Question

Generalized Routines for a 10X10 array

Asked by: MikeLong

I'm trying to help a student create a game of Battleships for his computing class. He decided to create a 10 X 10 array of buttons. He's got 100 X 'on_click' handlers for each button already but he's found that, for most things he needs to do, he'd have to duplicate the code 100 times. For instance, in placing the ships, he clicks a button and, among other things, he wants to change the color of the button. But he obviously doesn't want to include the same code for each button. How, in a generalised routine called by the 'on_click' code for EACH button, can he know the name of the button that was pushed then, for instance,

SET [{the name of the clicked button}].backcolor = "blue"

"Ask the teacher" isn't an option, I'm afraid - he's teaching the class Quick Basic. My student is taking a bold leap into the 90's by trying to use a language which is somewhat more relevent today.

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Asked On
2009-08-07 at 23:12:32ID24636634
Tags

Visual Basic

Topics

Game Programming

,

Visual Studio

,

Visual Basic v1.0.5.x

Participating Experts
2
Points
250
Comments
4

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Answers

 

by: newyuppiePosted on 2009-08-08 at 06:55:12ID: 25049814

You have a lot of options for this, and it would depend on the version of .net that you are using, and the language. We know its VB by the zones you posted your question in, but the coding is done in visual studio? which version?

The generals for the options I can think of are the following, in pseudo-code:

a) On the Handles part of the sub you can add any amount of buttons to handle on 1 same sub
              Private sub Change(...) Handles button1.click, button2.click, button3.click

              (button pressed is stored in sender object)
              dim but as button = directcast(sender, button)

              but.changecolor

b) On the Load event of the form, you could add handlers to all buttons in a loop to point to the same sub (its equivalent to option A)
           for each button in mybuttons
                   addhandler mybutton.change, address of Change
           next
c) You can use 1 sub, and reference the button by it's TAG property, which you would have to set manually 1 time only, could be at design time. you find this in the properties for each button, and you put a string there, which allows you to identify each button separately. You would have to use this option with the option a) as well.
                 Private sub Change(...) Handles button1.click, button2.click, button3.click

              (button pressed is stored in sender object)
              dim but as button = directcast(sender, button)

              if but.tag = "Destroyer" then
                      but.changecolor
              else
                    ...
              end if

Hope this helps something with the general structures you would need.

NY

 

by: Idle_MindPosted on 2009-08-08 at 09:35:09ID: 25050803

If you have VB.Net 2005 (or above) then you could use a TableLayoutPanel to help you arrange the Buttons in a nice Grid.  Then you can place the TableLayoutPanel into whatever container you want on the Form and your Buttons will resize themselves automatically.

This would be an example of newyuppies method "b".  I'm creating the Buttons dyanmically at run-time and adding them to the TableLayoutPanel.  I use AddHandler() to wire them all up to the same method.  When the buttons are clicked they report their position in the Grid and disable themselves.  You can hit the Escape key to reset them.  This also demonstrates how you could iterate over all the Buttons to make decisions about the game.

You could use a Dictionary (HashTable) to associate each button with external Data to store the "state" of the game.
(or you could go with a more OOP approach and Inherit from Button and add those to the Grid instead).

Public Class Form1
 
    Private Rows As Integer = 10
    Private Columns As Integer = 10
    Private Btns(,) As Button
    Private tlp As TableLayoutPanel
 
    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        ReDim Btns(Columns - 1, Rows - 1)
        tlp = New TableLayoutPanel
        tlp.Dock = DockStyle.Fill
        tlp.RowCount = Rows
        tlp.ColumnCount = Columns
        tlp.RowStyles.Clear()
        tlp.ColumnStyles.Clear()
        For i As Integer = 1 To Rows
            tlp.RowStyles.Add(New RowStyle(SizeType.Percent, 100 / tlp.RowCount))
        Next
        For i As Integer = 1 To Columns
            tlp.ColumnStyles.Add(New ColumnStyle(SizeType.Percent, 100 / tlp.ColumnCount))
        Next
        For r As Integer = 0 To Rows - 1
            For c As Integer = 0 To Columns - 1
                Dim btn As New Button
                btn.Text = ""
                AddHandler btn.Click, AddressOf btn_Click
                Btns(c, r) = btn
                tlp.SetCellPosition(btn, New TableLayoutPanelCellPosition(c, r))
                tlp.Controls.Add(btn)
            Next
        Next
        Me.Controls.Add(tlp)
        Me.Size = New Size(500, 500)
        Me.KeyPreview = True
    End Sub
 
    Private Sub btn_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
        Dim btn As Button = CType(sender, Button)
        Dim pos As TableLayoutPanelCellPosition = tlp.GetCellPosition(btn)
        btn.Text = pos.Column & ", " & pos.Row
        btn.Enabled = False
    End Sub
 
    Private Sub Form1_KeyDown(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.KeyEventArgs) Handles Me.KeyDown
        If e.KeyCode = Keys.Escape Then
            ResetAll()
        End If
    End Sub
 
    Private Sub ResetAll()
        For c As Integer = 0 To Btns.GetUpperBound(0)
            For r As Integer = 0 To Btns.GetUpperBound(1)
                Btns(c, r).Enabled = True
                Btns(c, r).Text = ""
            Next
        Next
    End Sub
 
End Class
                                              
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by: MikeLongPosted on 2009-08-08 at 16:19:53ID: 31613199

Thanks Guys. Just a LITTLE different from COBOL ;-)
Pretty steep learning curve for me - not to mention my poor student.

 

by: Idle_MindPosted on 2009-08-08 at 16:45:20ID: 25052175

I remember learning a wee bit of COBOL long, long ago...something about defining the input "columns" as defined by start position/length and data type.  We were using Apple IIe's back then in High School...  =)

I actually still have a Quick Basic v4.5 on my computer here.  I'm not even sure it will run on my 64-bit Vista machine!  I've just kept copying it from machine to machine as I've upgraded for nostalgic purposes I guess...   =O

Let us know if we can help more with this quest...good luck!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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