How to return the name of a ToolStripMenuItem inside of a sub menu in a ContextMenuStrip in .Net

Question

My question might be ambiguous but here is my situation :

I have a square array of pictureboxes on my form, each has a handler to open the ContextMenuStrip whose content is generated based on a directory. Each folder in the directory will create a ToolStripMenuItem and each files inside that folder will be represented inside the DropDownItems of said menu menu item. Upon clicking on a sub item of my menu the picturebox's image will change based on what menu item was clicked.

My problem arises when I try to find out which sub item was clicked. How can I find that out with the _Clicked event of the ContextMenuStrip ? Here is my attempt so far :

        private void mstChooseTile_ItemClicked(object sender, ToolStripItemClickedEventArgs e)
    {
        ContextMenuStrip s = (ContextMenuStrip)sender;
        ToolStripMenuItem x = (ToolStripMenuItem)e.ClickedItem;
        // Test to see if I can get the name
        MessageBox.Show(x.DropDownItems[1].Name);
        // Nope :(
    }

Answer 1

The ItemClicked event isn't going to work for you:

A) It only works for immediate children.

B) It fires even when clicking non-leaf nodes.

Try subscribing to each ToolStripMenuItem instead. Here I skip subscribing to non-leaf nodes.

using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;

public class Form1 : Form
{
    [STAThread]
    static void Main()
    {
        Application.EnableVisualStyles();
        Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
        Application.Run(new Form1());
    }

    public Form1()
    {
        ContextMenuStrip = new ContextMenuStrip
        {
            Items =
            {
                new ToolStripMenuItem
                {
                    Text = "One",
                    DropDownItems =
                    {
                        new ToolStripMenuItem { Text = "One.1" },
                        new ToolStripMenuItem { Text = "One.2" },
                        new ToolStripMenuItem { Text = "One.3" },
                        new ToolStripMenuItem { Text = "One.4" },
                    },
                },
                new ToolStripMenuItem
                {
                    Text = "Two",
                },
                new ToolStripMenuItem
                {
                    Text = "Three",
                    DropDownItems =
                    {
                        new ToolStripMenuItem { Text = "Three.1" },
                        new ToolStripMenuItem { Text = "Three.2" },
                    },
                },
            }
        };

        foreach (ToolStripMenuItem item in ContextMenuStrip.Items)
            Subscribe(item, ContextMenu_Click);
    }

    private static void Subscribe(ToolStripMenuItem item, EventHandler eventHandler)
    {
        // If leaf, add click handler
        if (item.DropDownItems.Count == 0)
            item.Click += eventHandler;
        // Otherwise recursively subscribe
        else foreach (ToolStripMenuItem subItem in item.DropDownItems)
            Subscribe(subItem, eventHandler);
    }

    void ContextMenu_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        MessageBox.Show((sender as ToolStripMenuItem).Text, "The button clicked is:");
    }
}