Question

I’m trying to create a context menu which will be able to add extra menu items, with an attached child menu, as required. I’ve been trying to do it so I have separate classes building up each part so it can be written nicely with objects.

The problem I am having is that the AddRange method for ContextMenuStrip doesn’t have a constructor to deal with my object. I’ve tried converting it to ToolStripMenuItem type with operators which has not worked, as I suspected it wouldn’t.

I am sure this can be achieved so I assume I’ve thought something through wrong. Is there a way to get around this or I banning my head against a wall with my current structuring?

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace Context
{
class TestMenu
{
    public TestMenu()
    {
        ContextMenuStrip filesToUploadContext = new System.Windows.Forms.ContextMenuStrip();

        // Hot Folder Header
        ToolStripMenuItem hotHead = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem();
        // Holder for files in Hot Folder
        ParentItem hotFile; // foreach

        // Dropped Files Header
        ToolStripMenuItem dropHead = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem();
        // Holder for files that have been dragged and dropped in
        ParentItem dropFile; // foreach

        ToolStripSeparator toolStripSeparator1 = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripSeparator();
        ToolStripSeparator toolStripSeparator2 = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripSeparator();

        filesToUploadContext.Items.AddRange(new ToolStripItem[] {
            hotHead,
            toolStripSeparator1,
            hotFile, // Not a toolStrip item

            dropHead,
            toolStripSeparator2,
            dropFile // also not a toolStrip item
            });

        //// Testing stuff vv
        //// Hot Folder
        //hotFile.DropDownItems.AddRange(new ToolStripItem[]
        //    {
        //        viewHot,
        //        deleteHotFile
        //    });

        //// Dropped Items Folder
        //dropFile.DropDownItems.AddRange(new ToolStripItem[]
        //    {
        //        viewDrop,
        //        removeDropFile
        //    });

        //// Hot Folder Section Heading
        //hotHead.Name = "hotHead";
        //hotHead.Text = "Hot Folder Files";
        //hotHead.Font = new System.Drawing.Font("Segoe UI", 9F, System.Drawing.FontStyle.Bold);

        //// Drop Folder Section Heading
        //dropHead.Name = "dropHead";
        //dropHead.Text = "Dropped Files";
        //dropHead.Font = new System.Drawing.Font("Segoe UI", 9F, System.Drawing.FontStyle.Bold);
    }

    class ParentItem
    {
        // MenuItem to be used for found files
        // Options will contain child items
        public ToolStripMenuItem name = new ToolStripMenuItem();
        public ChildMenu options { get; set; }
        public ParentItem();
    }

    class ChildMenu
    {
        // Options available for specific files at end of menu tree
        public ToolStripMenuItem view = new ToolStripMenuItem("View File");
        public ToolStripMenuItem delete = new ToolStripMenuItem("Delete File");
        public ToolStripMenuItem remove = new ToolStripMenuItem("Remove File");
        public ChildMenu();
    }

}

}

Answer 1

You can’t add anything else than a ToolStripMenuItem as child of a ToolStripMenuItem.

Don’t spend time trying to inherit your ChildMenu and ParentItem classes from ToolStripMenuItem. Just add ToolStripMenuItems and drop these classes.

EDIT:

I would do something like the following (actually compiles):

public void PopulateMenu(string fileName, ContextMenuStrip parent)
    {
        ToolStripMenuItem newMenu = new ToolStripMenuItem(fileName);
        newMenu.DropDownItems.Add(new ToolStripMenuItem("View File"));
        newMenu.DropDownItems.Add(new ToolStripMenuItem("Delete File"));
        newMenu.DropDownItems.Add(new ToolStripMenuItem("Remove File"));

        parent.Items.Add(newMenu);
    }

Then for each of your file:

this.PopulateMenu(the_file_name, the_parent_menu);

Also don’t forget to attach handlers to the Click event of your menus, or they’ll be useless 😉