Question

I’m still a bit green on C# so please forgive me if I’m asking the question in the wrong way.

I’m writing a windows Forms program. I have a form with a Tab control on it. Inside the Tab control on one of the tabs is a FlowlayoutPanel control
I have a class with various properties. This class represents the data on a contacts card, i.e. Name Address, Phone etc. and is designed to look like a Panel control. Here is some code:

public class clsContactCard
{
#region Fields (8) 

    private Color _backColour;
    private BorderStyle _borderStyle;
    private List<string> _detailLines = new List<string>();
    private Color _foreColour;
    private Size _size;
    private string _subTitle;
    private string _title;

#endregion Fields 

#region Constructors (1) 

    public clsContactCard()
    {}

#endregion Constructors 

#region Properties (8) 

    public Color BackColour
    {
        get { return _backColour; }
        set { _backColour = value; }
    }

    public BorderStyle BorderStyle
    {
        get { return _borderStyle; }
        set { _borderStyle = value; }
    }

    public List<string> DetailLines
    {
        get { return _detailLines; }
        set { _detailLines = value; }
    }

    public Color ForeColour
    {
        get { return _foreColour; }
        set { _foreColour = value; }
    }

    public Size Size
    {
        get { return _size; }
        set { _size = value; }
    }

    public string SubTitle
    {
        get { return _subTitle; }
        set { _subTitle = value; }
    }

    public string Title
    {
        get { return _title; }
        set { _title = value; }
    }

#endregion Properties 

    public Panel CreateCard()
    {
        // New Contact Card  
        Point labelLoc = new Point(18, 11);             //Location for a label
        Size labelSize = new Size(218, 16);             //default label size

        Panel pnl = new Panel();                        //Instantiate a new Panel
        pnl.BackColor = _backColour;                    //Set the new panel's properties
        pnl.BorderStyle = _borderStyle;
        pnl.Size = _size;
        pnl.Visible = true;

        //Title
        Label l = new Label();                          //Create new label object
        l.Name = "uxTitle";                             //Give it a name
        l.Text = _title;                                //Assign it data from properties
        l.Size = labelSize;                             //set its size & font
        l.Font = new Font("Microsoft Sans Serif",10,FontStyle.Bold);
        l.Location = labelLoc;                          //set its location
        labelLoc.Y += labelSize.Height;                 //update next labels location
        pnl.Controls.Add(l);                            //add label to panel controls

        //Type
        //Label l = new Label();
        l.Name = "uxSubTitle";
        l.Text = _subTitle;
        l.Size = new Size(215, 15);
        l.Font = new Font("Microsoft Sans Serif",7,FontStyle.Regular);
        l.Location = new Point(21, 27);
        labelLoc.Y += labelSize.Height + 5;

        //Detail lines
        int lineCount = 0;
        bool firstPhone = true;

        foreach (string line in _detailLines)
        {
            if (SAPSCommon.Instance.IsNumeric(line.Trim()) && firstPhone)
            {
                firstPhone = false;
                labelLoc.Y += 5;
            }
            lineCount += 1;
            //Label l = new Label();
            l.Name = "uxLine" + lineCount;
            l.Text = line;
            l.Size = labelSize;
            l.Font = new Font("Microsoft Sans Serif",8,FontStyle.Regular);
            l.Location = labelLoc;
            labelLoc.Y += labelSize.Height + 5;
        }
        return pnl;
    }
}

The idea is to show the card object in a FlowLayoutPanel control akin to MS Outlook contacts list. I have the code to populate the object properties, but when I try to add the card object (panel) to the FlowlayoutPanel control the compiler complains about the types:

Error 2 Argument 1: cannot convert from ‘SAPS.clsContactCard’ to ‘System.Windows.Forms.Control’

The code is a s follows:

foreach (clsContacts contact in _pensioner.Contacts)
{
    clsContactCard card = new clsContactCard();
    if (contact.OtherNames != "")
    {
        card.Title = string.Format("{0} {1} {2}", contact.Givname, contact.OtherNames,
                                   contact.Surname);
    }
    else
    {
        card.Title = string.Format("{0} {1}", contact.Givname, contact.Surname);
    }
    card.SubTitle = contact.ContactTypeDescription;
    card.DetailLines.Add(contact.Addr1);
    string addr2 = contact.Addr2;
    if (addr2.Length >= 0) 
        card.DetailLines.Add(addr2);
    card.DetailLines.Add(string.Format("{0} {1} {2}", contact.Suburb, contact.State, contact.PCode).Trim());
    string country = contact.Country;
    if (country.Length >= 0)
        card.DetailLines.Add(country);
    foreach(clsPhoneNumbers phone in contact.PhoneNumbers)
    {
        card.DetailLines.Add(string.Format("{0} - {1}", phone.PhoneNumber, phone.PhoneType));
    }
    foreach(clsEmailAddresses email in contact.EmailAddresses)
    {
        card.DetailLines.Add(string.Format("{0} - {1}", email.EmailAddress, email.EmailType));
    }
    card.CreateCard();

    uxContactDetsFlp.Controls.Add(card);
}

Can anyone shed a light on what I’m doing wrong and how to fix it? I thought the panel control could be added to the flowlayout panel.

Answer 1

You can not add anything else that is not a control to container control like FlowLayoutPanel. You should instead add the panel itself rather than the card object. Do it like this:

Panel pnl = card.CreateCard();
pnl.Tag = card; //optional
uxContactDetsFlp.Controls.Add(pnl);

Additionally you can Tag the panel with the card object if you have to retrieve the card object later on.