Last week I had to write demo program using Windows Forms, which was a mind-trip into the past because I migrated to using WPF for all desktop apps since 2010. As an academic exercise I tried to use data binding of the UI controls to properties of a controller class. For me, Windows Forms binding works acceptably well, but it has never felt like a first-class citizen in comparison to WPF where it's deeply integrated into the framework.
I stumbled upon an old problem that has bugged me for almost 20 years ... how to bind a group of RadioButton controls to an Enum property that represents the choices. With a fresh mind I finally solved the problem, and I've created a small sample project to preserve the code for posterity. See:
DevOps Repository - RadioBindingSample
I think it's important to point out that the original Windows Forms demo program was eventually abandoned and most of the code was migrated into a nearly identical WPF program. The Forms demo was proceeding reasonably well until more complex binding was required, and I was creating custom binding logic that was mimicking what WPF already has built-in. I had reached the same decision tipping point I had previously reached around 2009 when I realised that the powerful binding techniques available in WPF outweigh any other justifications for continuing to use Windows Forms.
Most controls in the Windows Forms namespace derive from Control which has a DataBindings property which contains a collection of binding rules. Some controls such as ToolStripItem derive from Component and do not support binding, and that's when custom binding code is required and things can get messy and convoluted. This is around the tipping point to move to WPF.
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