Disabling Many Controls Automatically

Question

I created a windows form with several buttons, text boxes, combo boxes, etc. At some point during execution, I disable all of them as follows:

Control01.Enabled = false; Control02.Enabled = false; Control03.Enabled = false; // ... Control10.Enabled = false;

How can I automate this?

Sergey Berezovskiy · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-26 16:29:49Z

5

You can enumerate controls and disable them:

foreach(var control in Controls.Cast<Control>()) control.Enabled = false;

If you want to disable only buttons, you can use LINQ

foreach(var control in Controls.OfType<Button>()) control.Enabled = false;

Or if you have some other criteria of selection

var controlsToDisable = Controls.OfType<TextBox>() .Where(t => t.Name.StartsWith("Control")); // etc foreach(var control in controlsToDisable) control.Enabled = false;

edited Jun 26, 2013 at 16:29

answered Jun 26, 2013 at 16:02

Sergey Berezovskiy

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5 Comments

dognose Over a year ago

but note: foreach (Button b in Controls) is not equal to the LINQ Expression. (This is often seen, but it would result in trying to cast EVERY control to a "Button")

Sergey Berezovskiy Over a year ago

@dognose nope, there is method Cast<Button> which will try to cast all controls to button. OfType<Button> will return only those control which can be cast to button

MasterMastic Over a year ago

And it might help to put those controls in an array if they're spread across the user-interface (e.g. not being inside single container, or are but with other controls that shouldn't be disabled).

wjmolinam Over a year ago

For some reason, it is not recognizing the Enabled method. :-( oi44.tinypic.com/vdif0l.jpg

Sergey Berezovskiy Over a year ago

@JosuéMolina sorry, you need to cast to control type Cast<Control>() because by default enumerator will return objects. Fixed!

Laurent S. · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-26 16:02:49Z

You could use a for loop combined with the Controls.Find() method :

string controlIdNr =""; for(int i=1;i++;i<11) { controlIdNr = "Control" + i.ToString().PadLeft(2,'0'); this.Controls.Find(controlIdNr,true).Enabled = false; }

This is of course if your controls have a structured id value. If you want to disable all controls, or all controls of a given type, lazyberezovsky's answer is better !

P.S : I haven't tested code, but that's the idea anyway...

@lazyberezovsky > indeed ! I editted my answer. I'm more a ASP.NET guy and FindControl() only requires the control's id ;-)

KekuSemau · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-26 16:03:28Z

If your layout allows it, you can put them on a panel and disable the panel in one line. Or maybe several few panels.

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