Build Menustrip at runtime

[robertybob]

Hi,

I am trying to dynamically build up a menustrip at runtime from data in a string such as ...

Item1~Item2~Item3~Item4

where each item needs to be a subitem of the previous one in the menu.

I can convert the string to an array, loop through the items and get the data required.

However, I want to be able to efficiently add the sub items to their parent without continually looping through all the item names in the entire menu to see if and where the item already exists.

I know the following code will work but it has to be wildly inefficient when dealing with alot of entries as it looks through the entire menu system each time.

For j = 0 To myArray.Count - 1
Dim thisid = myArray(j)
Dim itemfound = 0
Dim additem As New ToolStripMenuItem() With {.Text = itemid, .Name = j}
For Each menuitem As ToolStripDropDownItem In mainMenu.DropDownItems
If menuitem.Name = j Then
menuitem.DropDownItems.Add(additem)
itemfound = 1
Exit For
End If
Next
' if not found then add it ... etc
 

I would have thought a better way is to only look at the items in Item1 when adding Item2 (if no match then add it), then only look at items in Item2 for Item3 etc.

What I can't (yet again) work out is how to change the ForEach line to target the check for existing items in the previous item only. That is...

For Each menuitem As ToolStripDropDownItem In <PREVITEM>.DropDownItems

where <PREVITEM> is Item2 when looking to add Item3.

Does this make any sense at all? :)

Thanks

[robertybob]

Actually, typing this out might have helped :)

Am currently trying DirectCast(mainMenu.Items(previtem), ToolStripDropDownItem).DropDownItems to see it thats it.

Will let you know it solved

[robertybob]

Ok I have isolated this problem to being able to dynamically determine the parent item.

So for the first item added I can use

For Each subitem As ToolStripDropDownItem In DirectCast(mainMenu.Items(Item1), ToolStripDropDownItem).DropDownItems
 

For the next one I need to alter 'mainMenu.Items' to 'Item1.DropDownItems' and so on...

Not sure how best to do that dynamically.