Adding menu programmatically

Question

I have been writing a lot of code in Java and find that it is really easy to create either a console or form application. In fact, all one has to do is add a form and display that form. Simple as a cookie, so to speak. But now I have a big project coming up in Visual C# and I have not used it all that much. I think, I am not sure if I am right, but a console application is C# is just that, a console application which cannot accept any mouse action events. I want to be able to add controls to C# from inside of the form, just like in Java. Add a button, or add a menu. But in C# there are several files that open, properties, assemblyinfo.cs, form1.cs, etc. The code below is in form designer.cs.

So where is the best way to add components from the programming point of view and not the design visual stand point of view?

namespace WindowsFormsTestMenuApplication
{
    partial class Form1
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Required designer variable.
        /// </summary>
        private System.ComponentModel.IContainer components = null;

        /// <summary>
        /// Clean up any resources being used.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="disposing">true if managed resources should be disposed; otherwise, false.</param>
        protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
        {
            if (disposing && (components != null))
            {
                components.Dispose();
            }
            base.Dispose(disposing);
        }

        #region Windows Form Designer generated code

        /// <summary>
        /// Required method for Designer support - do not modify
        /// the contents of this method with the code editor.
        /// </summary>
        private void InitializeComponent()
        {
            this.menuStrip1 = new System.Windows.Forms.MenuStrip();
            this.fileToolStripMenuItem = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem();
            this.openToolStripMenuItem = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem();
            this.optionsToolStripMenuItem = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem();
            this.aToolStripMenuItem = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem();
            this.bToolStripMenuItem = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem();
            this.cToolStripMenuItem = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem();
            this.menuStrip1.SuspendLayout();
            this.SuspendLayout();
            // 
            // menuStrip1
            // 
            this.menuStrip1.Items.AddRange(new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem[] {
            this.fileToolStripMenuItem,
            this.openToolStripMenuItem,
            this.optionsToolStripMenuItem});
            this.menuStrip1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(0, 0);
            this.menuStrip1.Name = "menuStrip1";
            this.menuStrip1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(284, 24);
            this.menuStrip1.TabIndex = 0;
            this.menuStrip1.Text = "menuStrip1";
            // 
            // fileToolStripMenuItem
            // 
            this.fileToolStripMenuItem.DropDownItems.AddRange(new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem[] {
            this.aToolStripMenuItem,
            this.bToolStripMenuItem,
            this.cToolStripMenuItem});            
            this.fileToolStripMenuItem.Name = "fileToolStripMenuItem";
            this.fileToolStripMenuItem.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(37, 20);
            this.fileToolStripMenuItem.Text = "File";
            // 
            // openToolStripMenuItem
            // 
            this.openToolStripMenuItem.Name = "openToolStripMenuItem";
            this.openToolStripMenuItem.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(48, 20);
            this.openToolStripMenuItem.Text = "Open";
            // 
            // optionsToolStripMenuItem
            // 
            this.optionsToolStripMenuItem.Name = "optionsToolStripMenuItem";
            this.optionsToolStripMenuItem.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(61, 20);
            this.optionsToolStripMenuItem.Text = "Options";
            // 
            // aToolStripMenuItem
            // 
            this.aToolStripMenuItem.Name = "aToolStripMenuItem";
            this.aToolStripMenuItem.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(152, 22);
            this.aToolStripMenuItem.Text = "A";
            // 
            // bToolStripMenuItem
            // 
            this.bToolStripMenuItem.Name = "bToolStripMenuItem";
            this.bToolStripMenuItem.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(152, 22);
            this.bToolStripMenuItem.Text = "B";
            // 
            // cToolStripMenuItem
            // 
            this.cToolStripMenuItem.Name = "cToolStripMenuItem";
            this.cToolStripMenuItem.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(152, 22);
            this.cToolStripMenuItem.Text = "C";
            // 
            // Form1
            // 
            this.AutoScaleDimensions = new System.Drawing.SizeF(6F, 13F);
            this.AutoScaleMode = System.Windows.Forms.AutoScaleMode.Font;
            this.ClientSize = new System.Drawing.Size(284, 262);
            this.Controls.Add(this.menuStrip1);
            this.MainMenuStrip = this.menuStrip1;
            this.Name = "Form1";
            this.Text = "Form1";
            this.menuStrip1.ResumeLayout(false);
            this.menuStrip1.PerformLayout();
            this.ResumeLayout(false);
            this.PerformLayout();

        }

        #endregion

        private System.Windows.Forms.MenuStrip menuStrip1;
        private System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem fileToolStripMenuItem;
        private System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem aToolStripMenuItem;
        private System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem bToolStripMenuItem;
        private System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem cToolStripMenuItem;
        private System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem openToolStripMenuItem;
        private System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem optionsToolStripMenuItem;
    }
}

Answer 1

Sounds somehow like a general design/approach question to me. Why don't you use WPF over WinForms? Gives you a quite handy designer in Visual Studio. You can comfortably build your GUI in WYSIWYG-style. Supports data binding, which - once familiar with - is pretty convenient. However, later you can still add controls etc. at runtime, see Breems answer. Note: If you use WPF, you need to use the Windows's dispatcher if you want to add controls from another thread than the Windows's one.

Answer 2

Are you trying to add controls at runtime? If so, as SLaks stated, you will simply need to create a new instance of the control and add it to your form.

 // Add a menustrip to the form.
 MenuStrip menuStrip = new MenuStrip();
 menuStrip.Dock = DockStyle.Top;
 this.Controls.Add(menuStrip);

Otherwise, why not utilize the visual designer to add controls to your form?

Answer 3

WinForms controls are regular objects, just like AWT or Swing.

You can create a new ToolStripItem(), set its properties, then add it to a DropDownItems collection.