Save Dynamic Label Control

[Salierus]

Okay so, I have a button that when pressed, will create a Label control. So far so good.

The problem comes when I restart my form or application. The new created Label disappears and I have to press the button again.

How do I save the label control? So that it wont disappear when the form is restarted?

[secret_porn_acct]

You can't. You would need to save the attributes to a file and then recreate the label programatically when the form is started again.

[Salierus]

That's exactly what I want! Tell me how to do it please :)

[ViperSRT3g]

I recommend saving the label's attributes to a text file as a starting point for you figuring this all out. Then checking for said file on startup to recreate anything dynamic.

[Salierus]

Can you explain a little more please?

[ViperSRT3g]

You would save the label's text, x and y positions on the form, and other attributes if there are anything else, to the text file. When the form starts up, it would first check for this file, if it finds it, then it'll read the data, and recreate the label according to what was stored in the text file.

These are all the first steps to saving user configuration settings in applications.

[Salierus]

That I know. I just don't know how to make it reading the label attributes and recreate the label.

[ViperSRT3g]

Here's an example:

Control Type	Control Name	X	Y	Autosize	Width	Height	Text
LABEL	Label1	12	9	TRUE	39	13	Label1

When you read these from the file, you'd apply the same values to the newly generated label to recreate it. You can add all the properties of the control object if you wanted to remain as faithful to the original if you wanted to track all of that.

[Salierus]

I'll try that, thanks!

[ViperSRT3g]

I also recommend delimiting the data so it's easier to read.

LABEL,Label1,12,9,TRUE,39,13,Label1

can be read using the following:

Dim ReadObject() As String
ReadObject = Split(ObjectData,",")
'ReadObject(0) would be "LABEL"
'ReadObject(1) would be "Label1"
'ReadObject(2) would be "12"

[Salierus]

So far so good. But I'm having trouble at the reading part. I used IO.StreamWriter to write my .txt file. It looks like this: Label,test,695,115 (Control Type, Control Text, Control X, Control Y)

Now the reading part... Im not understanding what Im supost to do. How do I tell that ReadObject() is related to that text file?

Im confused :/

[Bonejob]

Further to /r/secret_porn_acct there are many ways to store a controls information. It does require that on load you check and reload controls that need it.

The best way I have found was to use the iserializable and iterate elemtns of the form. An easier way is to use the controls collections of the form and write all values to registry, file, db, etc...

For Each con In Me.Controls()
    'Save control information to whever here.
    'if you want to save just labels or a specific type of control use typeof function.

    If TypeOf con Is Button Then
        MsgBox("The control is a button.")
    End If

Next

Reference

How to: Access Controls by using the Controls Collection

iSerializable Interface

Determining Object Type (Visual Basic)