Comments on: Using the Command Pattern in Windows Forms clients

By: Exorsus

Exorsus — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:42:38 +0000

n fact it’s so useful and so powerful that I’m a little disappointed that Microsoft didn’t provide something like it in the framework itself => Smart Client Software Factory ….

By: Rybolt

Rybolt — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:28:55 +0000

Thanks for giving a concrete example. I asked myself the same questions you did , (wire up in event handler or subclass button).

This is refreshing compared to all the other, over simplified examples on the webs.

Using INotifyPropertyChanged is good idea, yet another pattern (i.e. Observer). Be cautious to not raise OnPropertyChange on non-UI thread though.

Good day.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:32:50 +0000

This technique plays quite nicely with System.ComponentModel.IExtenderProvider too. You can use that interface to define a component which decorates your user interface controls with command keys, which reference back into a Dictionary of Command objects.

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:11:12 +0000

Any guidance for binding these commands to a menustrip/menuitem for enabled/disabled?

By: Using Commands in BabySmash | a geek trapped in a cool guy’s body

Using Commands in BabySmash | a geek trapped in a cool guy’s body — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:27:08 +0000

[...] Posts StaticResource does not mean staticRedoing the Options Dialog in BabySmashUsing the Command Pattern in Windows Forms clientsThe Missing .NET #4: Cue Banner in WPF (I mean, Watermark in WPF)The Missing .NET #3: An [...]

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 23 May 2006 08:37:00 +0000

Tommy,

You're absolutely right.

That's a very effective way to create commands that are always enabled or are local to a single form, with access to all of the form's variables.

However, it wouldn't scale to business objects that are shared across forms. Suppose I had an app that had a notify icon with a context menu and a main form with two ways of performing an action that manipulated a remote object on a different machine. A full-fledged Command object would scale a lot better in that scenario.

By: Tommy Carlier

Tommy Carlier — Sat, 20 May 2006 11:20:00 +0000

To make simple commands without having to make a separate class for each command, you can create a default command that takes a delegate, like this:

public class ActionCommand : Command
{
ThreadStart fFunc;
public ActionCommand(ThreadStart func) { fFunction = func; }
public override void Execute() { fFunction(); }
}

And to use it:
Command myCommand = new ActionCommand(delegate
{
// code of the command
});