Question

I have added my main class, from which I call buttons class, and that’s where it’s supposed to print out the button. The code is compiling ok, but I can’t see the actual button. Seems to me it didnt inherit the controls properties. Thank you!

  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;
  using System.Windows;

  //main class
  namespace Test
  {
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
     buttons button1;

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

    private void print_button()
    {
        button1 = new buttons();
        button1.print();
    }


   }//form
  }//test

//---------------------------------------------------------------//

//buttons class
namespace Test
{
  public class buttons : System.Windows.Forms.Control

  class buttons
  {
     private Button button1;

     public buttons()
     {

     }

      public void print()
      {
          button1 = new Button();
          button1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(82, 44);
          button1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(977, 54);
          button1.Text = "next";
          Controls.Add(button1);
     }
  }//class
}//test

Answer 1

I have no idea what you are trying to accomplish with the code you have provided. In any event the reason this method doesn’t work:

public void print()
{
   button1 = new Button();

    button1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(82, 44);
    button1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(977, 54);
    button1.Text = "next";
    Controls.Add(button1);
}

is because the class ‘buttons’ does not define a Controls collection nor does it inherit from a class that exposes a controls collection. For example if you were to do this:

public class buttons : System.Windows.Form
{
    ...
}

Your code would then at least compile since the Form class exposes a Controls collection. It isn’t entirely apparent what you are trying to accomplish though so this solution may not suit your needs. Post more information as appropriate and I will do what I can to help you.

—–Edit

It seems like you are trying to refactor your Form1 class from one of your comments above.

You could do something like this:

public class Form1 : Form
{
    public void foo()
    {
       Controls.Add(buttons.print());
    }
}

and modify your buttons class as:

public class buttons
{
   public static Button print()
   {
     Button btn = new Button();
     btn.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(82, 44);
     btn.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(977, 54);
     btn.Text = "next";
     return btn;
   }
}

This will then add a button to your main form’s control collection once it is called. As wrote though this method is useless since it can only produce the same button over and over. I would modify the method so that it looks like this

   public static Button print(Point buttonLocation, Size buttonSize, string buttonText)
   {
     Button btn = new Button();
     btn.Location = buttonLocation;
     btn.Size = buttonSize;
     btn.Text = buttonText;
     return btn;
   }

And then the main form looks like this:

    public void foo()
    {
       Controls.Add(buttons.print(new System.Drawing.Point(82, 44), new System.Drawing.Size(977, 54), "button text"));
    }

Does this help?

— Edit 2 —

I am supplying this edit as a strictly academic example of how you could keep your main class (Form) ‘cleaner’ per the OP’s request in the comments. I don’t suggest using this method in production and would instead recommend using a pattern such as MVC, MVP, or MVVP. I am excluding examples of those patterns here because I think they exceed the skill level of the OP at this point in time and would only lead to more confusion.

Consider the following:

 public class buttons
 {
      private Form _form = null;
      public buttons(Form form)
      {
         _form = form;
      }

      public void print(Point buttonLocation, Size buttonSize, string buttonText)
      {
         Button btn = new Button();
         btn.Location = buttonLocation;
         btn.Size = buttonSize;
         btn.Text = buttonText;
         _form.Controls.Add(btn);
      }     
 }

 public class Form1 : Form
 {
     private buttons _buttons = null;
     public Form1()
     {
       _buttons = new buttons(this);
     }

     public void foo()
     {
        buttons.print(new System.Drawing.Point(82, 44), new System.Drawing.Size(977, 54), "button text");
     }
 }

Now here is what is happening: when Form1 is instantiated it creates a new instance of the buttons class and passes a reference of itself into the buttons constructor (_buttons = new buttons(this)) internally the buttons class sets this reference to the local variable _form so, therefore, anything you do to the variable _form well be like if you were doing it directly to Form1. As you can see that is what happens in the print() method where a button is created and then added to the Controls collection of _form which is the same as calling Controls.Add from within Form1.

Does this make sense to you?