Helpful info about Control Arrays in CE.NET

Question

You can create a control array, of course it doesn't work in the IDE. You just have to declare it yourself. this.TreeViews = new TreeView[5]; this.TreeViews[0] = new TreeView(); this.TreeViews[0].ImageIndex = -1; this.TreeViews[0].Location = qPlace0.Location; this.TreeViews[0].SelectedImageIndex = -1; this.TreeViews[0].ShowLines = false; this.TreeViews[0].ShowPlusMinus = false; this.TreeViews[0].ShowRootLines = false; this.TreeViews[0].Size = qPlace0.Size; this.TreeViews[0].Visible = false; this.TreeViews[1] = new TreeView(); ... ... ... and so on qPlace0 is a label place holder that is in the IDE. Then you have to add them to the form individully as well: for (i = 0; i < 5; i++) { this.Controls.Add(this.TreeViews[i]); } Of course that is the 'get' we are stuck with as Microsoft decided to get rid of the IDE control arrays that we had with VB6. Today I just thought of perhaps an easier way. Say you put 5 TreeView Controls into the IDE. Then open up that code your not supposed to open in the region 'Windows Form Designer generated code'. And make sure each TreeView you put on the form are added in order. Like this: this.Controls.Add(this.TreeView1); this.Controls.Add(this.TreeView2); this.Controls.Add(this.TreeView3); this.Controls.Add(this.TreeView4); this.Controls.Add(this.TreeView5); Then to access these as an array like this: for (int i = Controls.GetChildIndex(TreeView1); i <= Controls.GetChildIndex(TreeView5); i++) { TreeView tv = (TreeView)Controls[i]; tv.Nodes.Add("Whatever!"); }