C# desktop application (Data Binding)

I would like to create a simple c# desktop application which stores/retrive the user entered records into a text file. Say each record has three fields as group name, record title and record message. So Basically text file has multiple records and each record is taged with a group as below.

Group A

Header title 1A  message 1A
Header title 2A  message 2A
Header title 3A  message 3A
.......          ....... 
.......          .......
.......          .......
Group B

Header title 1B  message 1B
Header title 2B  message 2B
Header title 3B  message 3B
.......          ....... 
.......          .......
.......          .......
Group C

Header title 1C  message 1C
Header title 2C  message 2C
Header title 3C  message 3C
.......          ....... 
.......          .......
.......          .......

Group D

.......          .......
.......          .......

The desktopm window will have 3 columns, 1st column should list All Groups, 2nd column will list all records in a selected group (from column 1) an开发者_高级运维d 3rd column display the single record in detail which is selected in the 2nd column. Please provide your suggestions on how to implement this? Any samples and tutorial are highly apprciated.

You would better use XML.

C# has very nice XML serialization which would allow you to convert XML into c# objects and vice versa (without having to do any manual parsing)

Also, this question is a little too general. You would better try to miplement the application yourself and then come back with specific issues.

You'll need three basic components:

1. The model for your data. This will likely include a Group class and a Record class, where Group includes something like a GetRecords() method or a Records property (returning an IList<Record>, for data binding).
2. A parser that will read the lines of a file and construct a collection of these Group objects—perhaps in the form of a Dictionary<string, Group> or your own GroupCollection implementation.
3. A GUI (duh), with two ListBoxes and some custom display control for an individual Record.

For the first ListBox, you would presumably set the DataSource property to your collection of Group objects (this will need to implement IList if I'm not mistaken).

Handle the SelectedIndexChanged event of your first ListBox and set the DataSource on the second ListBox to the result of GetRecords()/Records from the selected Group.

Handle the SelectedIndexChanged event of your second ListBox and display the details for the selected record in your custom control.

That's how I'd approach it, anyway.