topic Re: Access Addin Combobox from Button in ArcObjects SDK Questions

Access Addin Combobox from Button

TereseRowekamp — Fri, 20 May 2011 20:20:40 GMT

I have an addin that contains a combobox, a button and a tool. I want the button to be able to update the combobox but cannot figure out how to properly get a reference to the combobox. Can someone give me a VB example?

Thanks.

Re: Access Addin Combobox from Button

KenBuja — Mon, 23 May 2011 13:23:22 GMT

You can reference another add in component with the following code

Dim pUID As New ESRI.ArcGIS.esriSystem.UID
Dim pCommandItem As ESRI.ArcGIS.Framework.ICommandItem

pUID.Value = My.ThisAddIn.IDs.DrawTool 'DrawTool is the name of my addin tool...yours will be different
pCommandItem = m_application.Document.CommandBars.Find(pUID, False, False)

Re: Access Addin Combobox from Button

TereseRowekamp — Mon, 23 May 2011 19:18:33 GMT

Thanks for the response, Ken.

I've added the code below to my button OnClick to find the ComboBox:

        Dim pUID As New ESRI.ArcGIS.esriSystem.UID
        Dim pCommandItem As ESRI.ArcGIS.Framework.ICommandItem

        pUID.Value = My.ThisAddIn.IDs.LayerCombobox
        pCommandItem = My.ArcMap.Application.Document.CommandBars.Find(pUID, False, False)

But now what? The command item I'm looking for is a combobox. I want the button to update the contents of the combobox.

I can't access the combobox directly from the button to clear its items and re-add them, and the only method on ICommandItem that seems to be appropriate is Execute, but what gets executed for a Addin Combobox?

Re: Access Addin Combobox from Button

JeffreyHamblin — Mon, 23 May 2011 19:39:03 GMT

Taking a guess here after looking at the API docs:

ICommandItem has a Command member, which is an ICommand.

Then there is IComboBox.

And finally IComboBoxHook which has methods to work with the list.

Here is some info:
Creating combo boxes

Hope that helps.

-Jeff

Re: Access Addin Combobox from Button

TereseRowekamp — Mon, 23 May 2011 21:12:04 GMT

I figured it out. Here's what I did:

In my combobox code, I have a sub named UpdateLayerList which adds layers in the data frame that contain a required field to the combobox.

In my button code, I added the following to OnClick

        Dim cbx = ESRI.ArcGIS.Desktop.AddIns.AddIn.FromID(Of clsLayerCombobox) My.ThisAddIn.IDs.clsLayerCombobox)

        cbx.UpdateLayerList()

I had originally been close to the solution using the following
        Dim cbx As ESRI.ArcGIS.Desktop.AddIns.ComboBox = ESRI.ArcGIS.Desktop.AddIns.AddIn.FromID(Of clsLayerCombobox)(My.ThisAddIn.IDs.clsLayerCombobox)

which did not cause any compile errors, but at run-time it would cause an exit from the code without any error messages. It was when I couldn't get that to work that I posted my question and then tried the approach using ICommandItem.

When that didn't work either, I searched some more and found sample code which I used and it works great. The difference is here
Dim cbx =
instead of
Dim cbx As ESRI.ArcGIS.Desktop.AddIns.ComboBox =

I may not understand exactly what is being returned here, but the code works, my layer list can get updated from my button correctly, and I'm happy. (In case you're wondering, there had been a problem in the past trying to update the layer list by listening to an update event for changes to the map, which is why we went with a button that the user clicks to update the list).

I also used similar code to get to the text in another combobox (which I'm using as a text box on my toolbar) so it's been a good afternoon.

Thanks for your responses.

Re: Access Addin Combobox from Button

TereseRowekamp — Mon, 23 May 2011 21:15:55 GMT

One line gets wrapped and a ( was dropped, so I want to be clear. The lines I added were:

Dim cbx = ESRI.ArcGIS.Desktop.AddIns.AddIn.FromID(Of clsLayerCombobox) (My.ThisAddIn.IDs.clsLayerCombobox)

cbx.UpdateLayerList()

Re: Access Addin Combobox from Button

davidrenz — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 14:58:49 GMT

very nice, guys! thanks for posting this!

here is how i did it in C#

        protected override void OnClick()
        {


            CTargetLayer oCombo = (CTargetLayer)ESRI.ArcGIS.Desktop.AddIns.AddIn.FromID<CTargetLayer>(ThisAddIn.IDs.CTargetLayer);
            oCombo.refreshLayers();

            System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Done");
        }