adding child nodes in treeview

Question

Hello;-)

I'm new to C# and don't have any programming experience. But I've finish a C# basics. Now I would like to design a simple tree view by adding parent node and child node. And here is a part of the code: I would like to add a second child for the Second node, I'm quite stuck here and don't know what's next. I would appreciate your help here. Thanks;-)

    private void addParentNode_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        string yourParentNode;
        yourParentNode = textBox1.Text.Trim();
        treeView2.Nodes.Add(yourParentNode);
    }

    private void addChildNode_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        string yourChildNode;
        yourChildNode = textBox1.Text.Trim();
        treeView2.Nodes[0].Nodes.Add(yourChildNode);
    }

Sorry I wasn't clear, I'm not sure if I really need this one here: //treeView1.BeginUpdate(); //treeView1.Nodes.Clear();

What I'm trying to do, is to add Parent Nodes and child node. In my code, I can add several Parent Nodes, but if I want to add a child node, it only add in the first parent node. I want that if I add a child node, I want to add it to the second parent or third parent.

In my code I only use one treeview here which names as treeview2 Here is the screenshot: http://www.mypicx.com/05192009/error/

this is how my final code looks like: Before I put the else, I'm getting an error if I don't select anything. So I made it that way that if there is nothing selected it will add the "child node" to the "default node" or (parent1 node). It seems to work good. Thanks guys;-)

    //This is for adding a parent node
    private void addParentNode_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        treeView2.BeginUpdate();

        string yourParentNode;
        yourParentNode = textBox1.Text.Trim();
        treeView2.Nodes.Add(yourParentNode);
        treeView2.EndUpdate();
    }

    //This is for adding child node
    private void addChildNode_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        if (treeView2.SelectedNode != null)
        {
            string yourChildNode;
            yourChildNode = textBox1.Text.Trim();

            treeView2.SelectedNode.Nodes.Add(yourChildNode);
            treeView2.ExpandAll();
        }
        //This is for adding the child node to the default node(parent 1 node)
        else
        {
            string yourChildNode;
            yourChildNode = textBox1.Text.Trim();
            treeView2.Nodes[0].Nodes.Add(yourChildNode);
        }

Additional question, Are there any other ways on how the code be better? Because here, I declare the string "yourChildNode" twice. One in the if and other one in the else, are there any simplification? Thanks:-)

Answer 1

It's not that bad, but you forgot to call treeView2.EndUpdate() in your addParentNode_Click() method.
You can also call treeView2.ExpandAll() at the end of your addChildNode_Click() method to see your child node directly.

private void addParentNode_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
  treeView2.BeginUpdate();
  //treeView2.Nodes.Clear();
  string yourParentNode;
  yourParentNode = textBox1.Text.Trim();
  treeView2.Nodes.Add(yourParentNode);
  treeView2.EndUpdate();
}

private void addChildNode_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
  if (treeView2.SelectedNode != null) {
    string yourChildNode;
    yourChildNode = textBox1.Text.Trim();
    treeView2.SelectedNode.Nodes.Add(yourChildNode);
    treeView2.ExpandAll();
  }
}

I don't know if it was a mistake or not but there was 2 TreeViews. I changed it to only 1 TreeView...

EDIT: Answer to the additional question:
You can declare the variable holding the child node name outside of the if clause:

private void addChildNode_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
  var childNode = textBox1.Text.Trim();
  if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(childNode)) {
    TreeNode parentNode = treeView2.SelectedNode ?? treeView2.Nodes[0];
    if (parentNode != null) {
      parentNode.Nodes.Add(childNode);
      treeView2.ExpandAll();
    }
  }
}

Note: see http://www.yoda.arachsys.com/csharp/csharp2/nullable.html for info about the ?? operator.

Answer 2

Example of adding child nodes:

private void AddExampleNodes()
        {
            TreeNode node;

            node = treeView1.Nodes.Add("Master node");
            node.Nodes.Add("Child node");
            node.Nodes.Add("Child node 2");

            node = treeView1.Nodes.Add("Master node 2");
            node.Nodes.Add("mychild");
            node.Nodes.Add("mychild");
        }

Answer 3

It looks like you are only adding children to the first parent treeView2.Nodes[0].Nodes.Add(yourChildNode)
Depending on how you want it to behave, you need to be explicit about the parent node you wish to add the child to.
For Example, from your screenshot, if you wanted to add the child to the second node you would need:
treeView2.Nodes[1].Nodes.Add(yourChildNode)
If you want to add the children to the currently selected node, get the TreeView.SelectedNode and add the children to it.

Try TreeView to get an idea of how the class operates. Unfortunately the msdn documentation is pretty light on the code samples...

I'm missing a whole lot of safety checks here!

Something like (untested):

private void addChildNode_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
  TreeNode ParentNode = treeView2.SelectedNode;  // for ease of debugging!
  if (ParentNode != null) {
    ParentNode.Nodes.Add("Name Of Node");
    treeView2.ExpandAll();   // so you can see what's been added              
    treeView2.Invalidate();  // requests a redraw
  }
}