Naming convention for controls [duplicate]

Answer 1

I'm not sure, but I think that control naming in Windows Forms is one of the only places I can see a use for Hungarian notation. So I think you're good.

Answer 2

Yes, I agree totally (but I rename it to ButtonDelete), so lowercase names are for variables in my case :)

Personally, I think as long as you are consistent, you won't run into problems even if someone else is reading your code.

Answer 3

Caveat: The following is more directed at WinForm/WPF development. Patrick Peters rightly pointed out that there are bandwidth/performance issues at play when dealing with ASP.NET controls.

There isn't really a standard here, and I believe that this is because its one of the most arbitrary naming scenarios. In most cases, controls are private to the class, and only used lightly in event handlers.

Like other answerers, I too used to spend a non-trivial amount of time "fixing" control names. I would do things like "btnSave", "tbxName" (tbx for TextBox), etc. However, when explaining my scheme to someone else, I realized how arbitrary that was. Is "cbx" a ComboBox or a Checkbox?

This led me to re-examine what the designer does automatically and realize that I can clearly, consistently, and quickly name controls if I let the designer do the work. Its actually very similar to the suggestion of the question poster:

I replace the control number with the semantics of the control. Thus "button1" (the designer default) will be "buttonSave", and "listBox3" will become "listBoxWidgets". If there will only be one control of that type, I just remove the number: "errorProvider1" becomes "errorProvider".

So how is this better?

• Meticulously "fixing" variable names is a waste of time if its an internal variable
• Your naming scheme is likely to be ambiguous if it shortens a whole bunch of stuff (CheckBox versus ComboBox)
• The designer gives a good, consistent starting point that is easy (and quick) to specialize
• The length of the variable name is irrelevant when you use Intellisense
• Control names group nicely and intuitively (in Intellisense) when prefaced by their type. When you have 15 TextBoxes on your Form, you just first remember you want a TextBox , type "textBox", and then pick the name from the list.
• Anyone unfamiliar with your "scheme" can see it immediately and adopt it quicker than anything else.
• It is VERY fast to provide useful control names...very little keyboard/mouse jockeying to do this...so high productivity with intuitive results. What is not to like?

PS. This is tending towards a Bikeshed question, but as I can paint a bikeshed, I went ahead and joined the discussion. ;)

Answer 4

GUI programming gets the short stick when it comes to conventions of all sorts. See my answer to another question for the guidelines I use for naming.

Answer 5

This is what we are using

In short, we prefix the controls with an abbreviation of the control. ie

Buttons = btnDelete, btnSubmit, btnReturn

Textboxes = txtUsername, txtPassword etc

that way, by typing the abbreviation you get all the similar controls by the time you finish typing the abbreviation ie type btn and intellisense will list all the buttons you have added so far.

Answer 6

I'm probably one of the last few people that still uses Hungarian notation. I know that argument that the IDE can tell you the variable type, but that doesn't help me when I'm coding in Notepad++ or looking at a printout.... anyway, I use the "btnSave", "cbOptions", "txtFirstName", "lblTitle", "ddlCardType", etc... I just like being able to glance at code and know what I'm looking at without looking for a declaration or hovering over a variable to get it's data type from the IDE.