Print screen shot of every form in a folder

[trisuglow]

I want to create a document (probably MS Word) containing screen shots of every form in each of my company's projects.

There is no one .sln that contains all the .proj files. However, the .proj files are all in one directory structure.

We're using VS2012, so the macro functionality from previous versions is not available to us.

Ideally I would like each screenshot to be associated with, say, the filename of the .frm so they can be easily identified by reviewers.

I realise that the screen shots will probably be how the form looks in the IDE, rather than how it looks at runtime. This is ok.

We are using a mixture of VB.NET and C# forms.

Does any one have any ideas that might help me?

[dday9]

Take a look at this thread. What that does is store files with their icons in a listview. You could filter the icons by just the extension(s) that you need. Even more so you could start the process, by handling the listview's double-click event and calling Process.Start(<file name>). I wager it's much easier to do that than trying to create a word document of some screenshots.

[Grimfort]

You can write some code to processes the assembly looking for any objects that inherit from the Form type, and then create an instance of the form and attempt to display it. This may cause issues if a form is dependant on data or a framework, like a docking system. Possibly you can create the interface and show it, without running the standard events (I've never tried), such as calling the InitializeComponent, method directly. Could at least be a start!

[Grimfort]

For example, here I process all types looking for ones that use my own Interface (I've changed the name to a string here). I look in the .exe file, and also in sub-assemblies, but you may not need that.

'Ask the entry assembly (main .exe program) for its types
Dim fullTypeList() As Type = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly.GetTypes

For Each typTest As Type In fullTypeList
     If Not typTest.GetInterface("MyInterface)) Is Nothing Then
      End If
Next



'Now ask for each assembly loaded by the entry assembly, and then in turn process each one of those
Dim subAssemList() As AssemblyName = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly.GetReferencedAssemblies
For Each subAssem As AssemblyName In subAssemList
    Dim partTypeList() As Type = System.Reflection.Assembly.Load(subAssem).GetTypes
    For Each typTest As Type In partTypeList
         If Not typTest.GetInterface("MyInterface)) Is Nothing Then
         End If
   Next
Next

[trisuglow]

You can write some code to processes the assembly looking for any objects that inherit from the Form type, and then create an instance of the form and attempt to display it. This may cause issues if a form is dependant on data or a framework, like a docking system. Possibly you can create the interface and show it, without running the standard events (I've never tried), such as calling the InitializeComponent, method directly. Could at least be a start!

Thanks, Grimfort.

I've made a start using that approach. As you predicted, I'm having lots of trouble with forms that area dependant on data being passed into their constructors. I've used some more reflection to mock the necessary constructor parameters, which works in some cases.

Here's the code I'm using to capture a screenshot and write it to a bitmap on disk. Works nicely where it works...

                            frm = DirectCast(Activator.CreateInstance(formType, args), Form)

                            If frm IsNot Nothing Then


                                frm.Show()
                                frm.Top = 0
                                frm.Left = 0
                                frm.Refresh()
                                Application.DoEvents()

                                Dim bmp As New System.Drawing.Bitmap(frm.Width, frm.Height)
                                frm.DrawToBitmap(bmp, frm.Bounds)
                                Application.DoEvents()
                                bmp.Save("C:\GenScreenShot\" & formType.Name & ".bmp")

                                frm.Close()
                                frm = Nothing
                            End If

[trisuglow]

Take a look at this thread. What that does is store files with their icons in a listview. You could filter the icons by just the extension(s) that you need. Even more so you could start the process, by handling the listview's double-click event and calling Process.Start(<file name>). I wager it's much easier to do that than trying to create a word document of some screenshots.

dday9, thank you for the suggestion. It looks like that thread is more to do with executable files rather than individual WinForms. I'm beginning to thing (see my reply to Grimfort) that I've taken on rather too much of a job here! I'm getting some results out though, so it's a start.