Custom Classes

1. D101 Software Development Custom Classes

2. Content • Review • Last weeks stuff (FileIO, Methods) • Custom Classes • Assignment Details

3. Learning Outcomes • Describe the five (5) parts of a custom class: • Name • Variables • Constructor • Properties • Methods • Implement a custom class • Describe the difference between public and private access modifiers • Explain the use of a custom class

4. Review • Week 8 Practical

5. Review • Set Box button • Calls the ChangeBox method • Passes in three strings as parameters • Height, Width, and Colour cbxColour.Text also works

6. Review • ChangeBox Method

7. Review

8. Review • Week 8 Practical

9. Review • Save Button • Calls the SaveSetting method • Passes in three strings as parameters • Height, Width, Colour

10. Review • SaveSetting Method

11. Review

12. Review • Week 8 Practical

13. Review • Load Presets Button • Clear the list box (gets rid of old presets) • Calls the LoadPresets method • There are zero parameters

14. Review • Load Presets Method Declare and Initialise a StreamReader object While we’re not at the end of the file Read a line from the file Then add it to the list box

15. Review • Use Preset Button

16. Review • Declare a string called preset, set it to equal the selected item from the list box • E.g. 10,50,Orange • Split the string preset at every comma and put the resulting strings into an array called parameters • E.g. { “10” “50” “Orange” } • Call the ChangeBox method and pass in the parameters array elements • E.g. parameters[0], parameters[1], parameters[2]

17. Review

18. Custom Classes Making our own objects

19. First Consider This • What if our box presets had more than three bits of information? • How would we display this information in the list box? • What if there were 13 bits of information? • Would we want a SaveSetting method with a 13 parameter signature? Ideally, we would want to encapsulate all that information into a single object

20. Custom Classes • So far we’ve used • Buttons • Labels • Text Boxes • List Boxes • Combo Boxes • Picture Boxes • Group Boxes • Check Boxes • Strings • Ints • Booleans • StreamReaders • StreamWriters • Colors • … These are all predefined classes that are built in to C#i.e. someone else made them up

21. Custom Classes • C# also allows us to make up our own classes • E.g. • Instead of passing around individual height, width and colour values for a preset box, we could write a PresetBox class which will let us keep those values in a single object • myPresetBox.Height • myPresetBox.Width • myPresetBox.Colour

22. Custom Classes • How to create a custom class • Click the ‘Add New Item’ button

23. Custom Classes • Select ‘Class’

24. Custom Classes • Give the class a Name then click Add

25. Custom Classes • Visual Studio will generate an empty class

26. Custom Classes • Now in our Form1.cs code we can see our PresetBox class in the intellisense

27. Custom Classes • The next step is to declare the variables that our PresetBox objects will hold • E.g. • The Box Height • The Box Width • The Box Colour

28. Custom Classes • Declaring class variables

29. Custom Classes • The next step is to write the class constructor • The constructor is called (like a method) and it’s initialises the class variables with default values • The constructor looks like a method except it does not have a return type and it’s name is always the name of the class

30. Custom Classes • The Constructor

31. Custom Classes • Now in our Form1.cs code we can declare and initialise PresetBox objects

32. Custom Classes • We can create as many PresetBox objects as we want

33. Custom Classes • Although we have declared variables for our PresetBox objects, the variables are private so we can’t see them in the Form1.cs code

34. Custom Classes • The next step is to create publicly accessible Properties for each of the private class variables • This is so we can set and get the boxHeight, boxWidth and boxColour values in the code • A quick way to do this is: Right click on a private variable > Refactor > Encapsulate Field

35. Custom Classes • Creating Properties

36. Custom Classes • Creating Properties (click ok)

37. Custom Classes • Creating Properties (Click Apply)

38. Custom Classes • Creating Properties

39. Custom Classes • Creating Properties (to be tidy shift the property underneath the constructor)

40. Custom Classes • Now we can access the BoxHeight property in the Form1.cs code (it’s a public property)

41. Custom Classes • We can change the value of the BoxHeight using simple assignment

42. Custom Classes • Or we can get the value from a text box

43. Custom Classes • We can repeat the steps for the BoxWidth variable & the BoxColour variable (and any other variables we may want to add) • Maybe we want to adda name variable too

44. Custom Classes • With name variableand Property

45. Custom Classes

46. Custom Classes • Now we can access all of the Properties in the Form1.cs code

47. Custom Classes • All Properties Set

48. Custom Classes • Now we can pass the single PresetBox object into a method as a single object • E.g. make a new SaveSettings method with a single PresetBox object as a parameter

49. Custom Classes • NewSaveSettings method

50. Custom Classes • Finally we can call the NewSaveSettings method and pass in our PresetBox object