I have created a custom control that inherits System.Windows.Forms.Panel, and adds a few extra properties. I then intend to create child classes that inherit this custom-panel class, and add content to them.
The custom-panel class will be passed to a "Wizard" framework (with back/next buttons) as the content for the various steps. I intend to make extensive use of this, creating 40-50 different pages for Wizards to handle various things in my project.
Question: Is there a way to view just the panel in the Designer, and modify its layout and design from there? I could code everything the hard way, but I really don't want to.
I did some searching and found this article, but that discusses creating a custom control and adding it to a library. I don't need to do this, I just want to view/edit the control in Designer directly, without adding it to a Form.
Obvious Answer to the rescue again.
Create a custom control, add the layout/split panel as desired, and change it's property to DockStyle.Fill.
This makes your custom control "behave" like the layout control, as long as you add all other controls to the layout control.
add first this name space
using System.ComponentModel.Design;
Apply the System.ComponentModel.DesignerAttribute attribute to the control as follows:
[Designer("System.Windows.Forms.Design.ParentControlDesigner, System.Design", typeof(IDesigner))]
public class UserControl1 : System.Windows.Forms.UserControl
{
...
}
now you can edit your custom user control in designer environment
Related
When you have a TableLayoutPanel on your Form and you drag a Label into a cell, a few properties are available on the Label control. I think the same construction is used when you drag a Tooltip control on the form.
I'd like to know which design pattern is used to achieve this. Is this the decorator pattern?
What you are seeing are called Extender Providers.
For example, when a ToolTip component is added to a form, it provides
a property called ToolTip to each control on that form. The ToolTip
property then appears in any attached PropertyGrid control.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171836.aspx
I can't think of a well-known pattern that describes how they work, exactly, but the mechanism is simple.
You must implement IExtenderProvider. The WinForms Designer will call CanExtend for each other control on the surface, and your extender can specify if it provides additional attributes for each control.
public interface IExtenderProvider {
bool CanExtend(object extendee);
}
The actual attributes that other controls will be extended are declared using the ProvidePropertyAttribute and a method to provide the value.
No, this is not achieved through a design pattern. These properties are simply the public properties exposed by the control, these properties are added to the control via inheritence, i.e. they sub-class Control. The visual studio designer inspects the class which implements these controls to determine the properties they expose, then provides you with a UI for setting them.
If I want to make a custom listbox by inheriting from the ListBox class and overriding some functions, should I be making a User Control or a Custom Control? I've read that I should be using a user control but when I add a user control, it comes with a panel control in the designer that I can't remove whereas custom control is blank and I can drag anything to it.
And when I try to change public partial class UserControl1 : UserControl to public partial class UserControl1 : ListBox for a User Control, VS doesn't add properties like AutoScaleMode and AutoScaleDimensions.
A UserControl is a container control. It doesn't "come with" a Panel - it is a sort of "panel" (but not a Panel - that's just an empty ContainerControl). So you can position them. A custom control is just derived from Control and you create and position things purely in code, though usually you wouldn't have subcontrols in a simple Control.
As for inheriting from ListBox, you have to add those properties yourself, unless I'm misunderstanding completely.
By the way, if you just need to draw custom elements in the ListBox, but not change functionality, consider owner-drawing the ListBox instead. There are many examples on the Internet.
I've created user control which hosts datagridview and other controls.
Then I drop it onto a form.
How do I allow myself to customize grid's properties (like which columns are shown) in a target form?
I thought setting its modifier to public will suffice.
That should do it, then you can address the grid through your user control instance. Assuming you control is named "MyControl" and your grid within the control is named "MyGrid" then you should be able to use MyControl.MyGrid. to get to the properties.
You can add properties to your UserControl that helps you to change design of your Control from different forms.
Problem not solved in that general way I initially posed it.
As a quick hack I declared public properties for some of the grid properties I needed (like Columns collection)
Tnanx for your help, though.
I've come across the feature in Visual studio to auto-generate a subclass of a custom control using Add New Inherited User Control.
But I haven't found a clear description on how to e.g create a subclass of Button for instance. Apart from the actual way to do it, I'm also interested if VS provides helpful code-generation for this?
You just create your own class that inherits the Control, that you would like to subclass. For instance:
class BetterButton : Button { ...}
That is the easy part. Now you have the option to override various methods or properties, depending on what you want to achieve with your new Control. It could be anything, really. One thing I often see used is overriding OnPaint to get the control drawn in a custom way; and still getting the behaviour of the original control.
In terms of UserControls, I often see that a "parent" UserControl contains some UI logic and basic UI elements, while the subclassed controls are refinements of the parent for specific use.
I have the same question, but the answer to use a UserControl will not do. I also need to create a control container that I can add other controls to at design time so I can add it to yet another container (Splitter Panel) which is not avaialable to me at design time (plugin architecture). When I make a User Control, it is missing the design time support and all I get are icons when I drop controls onto this surface.
Do I need to add all the design time support myself, or is there something I am missing that has this for me?
You will have to use either a Form or UserControl to accomplish any forms design within the designer.
I have often created controls that I need to manipulate en masse. Start with a UserControl, then add a panel that fills the UserControl. This is your base panel that you will fill with all of your controls. I then save as a duplicate control and simply remove the UserControl and leave the panel as the public UI control which is then instanced. If I am making changes, I can go back to the original UserControl, make changes, add code, etc - rinse and repeat.