Question

On a Windows Form, I’m trying to use PictureBoxes as status icons. I have 4 icons for Running, Stopped, StartPending and StopPending. I wasn’t sure how best to do this, so I decided to just stack them on each other and make only the one that’s valid visible. I came up with something like this.

switch (currentServiceStatus)
{
    case "Running":
        pb_startedTestService.Visible = true;
        pb_startingTestService.Visible = false;
        pb_stoppedTestService.Visible = false;
        pb_stoppingTestService.Visible = false;
        break;
    case "StartPending":
        pb_startedTestService.Visible = false;
        pb_startingTestService.Visible = true;
        pb_stoppedTestService.Visible = false;
        pb_stoppingTestService.Visible = false;
        break;
    case "Stopped":
        pb_startedTestService.Visible = false;
        pb_startingTestService.Visible = false;
        pb_stoppedTestService.Visible = true;
        pb_stoppingTestService.Visible = false;
        break;
    case "StopPending":
        pb_startedTestService.Visible = false;
        pb_startingTestService.Visible = false;
        pb_stoppedTestService.Visible = false;
        pb_stoppingTestService.Visible = true;
        break;
}

Which I’m okay with if it was just one service, but there are at least 7 services I’m going to be checking and think that’s a little much for a little icon next to the service name. Am I being obsessive? Is it not that big of a deal and won’t make my code as sloppy as I think it will? Is there an easier or better way to do this?

Answer 1

Why not use one PictureBox and in your switch statement simply change out which image is being displayed. IE: PictureBox1.Image = …

And assuming you have the pictures loaded into your resources, here is the syntax for accessing them.

PictureBox1.Image = global::(Namespace).Properties.Resources.(PictureName);