Is it possible to add the same instance of a Windows Forms control to multiple containers?

Question

What I am trying to accomplish:

I have a wizard with multiple pages. On each page, I need to have a ToolStripDropDownButton, each of which has the exact same functionality and UI. The entire wizard and all pages are created before any of them are displayed. The ToolStripDropDownButton is displayed within the bounds of the page. When the user changes the value of the ToolStripDropDownButton on one page, it should be updated on the others.

The alternative solution I am trying to avoid:

Having a separate instance of the control on each page which subscribes to an event fired when any of the the other controls' value is changed. There is nothing wrong with this solution beyond the complication of it.

What I have tried:

I created the ToolStripDropDownButton as a static member of the wizard page class, instantiating it at the first request and adding the same object to each page as it is created. This results in the ToolStripDropDownButton appearing on no page (presumably because I have added it to multiple controls and Winforms doesn't know how to handle that).

If it is not possible to add the same control instance to multiple containers, is there a better way to accomplish the task than raising and subscribing to events?

Answer 1

You can't do what you are wanting, controls can only have 1 Parent.

A workaround would be: Move the control from one page to the next on the VisibleChanged event of each page. From the user's view, the control exists on every page, but really it is being moved to the 'current' page as it becomes visible.