How to Create a Tree. View File Browser Component in VB. NETWindows Explorers familiar tree navigation. This tutorial is part of a series Part 1  Part 2. As a developer I am often faced with the task of creating a tree style file browser for navigating the file system similar to Windows Explorer. VB6 provides the Dir. List and File. List controls, but VB. NET does not provide a control with similar functionality, let alone a full fledged file browser control. It does however include a very nice Tree. View control, and with a bit of code you can leverage this powerful control to navigate your file system similar to Windows Explorer. The idea is pretty simple Each Tree. Freeware and shareware components, controls, and utilities including form resize controls, print controls, print preview, report controls, file splitters, server. Node in the Tree. View represents a file or folder in the file system. Each Tree. Node knows the full path of the file or folder that it represents. Recursion is not used nodes are populated on demand. Title Write data into an Excel workbook in Visual Basic. NET Description This example shows how to write data into an Excel workbook in Visual Basic. NET. A quick cheat sheet that highlights some key syntactical differences between C and VB. NET. While this is not all inclusive this cheat sheet proves to be a handy. Quick reference guide that compares VB. NET and C. VB. NET PowerPoint editing and reading control to read, manipulate and process. VB. NET code. When a directory node is expanded by the user, a Tree. View event is triggered which clears and repopulates the directory node. In the first part of this tutorial Ill show you how to create a simple re usable File Browser Tree Component by letting the Tree. View control do most of the work. In the second part of this tutorial, Ill show you how to add several features icons, context menus, dragdrop, etc. Tree. View File Browser Component and bring it more up to par with Windows Explorer. Getting Started Open Visual Studio and create a new project choose the Windows Forms Control Library template. Your project should now contain a single class User. Control. 1. Add a new Tree. View control to User. Control. 1s design surface. Set the Dock property to Fill. Thats pretty much all there is to designing the Tree. View File Browser Component interface. Adding Some Code. When the component is initialized, we want the Tree. VBNET-Code-Library_2.png' alt='Vb Net Write To Html File' title='Vb Net Write To Html File' />View to initialize its top level root node so the user has a place to start browsing through the file system. To make this happen, we need to handle User. Control. 1s Load event and initialize the Tree. View by populating it with a Tree. Node that represents the global Root. Path property. Well also need to define this global Root. Path property so we can use it, so lets do that first We need a Root. Path property. Add this code to the declarations section of your User. Control. 1 class. Private m. Root. Path As String C Windows. Property Root. Path as String. Return m. Root. Path. Setvalue as String. Root. Path value. Since we specified C Windows for the Root. Path, this will be the first node added to the Tree. View, and the starting point where the user can begin browsing the file system. Next well handle User. Control. 1s Load event, where we will actually add the root node to the Tree. View. Add this code to your User. Control. 1 class. Private Sub User. Control. 1LoadBy. Val sender As System. Object, By. Val e As System. Event. Args Handles My. Base. Load. when our component is loaded, we initialize the Tree. View by adding the root node. Dim m. Root. Node as New Tree. Node. m. Root. Node. Text Root. Path. Root. Node. Tag Root. Path. Root. Node. Nodes. AddDUMMY. Tree. View. Nodes. Addm. Root. Node. This code is pretty simple, we instantiate a new Tree. Node object line 3, then set its Text and Tag property to the global Root. Path property that we created earlier lines 4 5, add a dummy Tree. Node as a chlid of the root Tree. Node so the root Tree. Node is initially expandable line 6, and finally add the node to the Tree. View line 7. Handling the Tree. Views Before. Expand and Before. Collapse events. Now for the meat potatoes. Most of the magic happens when a user expands or collapses a node. Add this code to the User. Control. 1 class. Private Sub Tree. View. 1Before. CollapseBy. Val sender As Object, By. Val e As System. Windows. Forms. Tree. View. Cancel. Event. Args Handles Tree. View. 1. Before. Collapse. Node. Nodes. Clear. Tree. Node to the node being collapsed so it is expandable. Node. Nodes. AddUMMY. Private Sub Tree. View. 1Before. ExpandBy. Val sender As Object, By. Val e As System. Windows. Forms. Tree. View. Cancel. Event. Args Handles Tree. Freedom Cannot Be Installed On This Device Cannot Start Error. View. 1. Before. Expand. Node. Nodes. Clear. Dim m. Node. Directory As IO. Directory. Info. m. Node. Directory New IO. Directory. Infoe. Node. Tag. To. String. For Each m. Directory As IO. Directory. Info In m. Node. Directory. Get. Directories. declare a child Tree. Node for the next subdirectory. Dim m. Directory. Node As New Tree. Node. store the full path to this directory in the child Tree. Nodes Tag property. Directory. Node. Tag m. Directory. Full. Name. Tree. Nodess display text. Directory. Node. Text m. Directory. Name. add a dummy Tree. Node to this child Tree. Node to make it expandable. Directory. Node. Nodes. AddUMMY. add this child Tree. Node to the expanding Tree. Node. e. Node. Nodes. Addm. Directory. Node. This is a tutorial after all and the goal is to learn from it, so youll have to figure out what this code does yourself The code is well commented so you shouldnt have a problem. Finishing Up. Go ahead and check out the result. Press F5 to start debugging and you will be presented with a running demo of your component You did it Now all you need to do is include this Visual Studio Project as a reference in another project and your Tree. View File Browser Component will appear in the Control Toolbox where you may add it to a Form. You also have the option of compiling the component as a. Conclusion. In this tutorial you learned how to create a simple reusable Tree. View File Browser Component.