loop button to check which was clicked - vb.net

Question

In VB.net form, I have 20 buttons. They are named from btnLoc1 ~ btnLoc20. I do not want to code each button click event.
How to loop through each button to check which was clicked?
Do I need to implement timer tick to listen for button click event?

Answer 1

You can create a single event handler for all the Buttons. Select all the buttons in the designer, open the Properties window, click the Events button and then double-click the Click event. That will generate a Click event handler, just like when you double-click a Button in the designer, except this one will have multiple items in the Handles clause. You can then use the sender parameter to acces the Button that was clicked, e.g.
Private Sub Buttons_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click,
Button2.Click,
Button3.Click
Dim btn = DirectCast(sender, Button)
'Use btn here.
End Sub
The question then is, what do you want to do with that Button? If you want to do something different for each Button then you really should be creating separate event handlers. Alternatively, you might have a list of data and you want to use the item in that list that corresponds to the Button that was clicked. There are numerous ways to do that. One is to put the data in the Tag property of the Button itself and retrieve it from there. Another is to use concurrent indexes, e.g.
Dim buttons = Controls.OfType(Of Button)().ToArray()
Dim data = {"First", "Second", "Third"}
MessageBox.Show(data(buttons.IndexOf(btn)))
Obviously you need to ensure that the Button array and the data array do line up.

Answer 2

For being noticed if button was clicked - eventhandler is best choice.
But you can create only one eventhandler for all buttons
Private Sub Button_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs)
Dim button As Button = DirectCast(sender, Button)
MessageBox($"Button '{button.Name}' was clicked")
End Sub
Then in constructor
Public Sub New()
InitializeComponennts()
AddHandler Button1.Click, AddressOf Me.Button_Click
AddHandler Button2.Click, AddressOf Me.Button_Click
AddHandler Button3.Click, AddressOf Me.Button_Click
' and so on
End Sub
If you want to get information about how much each button was clicked, simply create dictionary and add click amount in one eventhandler
Private ButtonsClickAmount As New Dictionary(Of String, Integer)()
Private Sub Button_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs)
Dim button As Button = DirectCast(sender, Button)
If ButtonsClickAmount.ContainKey(button.Name) = True Then
ButtonsClickAmount(button.Name) += 1
Else
ButtonsClickAmount.Add(button.Name, 1)
End If
End Sub