Get a Windows Forms control by name in C#

Question

Use the Control.ControlCollection.Find method.

Try this:

this.Controls.Find()

string name = "the_name_you_know";

Control ctn = this.Controls[name];

ctn.Text = "Example...";

Control GetControlByName(string Name)
{
    foreach(Control c in this.Controls)
        if(c.Name == Name)
            return c;

    return null;
}

Disregard this, I reinvent wheels.

Assuming you have the menuStrip object and the menu is only one level deep, use:

ToolStripMenuItem item = menuStrip.Items
    .OfType<ToolStripMenuItem>()
    .SelectMany(it => it.DropDownItems.OfType<ToolStripMenuItem>())
    .SingleOrDefault(n => n.Name == "MyMenu");

For deeper menu levels add more SelectMany operators in the statement.

if you want to search all menu items in the strip then use

ToolStripMenuItem item = menuStrip.Items
    .Find("MyMenu",true)
    .OfType<ToolStripMenuItem>()
    .Single();

However, make sure each menu has a different name to avoid exception thrown by key duplicates.

To avoid exceptions you could use FirstOrDefault instead of SingleOrDefault / Single, or just return a sequence if you might have Name duplicates.

this.Controls.Find(name, searchAllChildren) doesn't find ToolStripItem because ToolStripItem is not a Control

  using SWF = System.Windows.Forms;
  using NUF = NUnit.Framework;
  namespace workshop.findControlTest {
     [NUF.TestFixture]
     public class FormTest {
        [NUF.Test]public void Find_menu() {
           // == prepare ==
           var fileTool = new SWF.ToolStripMenuItem();
           fileTool.Name = "fileTool";
           fileTool.Text = "File";

           var menuStrip = new SWF.MenuStrip();
           menuStrip.Items.Add(fileTool);

           var form = new SWF.Form();
           form.Controls.Add(menuStrip);

           // == execute ==
           var ctrl = form.Controls.Find("fileTool", true);

           // == not found! ==
           NUF.Assert.That(ctrl.Length, NUF.Is.EqualTo(0)); 
        }
     }
  }