Order of controls in a form's Control property in C#

Question

I am having a peculiar problem with the order in which FlowLayoutPanels are added in to the form\'s controls property. This is what I tried,

I added

Answer 1

if you look at the code generated by the designer Form1.designer.cs it will look something like this:

        // 
        // Form1
        // 
        this.AutoScaleDimensions = new System.Drawing.SizeF(6F, 13F);
        this.AutoScaleMode = System.Windows.Forms.AutoScaleMode.Font;
        this.ClientSize = new System.Drawing.Size(658, 160);
        this.Controls.Add(this.flowLayoutPanel7);
        this.Controls.Add(this.flowLayoutPanel6);
        this.Controls.Add(this.flowLayoutPanel5);
        this.Controls.Add(this.flowLayoutPanel4);
        this.Controls.Add(this.flowLayoutPanel3);
        this.Controls.Add(this.flowLayoutPanel2);
        this.Controls.Add(this.flowLayoutPanel1);
        this.Name = "Form1";
        this.Text = "Form1";
        this.ResumeLayout(false);

note how it was built up you added panel 1 first then 2 etc. but as the code runs through it will add 7 first then 6.

this code will be in the InitializeComponent() function generated by the designer.

Why do you need them to run in a certain order?

I wouldn't rely on the designer to keep the order you want.. i would sort the controls my self:

        var flowpanelinOrder = from n in this.Controls.Cast()
                               where n is FlowLayoutPanel
                               orderby int.Parse(n.Tag.ToString())
                               select n;

        /* non linq
        List flowpanelinOrder = new List();
        foreach (Control c in this.Controls)
        {
            if (c is FlowLayoutPanel) flowpanelinOrder.Add(c);                
        }
        flowpanelinOrder.Sort();
         * */

        foreach (FlowLayoutPanel aDaysControl in flowpanelinOrder)
        {
            MessageBox.Show(aDaysControl.Tag.ToString());
        }