Question

I have a List<Appointment> where an Appointment is.

public class Appointment
{
    public string Title { get; set; }
    public string Start { get; set; }
    public string End { get; set; }
}

I want to dynamically add each list item on a separate line on the form like so:

item.Title + " between" + item.Start + " and " + item.End;

I want to be able to click each item (the text), then with each click it can toggle the colour of the text between red and black (that is, if black it turns red, if red it turns black when you click).

I come from a web background, but I am just struggling with Windows Forms data binding. I’ve tried with table layout panel but just don’t know where to begin with changing the color of an item on click.

PS: If it helps, the number of items in the list will probably not be more than 10.

I’ve gotten a bit further as per Jamie Ide’s comment:

    var appts = GetAllCalendarItems();
    foreach (var item in appts)
    {
        Label label = new Label();
        label.Text = item.Title + " between" + item.Start + " and " + item.End;
        label.Click += new EventHandler(label_Click);
        flowLayoutPanel1.Controls.Add(label);
    }

...

private void label_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    // This is wrong - what goes here??
    ((Label)sender).ForeColor = Color.Red;
}

Answer 1

Dynamically laying out Windows Forms is a huge pain. I don’t have time to code this but the steps are:

• Add FlowLayoutPanel to form as a container
• Look through your Appointments and create label controls for each
• Add the label controls to the panel’s Controls collection
• Assign an OnClick handler to each label control to toggle the color

Don’t bother with databinding for this.

---

If you haven’t changed the label’s initial color from the default, this will toggle it:

    private void label1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        var lbl = (Label)sender;
        var toggle = lbl.ForeColor == SystemColors.ControlText;
        lbl.ForeColor = toggle ? Color.Red : SystemColors.ControlText;
    }