Close a control by name

Getting Started
1

Is there a way to reference and close a control (basic, custom or otherwise) by name? For example:
CloseControlByName(“UserNameField”)

Controls names have to be unique in the editor I see most questions saying to create a global array of added things and then iterating through it. Is this the only way?
I tried deleting a custom container control but it doesn’t find the name (using the exact name):

// Remove Control  RemoveCard(cardName as String)
For i As Integer = 0 To cardArray.Count
  Select Case cardArray(i).name
  Case cardName
    cardArray(i).Close
  End Select
Next

Seems like there are special ways to interact with every object type since I added this with:
b.EmbedWithin(window, pos_x, pos_y)
instead of:
MainScreen.AddControl(b)

Which has been confusing when looking at documentation.

2

Each window has an iterable element called controls. You could do this:

For Each c As DesktopControl In Self.Controls
  If c.name = "SomeName" Then
     c.Close
  End If
Next

If you are using a Container control you would have to deal with the controls that are within it in a separate method. It too has a Controls set. ContainerControls are effectively another ‘window’ embedded within the real window, rather than just a group of controls.

You can access the controls as

Self.ContainerName.ControlName.property

However, that would only work if the scope of the control allows code outside of the container to see it.

3

Could I close the container as a whole? Or do the controls in the container need to be individually closed? Can I loop through the indexes and handle controls based off of their type like DesktopControl and Containers? Your initial code hit an illegalCastException due to this.

This didn’t work for me:

For i As Integer= 0 In MainScreen.ControlCount
  If(MainScreen.ControlAt(i).Name= cardName)
    MainScreen.ControlAt(i).Close
  End If
Next
4

Yes, you can close a container:

Self.ContainerName.Close

No need to close the parts within.

You can work with types as follows:

For Each c As DesktopControl In Self.Controls
  If c IsA DesktopTextField Then
    DesktopTextField(c).Enabled = False
  End If
Next

or

For Each c As DesktopControl In Self.Controls
  Select case c
     case IsA DesktopContainer
         // Do something
     case IsA DesktopTextField
         DesktopTextField(c).Enabled = False
     else
         // Do this
  End select
Next
2 Likes
5

If my container name on the window is “card_x” where x is the card number then what would this look like?
c in your examples has no property ContainerName and just calling close gives me the Illegal cast error. Apologies for all the questions I appreciate your time!

6

If the code is in the window somewhere it would look like:

card_x.Close

If the code is on the container then

Self.close

If the container is part of a control set then you would have to include the index:

card_x( 1 ).Close