Hi Jon,

I don't think this idea is very good to be honest.  There is a lot of
plumbing associated with a control that is just superfluous in an undo-redo
context - especially in a tree view where you are only interested in what
happened to the last node (i.e. subtree).

It's easy to create a structure for undo-redo where you do know precisely
what action occurred.    Create a simple class hierarchy with overridable
method "Undo" and "Redo" - it's also useful to add in "CanUndo" and
"CanRedo", along with a "Size" and "Label" property (so you can know how
much space your undo-redo stack is taking up and can possibly tell the user
what the undo/redo action will do).  Keep state information in the instance.
When the user deletes a node, you add a "NodeDeleted" class instance onto
your stack.  When he inserts a node, you add a "NodeInserted" class
instance.   Both of these are derived from your undo-redo base class.

Thestructure can be used in other contexts.  For example if you are deleting
from a listview, where that node is also present in the tree, you still only
need the 1 undo-redo instance.

Robin

Just trying to help in the control cloning because I recently need it.
I developed the following function but at the end I didn't use it because I
changed my mind about cloning.

   Private Function CloneControl(ByVal Ctrl As Control, ByVal Parent As
Object) As Control
       Try
           Dim CtrlType As Type = Ctrl.GetType()
           Dim CtrlObject As Object = Activator.CreateInstance(CtrlType)
           Dim CtrlNew As Control = CtrlObject

           Dim pdcCtrl As
System.ComponentModel.PropertyDescriptorCollection =
System.ComponentModel.TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(Ctrl)
           Dim pdcCtrlNew As
System.ComponentModel.PropertyDescriptorCollection =
System.ComponentModel.TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(CtrlNew)
           For i As Integer = 0 To pdcCtrl.Count - 1
               If pdcCtrl(i).Name = "Parent" Then
                   CtrlNew.Parent = Parent

               ElseIf pdcCtrl(i).Name = "Controls" Then
                   If Not Ctrl.Controls Is Nothing Then
                       For Each CtrlChild As Control In Ctrl.Controls
                           CtrlNew.Controls.Add(CloneControl(CtrlChild,
CtrlNew))
                       Next
                   End If

               Else
                   pdcCtrlNew(i).SetValue(CtrlNew, pdcCtrl(i).GetValue(Ctrl))
               End If
           Next

           Return CtrlNew

       Catch ex As Exception
           Return Nothing
       End Try
   End Function

ex. calling the function:
Dim tb as TextBox
tb = CloneControl(TextBox1, Nothing)

Hope this helps!

Jon,

Like Robin I don't think it is a good idea, however the only way I know how
to do it is serializing and deserializing.

http://www.vb-tips.com/dbpages.aspx?ID=7ffd296f-9e81-47e6-88dc-61641f5c8d9d

Cor