MenuItem AutoClose = false on dynamically generated Toolstrip Menu

Question

So, following this question, I have been attempting to deal with a way to stop a drop down menu from closing when I click on an item.

In the linked question, one such answer suggested that I set the AutoClose property to false. I did so, and this did achieve what I asked. However, the way I implemented it means that the Drop Down menu is forced open.

Form Code:

public void ToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    ToolStripMenuItem item = sender as ToolStripMenuItem;
    if (item != null)
        item.Checked = !item.Checked;

    item.DropDown.AutoClose = false;
}

I know why this is - the implementation means that there is no way to allow the AutoClose to be set to true. However, since the menuItems are dynamically generated in a different class, I don't have any events or objects to refer to.

This code copies the menu structure from the Main Form, and copies it across to recreate it in the "Profile View" (to set what users can/cannot see).

Controller Code:

private void PopulateProfileView(User_AccessProfilesView view, Menu_View mainMenu)
{
    // Disabled Items are not able to be set, becasue they are either always visible for every user,
    // or only visible to specific users (Administrator)
    List<string> disabledMenuItems = new List<string>();
    List<string> disabledSubMenuItems = new List<string>();

    bool error = false;          
    bool subError = false;
    _groupDictionary = new Dictionary<string, List<string>>();

    // Populate the disallowed Menu Items from the Main Menu,
    // and then add the items specific to the Profile View
    disabledMenuItems.Add("File");
    disabledMenuItems.Add("Administrator");
    disabledMenuItems.Add("Help");
    disabledMenuItems.Add("Te&rminations");
    disabledMenuItems.AddRange(mainMenu.disallowedMenuItems);

    // Populate the disallowed Sub Menu Items from the Main Menu,
    // and then add the items specific to the Profile View
    disabledSubMenuItems.Add("View All");
    disabledSubMenuItems.AddRange(mainMenu.disallowedSubItems);

    foreach (ToolStripMenuItem item in mainMenu.mainMenuStrip.Items)
    {
        ToolStripMenuItem menuItem = new ToolStripMenuItem(item.Text);

        if (error == false)
        {
            // Add to the menu bar
            view.menuStrip.Items.Add(menuItem);
            menuItem.Click += new EventHandler(view.ToolStripMenuItem_Click);

            foreach (ToolStripItem dropItem in item.DropDownItems)
            {
                if (dropItem is ToolStripMenuItem)
                {
                    ToolStripMenuItem menuDropItem = new ToolStripMenuItem(dropItem.Text);

                    // Same concerns as above with regards to doing a substring check
                    // to decide if menu items should be excluded or not.
                    foreach (string s1 in disabledSubMenuItems)
                    {
                        if (!menuDropItem.Text.Contains(s1))
                        {
                            subError = false;
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            subError = true;
                            break;
                        }
                    }

                    if (!subError)
                    {
                        menuItem.DropDownItems.Add(menuDropItem);
                        menuDropItem.Click += new EventHandler(view.ToolStripMenuItem_Click);
                    }
                }
                else if (dropItem is ToolStripSeparator)
                { menuItem.DropDownItems.Add(new ToolStripSeparator()); }
            }

How do I implement the AutoClose property correctly so that if I click on a menu item, the menu won't close, but if I click on the menu header, or move the mouse away from the menu, or select another menu (either by click or mouse over), the menu does Close?

---

Apologies if this is a simple issue - I have been out of the game for roughly a year, and have to jump back into this and I am having a little bit of an issue following everything properly.

Answer 1

To solve the problem you can follow these steps:

1. You should determine which menu items should keep open even after clicking on them. I'll use "keepopen" as value of Tag property for those items that should be kept open after clicking.

2. For the menu item which contains those items, you need to get DropDown property and and handle its ItemClicked event and in the ItemClicked event, you should check if the item which is clicked is one of those "keepopen" items, then set DropDown.AutoClose of the container menu item to false. For other items, set it to true. It will prevent closing those "keepopen" item when clicking, while let other items close by click.

3. You should handle CheckedChanged event of those "keepopen" items and set DropDown.AutoClose to true. While using the Click event handler we prevented the items from closing, here we enable the closing again, so if the user click outside of the menu, it will close.

Then this would be the result, look at mouse clicks:

Example

As an example, create an empty form and handle its Load event and use following code. When you click on SubMenu1, SubMenu2 or SubMenu3, they will just get checked or unchecked without closing the menu. But of you click outside the menu or on SubMenu4, it will close the menu.

const string keepopen = "keepopen";
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    var menuStrip = new MenuStrip() { Dock = DockStyle.Top };
    this.Controls.Add(menuStrip);
    var menu1 = (ToolStripMenuItem)menuStrip.Items.Add("Menu1");
    menu1.DropDownItems.Add(new ToolStripMenuItem("Submenu1")
    { Tag = keepopen, CheckOnClick = true });
    menu1.DropDownItems.Add(new ToolStripMenuItem("Submenu2")
    { Tag = keepopen, CheckOnClick = true });
    menu1.DropDownItems.Add(new ToolStripMenuItem("Submenu3")
    { Tag = keepopen, CheckOnClick = true });
    menu1.DropDownItems.Add("-");
    menu1.DropDownItems.Add(new ToolStripMenuItem("Submenu4"));
    menu1.DropDown.ItemClicked += (obj, args) =>
    {
        if (args.ClickedItem.Tag == keepopen)
            menu1.DropDown.AutoClose = false;
        else
            menu1.DropDown.AutoClose = true;
    };
    menu1.DropDownItems.OfType<ToolStripMenuItem>()
        .Where(x => x.Tag == keepopen)
        .ToList().ForEach(x =>
        {
            x.CheckedChanged += (obj, args) =>
            {
                menu1.DropDown.AutoClose = true;
            };
        });
}