how to get a list of a toolstrip control inner controls programmatically

Question

I just noticed the hasChildren method doesn't return the various items in a toolstrip, just because its NOT a container I guess.

There is an answer here in SO but it seems to me its far too complicated.

Is there a simple way to iterate through the toolstrip control's controls?

Answer 1

ANSWER:

I'm getting home with a very simple recursive call! No need for cumbersome extremely complicated 3 pages c# code guys, here is the code snippet I wrote, and it WORKS:

Create a for each loop to iterate through all form's controls, and within the loop, call this:

Private Shared Sub recurseTranslateControls(ByVal lang As String, ByVal c As Control)

    Dim newtxt as string = getLangItem(c.name, lang)     ' This function performs string translation
                                                         ' Nothing to do with the current post / answer
    ' This will work for "normal" controls
    If newtxt <> "" Then
        c.Text = newtxt                ' Apply the translated text to the control
    End If

    If c.HasChildren Then
        For Each co In c.Controls
                ' This will work for Toolstrip. You should do same for Menustrip etc.
                If "toolstrip".Contains(co.GetType.Name.ToLower) Then
                Dim ts As ToolStrip = co             ' Toolstrip doesn't have child controls, but it DOES have ITEMS!
                For Each itm As ToolStripItem In ts.Items
                    ' No need for recursivity: toolstrip items doesn't have children
                    Call TranslateToolstrip(lang, itm)           ' Apply the translated text to the toolstrip item
                Next
            Else
                Call recurseTranslateControls(lang, co)
            End If
        Next
    End If

End Sub

Private Shared Sub TranslateToolstrip(ByVal lang As String, ByVal t As ToolStripItem)

    Dim newtxt = getLangItem(t.name, lang)

    If newtxt <> "" Then
        t.Text = newtxt
    End If

End Sub

Important remark: One of the reasons for which I have choosen VB and NOT c# is that c# lends to obfuscated, complex, hard to re-read code, and on top of that, c# "so-called" gurus (not the real ones mind you) are so happty to write code that no one can understand.

Each time I find a complex c# solution to a problem, i do not accept it, and I ALWAYS find some simpler way to do the job. Yes, ALWAYS, ALWAYS...