Programmatically created controls only showing first control

Question

C# novice here. Creating a little app that will monitor whether there's sufficient space on a backup drive to accommodate scheduled backups. After local drive discovery a window will be shown which lists found drives with associated details per the depicted "mock-up":

NOTE: mock-up detail controls are Visible = false;.

The objective is to dynamically build the details at run-time based on discovered disks enabling the user to select the drives to monitor, whether the monitored drive is a backup destination or source and enter a n historical backup compression factor. When run I'm only getting the first defined control:

Following is the code:

private readonly static List<Drives4DB> FoundDrives = ConnectionConfig.Connects.GetDrives();  
  
private void SetupMonitoring_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)  
{  
 int drvs = FoundDrives.Count;  
  
 CheckBox[] drvChkBx;  
 Label[] nameLBL;  
 Label[] labelLBL;  
 ComboBox[] roleCBX;  
 Label[] typeLBL;  
 Label[] sizeLBL;  
 Label[] freeLBL;  
 Label[] usedLBL;  
 MaskedTextBox[] factor;  
  
 drvChkBx = new CheckBox[drvs];  
 nameLBL = new Label[drvs];  
 labelLBL = new Label[drvs];  
 // etc.  
  
 int drvChkBxStart_X = 22;  
 int drvChkBxStart_Y = 142;  
 int nameLBLstart_X = 42;  
 int nameLBLstart_Y = 144;  
 int labelLBLstart_X = 60;  
 int labelLBLstart_Y = 144;  
 // etc.  
  
 Console.WriteLine($"\n\n \"{drvs}\" internal drives found\n");  
  
 int vertSpace = 0;  
  
 for (int i = 0; i < drvs; i++)  
 {  
 foreach (var drv in FoundDrives)  
 {  
 if (drv.id_DrvBase == i + 1)  
 {  
 drvChkBx[i] = new CheckBox();  
 drvChkBx[i].Name = $"{drvChkBx}{i}";  
  
 nameLBL[i] = new Label();  
 nameLBL[i].Name = $"{nameLBL}{i}";  
 nameLBL[i].Text = $"{drv.name}";  
  
 // etc.  
 }  
 }  
 }  
  
 for (int i = 0; i < drvs; i++)  
 {  
 drvChkBx[i].Enabled = true;  
 drvChkBx[i].Visible = true;  
 drvChkBx[i].Location = new Point(drvChkBxStart_X, drvChkBxStart_Y + vertSpace);  
  
 nameLBL[i].Enabled = true;  
 nameLBL[i].Visible = true;  
 nameLBL[i].Location = new Point(nameLBLstart_X, nameLBLstart_Y + vertSpace);  
  
 labelLBL[i].Enabled = true;  
 labelLBL[i].Visible = true;  
 labelLBL[i].Location = new Point(labelLBLstart_X, labelLBLstart_Y + vertSpace);  
 // labelLBL[i].Size = new Size(125, 20);  
  
 this.Controls.Add(drvChkBx[i]);  
 this.Controls.Add(nameLBL[i]);  
 this.Controls.Add(labelLBL[i]);  
  
 vertSpace += 25;  
 }  
  
}  
  

NOTE: The example code found breaks the creation of the controls and display definition into two separate "for" loops but I don't understand why. I've tried this both as presented and using a single "for" with the same result.

All expected data is available (output from WriteLine):
"8" internal drives found
C:\ 00 NVMe_fresh_OS
D:\ 02 Data
E:\ 03 Games
F:\ 04 Internal Backups
G:\ 07 Virtual PCs
H:\ 05 NVMe Wrkg Space
J:\ 01 SATA_upgrade_OS
K:\ 06 SATA Wrkg Space

Checking control array content via debug/breakpoint verifies the arrays have the correct elements.

Why is this only picking up/showing the first control of a row?[

Thanx in advance for yur help.

Answer 1

Thanks to both folks who provided suggestions that furthered progress .....

The way I got it to work (using a tableLayoutPanel for control placement) was to keep controls instance creation consolidated but give each control its own for loop (in case another novice comes looking):

private void SetupMonitoring_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{
 int drvs = FoundDrives.Count;

 // modify tableLayoutPanel for control placement
 DrivesTable.RowCount = drvs;
 for (int i = 0; i < drvs - 1; i++)
    DrivesTable.RowStyles.Add(new RowStyle(SizeType.Absolute, 25F));
 DrivesTable.Size = new Size(530, drvs * 25);

 CheckBox[] drvChkBx = new CheckBox[drvs];
 Label[] nameLBL = new Label[drvs];
 Label[] labelLBL = new Label[drvs];
 ComboBox[] roleCBX = new ComboBox[drvs];
 Label[] typeLBL = new Label[drvs];
 Label[] sizeLBL = new Label[drvs];
 Label[] freeLBL = new Label[drvs];
 Label[] usedLBL = new Label[drvs];
 MaskedTextBox[] factor = new MaskedTextBox[drvs];
 SuspendLayout();

 int vertSpace = 0;

 for (int i = 0; i < drvs; i++)
 {
 var drv = FoundDrives[i];
 drvChkBx[i] = new CheckBox();
 drvChkBx[i].Name = $"{drvChkBx}{i}";

 nameLBL[i] = new Label();
 nameLBL[i].Name = $"{nameLBL}{i}";
 nameLBL[i].Text = $"{drv.name}";

 // etc.
 }

 for (int i = 0; i < drvs; i++)
 {
 drvChkBx[i].Size = new Size(20, 20);
 DrivesTable.Controls.Add(drvChkBx[i], 0, i);
 }

 for (int i = 0; i < drvs; i++)
 {
 nameLBL[i].Anchor = AnchorStyles.Bottom;
 nameLBL[i].ForeColor = Color.FromArgb(0, 0, 192);
 nameLBL[i].Size = new Size(30, 20);

 DrivesTable.Controls.Add(nameLBL[i], 1, i);
 }
 // etc.
}

Answer 2

Hi ArtHansen-4605,
First, you can try to change the following code：

drvChkBx[i].Location = new Point(drvChkBxStart_X, drvChkBxStart_Y + vertSpace);  

to:

drvChkBx[i].Location = new System.Drawing.Point(drvChkBxStart_X, drvChkBxStart_Y + vertSpace);   
drvChkBx[i].Size = new System.Drawing.Size(30, 15);  

More details you can refer to MSDN example of how to programmatically add controls to Windows forms at run time.
And I guess it may also be caused by multiple controls overlapping, you can also try to autosize it by setting its AutoSize property to true.

labelLBL[i].AutoSize = true;  

Best Regards,
Daniel Zhang

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