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Handling designtime resize for controls

Published 03-17-2006 7:08 PM | jokiz

How to do this? You don’t have to override OnResize and do those checks (DesignMode, IsHandleCreated, etc.). I’ve been here and I’ve encountered a number of problems. A better way is to create a designer class, attach a handler on the Resize event of...

Filed under: .NET, designer, windows forms

Strongly-typed Collection’s Add and AddRange methods

Published 04-14-2005 3:41 PM | jokiz

The CollectionCodeDomSerializer uses reflection to serialize a serializeable collection properties to locate methodinfo with “Add” and “AddRange” as names. We have a coding convention here to use prefix to clearly distinguish methods from properties,...

Filed under: .NET, designer, windows forms, controls

Overriding ControlDesigner.SelectionRules

Published 04-11-2005 7:23 PM | jokiz

The virtual readonly SelectionRules property of the ControlDesigner class is necessary if you want to fiddle with the selection grabs of your control at designtime (if you want to make your control not re-sizable vertically like the Windows Forms TextBox...

Filed under: .NET, visual studio, designer, windows forms

MissingMethodException during a form load at designtime

Published 03-17-2005 7:26 PM | jokiz

Some control properties where dropped. Forms still have them in InitializeComponent. Form is loaded at designtime with an attached debugger instance (devenv.exe). CodeDomSerializer class tries to deserialize the said property set. A MissingMethodException...

Filed under: .NET, visual studio, designer, windows forms, debugging

Design-able Abstract Base Forms in Whidbey

Published 02-24-2005 6:18 PM | jokiz

I have blogged about the Windows Forms designer behavior with abstract base forms here . Brian Pepin has an update on how Whidbey can support design-able abstract classes through the new TypeDescriptionProvider class. He also points out an important example...

Filed under: .NET, tips, designer, windows forms

Undo feature bug of VS2003

Published 02-03-2005 9:11 AM | jokiz

Create a form with anchored controls. (Not just the default Top | Left) Resize the form Hit Undo (Ctrl-Z), voila! The Undo feature at design time is handled by the Windows Forms Designer and the said functionality is one of the complex implementations...

Filed under: .NET, visual studio, designer, undo, bug, anchoring

InitializeComponent, Abstract Base Forms and Visual Studio Design Behavior

Published 01-20-2005 10:59 AM | jokiz

It is interesting to know how the Designers works in Visual Studio when one is designing a component, control or form (controls and forms by the way are special kind of components with visual representation at the document surface). Knowing such kind...

Filed under: .NET, visual studio, designer, windows forms, initializecomponent

DesignerHost and Designer Services reference retrieval

Published 01-18-2005 12:20 AM | jokiz

There are a number of sample codes for designer classes of custom controls. Some are storing internal references to the services (IComponentChangeService, ISelectionChangeService, etc.) and the designerhost, some are getting them when needed. The second...

Filed under: .NET, techie, designer