I'm working on a project management system, and I have a button in each Datagrid row. The button when clicked is supposed to open the file that you have the that specific row's "path" column. how am i supposed to do this. is there a way to make each row a control or something?

code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace Blender_Project_manager
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            Maindata.Rows.Add(addname.Text, addpath.Text);
        }

        private void Maindata_CellContentClick(object sender, DataGridViewCellEventArgs e)
        {
            
        }
    }
}

I tried doing

private void Maindata_CellContentClick(object sender, DataGridViewCellEventArgs e)
{
    System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(path.ToString());
}

but it just ended up giving me an error. "The system cannot find the file specified"

CodePudding user response：

I would recommend adding a DataGridViewButtonColumn to your GridView.

Here's a YouTube tutorial on how to add and use this kind of column: Playing card images credit:

On the other hand, if they can be modified by the user, they belong in

path =        
    Path.Combine(
        Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.LocalApplicationData),
        "AppName", // Example app name
        "Images",
        "boardgamePack_v2",
        "PNG",
        "Cards",
        "shortFileName.png" // Example filename
    ));

Define row behavior

In order to "make each row a [...] something" requires a class that has public properties corresponding to the columns in the DataGridView. This class will be bound to the DataSource property of the DataGridView, for example by making a BindingList<Card>. Here's a minimal example:

class Card
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string FilePath { get; set; }
    public Image Image{ get; set; }

    internal static string ImageBaseFolder { get; set; } = string.Empty;
    public string GetFullPath() => Path.Combine(ImageBaseFolder, FilePath);
}

Making a button in grid control

In this sample a DataGridView control gets initialized in the method that loads the MainForm. Since there is no property of the class corresponding to the Open column, we will have to add it after the columns have been auto-generated from the binding. A handler is added that we can inspect to determine whether a button has been clicked.

public partial class MainForm : Form
{
    public MainForm()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        Card.ImageBaseFolder = 
            Path.Combine(
                AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory,
                "Images",
                "boardgamePack_v2",
                "PNG",
                "Cards"
            );
    }
    internal BindingList<Card> Cards { get; } = new BindingList<Card>();
    protected override void onl oad(EventArgs e)
    {
        base.OnLoad(e);
        dataGridViewCards.DataSource = Cards;

        #region F O R M A T    C O L U M N S
        Cards.Add(new Card()); // <- Auto generate columns
        dataGridViewCards.Columns["Name"].AutoSizeMode= DataGridViewAutoSizeColumnMode.Fill;
        dataGridViewCards.Columns["FilePath"].AutoSizeMode= DataGridViewAutoSizeColumnMode.Fill;
        DataGridViewImageColumn imageColumn = (DataGridViewImageColumn) dataGridViewCards.Columns["Image"];
        imageColumn.AutoSizeMode= DataGridViewAutoSizeColumnMode.Fill;
        imageColumn.ImageLayout = DataGridViewImageCellLayout.Zoom;
        imageColumn.Width = 100;
        imageColumn.HeaderText = string.Empty;

        // Add the button column (which is not auto-generated).
        dataGridViewCards.Columns.Insert(2, new DataGridViewButtonColumn
        {
            Name = "Open",
            HeaderText = "Open",
        });
        Cards.Clear();
        #endregion F O R M A T    C O L U M N S

        // Add a few cards
        Cards.Add(new Card(Value.Ten, Suit.Diamonds));
        Cards.Add(new Card(Value.Jack, Suit.Clubs));
        Cards.Add(new Card(Value.Queen, Suit.Diamonds));
        Cards.Add(new Card(Value.King, Suit.Clubs));
        Cards.Add(new Card(Value.Ace, Suit.Hearts));

        dataGridViewCards.ClearSelection();

        // Detect click on button or any other cell.
        dataGridViewCards.CellContentClick  = onAnyCellContentClick;
    }

Make a button open a file path on the same row

In the handler, retrieve the card from the bound collection by index and get the full path. You may have better luck with the Process.Start if you use the syntax shown:

    private void onAnyCellContentClick(object? sender, DataGridViewCellEventArgs e)
    {
        if (dataGridViewCards.Columns[e.ColumnIndex].Name.Equals("Open"))
        {
            var card = Cards[e.RowIndex];
            var path = card.GetFullPath();
            Process.Start("explorer.exe", path);
        }
    }
}