Button Array Using VB.NET

Introduction

When I wrote a phone index program using VB6, I wanted to add twenty-six buttons to my form for alphabetical English characters A..Z (one button holds one character) to search for records in the database file of my phone index. I found it easy because the VB6 allows you to create an array of buttons or an array of any control.

When I wanted to re-write the same program using C# or VB.Net I found the addition of twenty-six buttons to the form not practical because Visual Studio .Net does not have the same capability that VB6 has to create an array of controls.

In this article you will find it very easy to create an array of buttons using VB.NET; you can use this idea to create a tool for searching in a database file. You can read my article about Button Array using C#.

This article has two parts:

First part: Explain how to create an array of buttons.

You can see this trial when you run ButtonArray project.

Remark: When extracting the file (btnArrayVB.zip) you will find two projects: ButtonArray project, and MyPhone project.

Code:

' The following procedure to create array of buttons:

Private Sub AddButtons()

Dim xPos As Integer = 0

Dim yPos As Integer = 0

Dim n As Integer = 0

' Declare and Initialize one variable

Dim btnArray(26) As System.Windows.Forms.Button

For i As Integer = 0 To 25

btnArray(i) = New System.Windows.Forms.Button

Next i

While (n < 26)

With (btnArray(n))

.Tag = n + 1 ' Tag of button

.Width = 24 ' Width of button

.Height = 20 ' Height of button

If (n = 13) Then ' Location of second line of buttons:

xPos = 0

yPos = 20

End If

' Location of button:

.Left = xPos

.Top = yPos

' Add buttons to a Panel:

pnlButtons.Controls.Add(btnArray(n)) ' Let panel hold the Buttons

xPos = xPos + .Width ' Left of next button

' Write English Character:

.Text = Chr(n + 65)

' ****************************************************************

' You can use following code instead previous line

' Dim Alphabet() As Char = {"A", "B", "C", "D", "E", "F", "G", _

' "H", "I", "J", "K", "L", "M", "N", "O", "P", "Q", "R", "S", "T", _

' "U", "V", "W", "X", "Y", "Z"}

' .Text = Alphabet(n)

' ****************************************************************

' for Event of click Button

AddHandler .Click, AddressOf Me.ClickButton

n += 1

End With

End While

btnAddButton.Enabled = False ' not need now to this button now

label1.Visible = True

End Sub

' Result of (Click Button) event, get the text of button

Public Sub ClickButton(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) HandlesMyBase.Click

Dim btn As Button = sender

MessageBox.Show("You clicked character [" + btn.Text + "]")

End Sub

Second part: Explain how to use the twenty-six buttons idea to write a program for a phone index to see how we can use the alphabetical English characters (A..Z) to search a customer name which begins with a specified character, also you can read about some methods of ADO.NET.

You can see this trial when you run MyPhone project after extracting the file btnArrayVB.zip.

Code:

' Create and set (26) buttons for English Characters:

Private Sub CreateButtons()

Dim xPos As Integer = 0

Dim yPos As Integer = 0

Dim n As Integer = 0

For i As Integer = 0 To 25

' Initialize one variable

btnArray(i) = New System.Windows.Forms.Button

Next i

While (n < 26)

With (btnArray(n))

.Tag = n + 1 ' Tag of button

.Width = 24 ' Width of button

.Height = 20 ' Height of button

If (n = 13) Then ' Location of second line of buttons:

xPos = 0

yPos = 20

End If

' Location of button:

.Left = xPos

.Top = yPos

' Add buttons to a Panel:

panel1.Controls.Add(btnArray(n)) ' Let panel hold the Buttons

xPos = xPos + .Width ' Left of next button

' Write English Character:

.Text = Chr(n + 65)

' for Event of click Button

AddHandler .Click, AddressOf Me.ClickButton

n += 1

End With

End While

End Sub

' Result of (Click Button) event, get the text of button

Private Sub ClickButton(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) HandlesMyBase.Click

Dim btn As Button = sender

Dim strFind As String = btn.Text + "%"

Dim strSql As String = "SELECT * FROM Phone WHERE [Name] LIKE " _

& "'" & strFind & "'" & " Order by Name"

FindAnyName(strSql)

End Sub

Remark: After extracting the file (btnArrayVB.zip) you can open the MyPhone project to read the remaining code about using ADO methods and see the result when you run the program.

I hope this article is useful, If you have any idea, please tell me.