Is there a way to build string showing a TreeView hierarchical struct?

Ken

I have a treeview and it's used for managing the folders/programs in a systray program launcher I made. I wanted to add a way to move multiple programs to other parent folders easily. I figured no big deal, I'll make the TreeView allow multiple selection, that's not an issue right? Welllll apparently it is. So I figured OK, I'll build a little popup window that asks you to select the parent for the items then have a listbox that shows all the available nodes and you select what you want. Easy peasy.

However... I can't figure out the right way to build my listbox items. Say I have a treeview with these nodes:

Apps
|__FileZilla
|__Outlook
Media
|__Photoshop
|__Audacity
|__Video
|__ZoomPlayer
|__VLC

I want my resultant listbox to have:

Apps\FileZilla
Apps\Outlook
Media\Photoshop
Media\Audacity
Media\Video\ZoomPlayer
Media\Video\VLC

I see the TreeNodes have a Parent property so I figured I'd make a method I can call that calls itself and builds the list. To make a long story short; it was a hot mess, lol. Did not work well. I just can't wrap my head around the correct process/flow.

Each TreeNode's Tag is a wrapper "Node" which has a property to determine if it's a folder or a program. I figure I can check that as I iterate the nodes and check if ((Node)treeNode.Tag).NodeClass == NodeClasses.Folder then I know I don't have to add it to the listbox.

Can someone assist? Thanks!

PS on a tangent here, but out of curiosity... that NodeClasses enum, my Java teacher said enum properties should be UPPERCASE. I see in most code examples in C# they are PascalCase. Is that the accepted standard for C#? I really don't like all caps so I avoided it. Just curious if that's against naming conventions or not.

3 Replies

Know the answer? Post it — somebody with the same question will find it here.

Ken5y ago
I figured it out finally. I figured I'd post my solution just in case someone else stumbles on the thread. Bear in mind, I'm a only a C# dabbler so this may not be the best way.
private TreeView tv;
private List<string> contents = new List<string>();

public Workspace(TreeView tv) {
  InitializeComponent();
  this.tv = tv;
}

private void Workspace_Load(object sender,EventArgs e) {
  ProcessRoots();
  listBox1.Items.AddRange(contents.ToArray());
}

private void ProcessRoots() {
  foreach (TreeNode rootnode in tv.Nodes) BuildList(rootnode);
}

private void BuildList(TreeNode node, string prefix = "") {
  foreach (TreeNode childnode in node.Nodes) {
    BuildList(childnode, (prefix == ""?"":prefix + "\\") + node.Text);
  }

  contents.Add(prefix + "\\" + node.Text);
}
I created a test form and when I create an instance of it, I pass the main form's TreeView to this form then it has a ListBox to hold the list of node names.
Ken5y ago
Alas, that link is showing how to populate a TreeView with the contents of a folder. I'm doing the opposite - I want to depopulate a treeview. I want to flatten it into a collection of strings, preserving the hierarchy in each string. Thanks though.
Jignesh Kumar5y ago
Hi,

Please refer this link,
https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/article/display-sub-directories-and-files-in-treeview/