Question

Is there a simple way to get all controls that contains the property ".Text"?

I’m able to get all "top level" controls, but my code doesn’t find sub controls like menu items on all levels, etc. I also tried "ctrl.HasChildren".

How do I do this in Windows Forms at runtime?

Answer 1

You could loop through each control and use reflection to find the property Name Text

     foreach (Control contrl in this.Controls)
     {
        if (contrl.GetType().GetProperty("Text") != null)
        {
           // contrl has Text Property
        }
     }

Adding in the search for all controls

  List<Control> text_controls = new List<Control>();
  FindAllControls(this.Controls, text_controls);

  private void FindAllControls(Control.ControlCollection controls, List<Control> ctrlsWithTextProperty)
  {
     foreach(Control ctrl in controls)
     {
        if(ctrl.GetType().GetProperty("Text") != null)
        {
           ctrlsWithTextProperty.Add(ctrl);
        }
        if (ctrl.Controls != null)
        {
           FindAllControls(ctrl.Controls, ctrlsWithTextProperty);
        }
     }
  }