a vote of 1.
I suggest you edit your response and give reasons for your vote - and it does not matter whether you are comfortable with English, or not.

Seriously, Warrick
Troft not lest ye be sponned on the nurg! (Milligan)

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