<p>I do remember seeing someone ask something along these lines a while ago but I did a search and couldn't find anything. </p>

<p>I'm trying to come up with the cleanest way to clear all the controls on a form back to their defaults (e.g., clear textboxes, uncheck checkboxes).</p>

<p>How would you go about this?</p>

What I have come up with so far is something like this:
```
```
public static class extenstions
{
    private static Dictionary<Type, Action<Control>> controldefaults = new Dictionary<Type, Action<Control>>() { 
            {typeof(TextBox), c => ((TextBox)c).Clear()},
            {typeof(CheckBox), c => ((CheckBox)c).Checked = false},
            {typeof(ListBox), c => ((ListBox)c).Items.Clear()},
            {typeof(RadioButton), c => ((RadioButton)c).Checked = false},
            {typeof(GroupBox), c => ((GroupBox)c).Controls.ClearControls()},
            {typeof(Panel), c => ((Panel)c).Controls.ClearControls()}
    };

    private static void FindAndInvoke(Type type, Control control) 
    {
        if (controldefaults.ContainsKey(type)) {
            controldefaults[type].Invoke(control);
        }
    }

    public static void ClearControls(this Control.ControlCollection controls)
    {
        foreach (Control control in controls)
        {
             FindAndInvoke(control.GetType(), control);
        }
    }

    public static void ClearControls<T>(this Control.ControlCollection controls) where T : class 
    {
        if (!controldefaults.ContainsKey(typeof(T))) return;

        foreach (Control control in controls)
        {
           if (control.GetType().Equals(typeof(T)))
           {
               FindAndInvoke(typeof(T), control);
           }
        }    

    }

}
```
```
Now you can just call the extension method ClearControls like this:
```
```
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        this.Controls.ClearControls();
    }
```
```
EDIT:  I have just added a generic ClearControls method that will clear all the controls of that type, which can be called like this:
```
```
this.Controls.ClearControls<TextBox>();
```
```
At the moment it will only handle top level controls and won't dig down through groupboxes and panels.