Question

I have Form1.cs which has two buttons say “ADD” and “EDIT”.

Clicking “ADD” shows dialog Form2.cs.

Form2 has a TextBox and a ComboBox. Say we enter value “A” in textbox and select “A” from ComboBox.
Then close Form2.

Then when EDIT button is clicked on Form1, Form2 should show up with “A” in textbox and “A” selected in ComboBox.

This is a simple explanation. The real form I am using has around 10-12 different controls including combobox, checkbox, textbox etc.

My main doubt is where and how do we save these control values.

Is there a specific approach to this type of DialogBoxes that I am missing?

Answer 1

Create class, that would store values that you want to pass (let’s call it Foo).

Form2 should then have a property. In the setter of the property, set controls:

public partial class Form2 : Form
{
    private Foo _bar;
    public Foo Bar
    {
        set
        {
            _bar = value;
            //set your controls here
        }
    }

On Edit button, set property like this:

Form2 form2 = new Form2();
form2.Bar = bar; //bar contains values to edit

Then put a Save button on Form2, that would save values back from controls to this object.

For every control I would have a field in Foo class, eg. string for textboxes, bool for checkboxes and enum or int for comboboxes (where integer value would equal selected index).
Alternatively, you could use Dictionary class instead and have key and value pair for every control.

You can also have some enum, if your form looks or behaves differently in New and Edit mode.