John,

Generics might be the perfect solution to your problem. Here's an example of how to use Generics in a method (not tested, just off the top of my head):

public T GetButton<T> where T : ToolBarButton, ToolStripButton, new()
{
    T Mybutton = new T();
    // etc.etc.etc.
}

When writing a Generic method, something one of our developers discovered while learning this, is to not use "T" as you see in just about every example you ever find online, but use something more descriptive so it's more obvious what kind of object type you might be expecting in the method, something like this:

public BUTTONTYPE GetButton<BUTTONTYPE > where BUTTONTYPE : ToolBarButton, ToolStripButton, new()
{
    BUTTONTYPE Mybutton = new BUTTONTYPE();
    // etc.etc.etc.
}

To be honest, I'm not sure how many properties ToolBarButton and ToolStripButton share, so I don't know whether this will do the trick for you or not, but it is a good example of some things you can do with Generics.


~~Bonnie



>Hi,
>I am using DevExpress ribbon control as my form toolbar. I want to implement the behavour like maintenance toolstrip to it. In order to reuse my code in casde i want to use other control as my maintenance toolbar in the future, I planned to write an controller/behavour class to control the logic.
>
>My current problem is, I need some way to access those button (ribbon control bar item/maintenance toolstrip button) in order to disable/enable them. I was thinking to have property to store object reference of each button accordingly. I used "control" as my property type. However, I might not able to access certain property that exist in toolbar button such as tooltiptext if I do so.
>
>Anyway I can "set" tyoe to property during runtime? I tried to take a look at generic, but I only see it work for List. Is it?
>
>Ady ideas?
>
>Thank you

Bonnie Berent DeWitt
NET/C# MVP since 2003

http://geek-goddess-bonnie.blogspot.com