I know that getting the Form Designer to work is a ticklish business. Generics, x64, subtle problems with the project's XML... But perhaps someone can offer advice about my current problem, which is that a component I created that inherits from TabPage, when I try to view it in the designer shows up as a list of its controls, like this:
Thanks in advance.
You cannot make a TabPage as root of the designer, while you can do the same for a Panel or other container controls. The limitation is because, TabPage can only be hosted in TabControl, not even in the overlay control of the designer:
TabPage cannot be added to a
'System.Windows.Forms.Design.DesignerFrame+OverlayControl'. TabPages
can only be added to TabControls.
A control can be shown as root of the designer when the base class of the control has designer of type of DocumentDesigner. Form and UserControl are such controls which means when you create a new Form1:Form or new UserControl1:UserControl, since the base class derived from a designable control, then the class can be edited in the designer as root.
I believe you can handle your requirement by using UserControl, but for learning purpose (or as a workaround) if you want to make a control deriving from Panel designable, you can copy the following code in a code file:
public class MyControl: MyDesignableControl
{
}
[Designer(typeof(DocumentDesigner), typeof(IRootDesigner))]
public class MyDesignableControl : Panel
{
}
Then save it and then double click on it and you can see you can design it like a root control.
Then after you done with the design, change the Panel to TabPage.
Remarks on
DocumentDesigner
This designer is a root designer, meaning that it provides the
root-level design mode view for the associated document when it is
viewed in design mode.
You can associate a designer with a type using a
DesignerAttribute.
For an overview of customizing design time behavior, see Extending
Design-Time
Support.
Related
I am trying to design some "standalone" tab-pages and later on, I want to add them dynamically to a tab-control in my main form. Visual Studio won't let me open the class extended with TabPage in the designer. Some idea?
using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;
namespace Test.View.Panels {
public class MainStatusTabPage : TabPage {
public MainStatusTabPage() {
}
}
}
When I right-click the class in the Solution Explorer and selecting "View Designer", I get the following message (the Designer doesn't show up):
To add components to your class, drag them from the Toolbox and use
the Properties window to set their properties. To create methods and
events for your class, switch to code view.
When I right-click the class in the Solution Explorer and selecting "View Designer", I get the following message (the Designer doesn't show up):
To add components to your class, drag them from the Toolbox and use the Properties window to set their properties. To create methods and events for your class, switch to code view.
This is normal behavior as a TabPage is just a container that holds other controls, nothing more. As #PanagiotisKanavos mentioned above:
A Tab Page is a container, not the actual content of the tab. In all examples that use complex content you'll see that the content is a custom component, eg a User control, that's added into the tab
With this in mind, you can just create a UserControl with all the other controls you would need and then add this new instance (UserControl) to the TabPage itself.
I would like to know how I could possibly modulate my views in an application. Let me explain.
Instead of building my view and adding all the components in one screen. I want to say put each panel in its own class / form and then have a main form where I can add and remove these 'modular' panels.
Is this possible and how would I go about doing it?
In Windows Forms there is the concept of an empty component called UserControl, that can be freely designed and added at any time to another component or form container. UserControls are used very often in order to create flexible and exchangable UI. You can create a UserControl item in Visual Studio like this:
Name the new control:
After that you can design your UI control:
When your are done with the design, compile your project/solution and go to the form where you want to add your newly designed control. In the toolbar panel you will see your new UserControl, which can be added to the form with drag & drop (with the mouse):
You can create as many UserControls as you want and add/remove them to/from your form.
All of this steps can be done completely in the code. In order to create new view of this kind, you need to create a new class that inherits the predefined UserControl class:
public class EditorUserControl : UserControl
{
}
Every Control element has a ControlsCollection that holds/contains components of type Control that are drawn when the UI is shown. In order to add your new control to the main panel you need to add it to the controls collection:
public partial class EditorUserControl : UserControl
{
public EditorUserControl()
{
var button = new Button();
button.Text = "Import";
this.Controls.Add(button);
}
}
Note, that when adding components manually, you are responsible for sizing and position them. Predefined layout panels can help you here:
TableLayoutPanel - layout with cells
SplitPanel - horizontal or vertical predefined resizable panels
etc.
Now all that left is to add the new user control to the main form just like you added the UI elements to your own control:
var simpleEditor = new EditorUserControl();
simpleEditor.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
this.Controls.Add(simpleEditor);
You can adjust the UI control settings through its predefined properties.
You can mix predefined containers and UserControls in order to achieve the desired UI:
There are a lot of good beginners tutorials for C# and VS and .NET:
Channel9 tutorials
MSDN Visual Studio UI tutorials
Composite UserControl tutorial
Developing with Windows Forms Documentation and Examples
This is definitely possible. I will use WinForms but there are similar ways in WPF such as frames.
In WinForms you can create a new User Control for each 'modular' panel which will automatically create .cs and .designer.cs files just like in a normal Form. You can then add logic and functionality to the panels as if they were forms themselves. All that would then remain is to add the logic to the form to load the default panel on startup and think of ways of how other panels can be brought into view (e.g. a next button or having a panel on each tab in a tab control). Showing a panel in a form (or any other user control for that matter) is achieved by creating an instance of your desired panel and adding it to you form/control's Controls property like so:
public Form1()
{
InitializeComponent();
MyPanel panel = new MyPanel();
this.Controls.Add(panel);
}
I am attempting to make a complete custom TabControl.
So far my code works perfectly, however when I'm viewing my TabControl in the Visual Studio designer, I cannot add Controls into the TabPage Control which is inside of the TabControl. When attempted, it just places the control on top of the TabControl.
Unless you are adding controls to the TabPage via programming it by hand, that is, not using Visual Studio's Designer, using the TabControl is pointless.
PasteBin Link to my Control's Code
Here are images of the tab control with different tabs selected:
(source: gyazo.com)
(source: gyazo.com)
As you can see from the above images, the button is not placed into the tab page's control collection, as it floats above the tab control.
You can Use Tabcontrol from Design Toolbox in form and place the controls as you want.Then add the piece of code provided below to your code this will work.
Suppose you have custom class as Use this code write the Constructor as given below.
internal class MyCustomTabControl
{
public MyCustomTabControl(TabControl tabControlPassed)
: base()
{
this.tabcontrol = tabControlPassed;
}
TabControl tabcontrol;
}
In the main form Initialization call MyCustomTabControl initialization after InitializeComponent() method. Pass the this.tabControl1 while initializing Custom tabcontrol.
public partial class TabForm : Form
{
public TabForm()
{
InitializeComponent();
MyCustomTabControl customTab = new MyCustomTabControl(this.tabControl1);
}
}
:)
I am trying to add some fields to a custom UserControl that I am making. I have some fields that I like them to be visible in the Properties window of Visual Studio. I tried to use the flags below but I dont see the field in the designer, even after a compile.
How should I do this correctly?
public partial class TosChartControl: UserControl
{
#region PUBLIC FIELDS
[Browsable(true)] //Added this but still does not show up
[Category("Data")]
[DefaultValue(0)]
[Description("ID of the Sensor Node")]
public int NodeId { get; set; }
#endregion
public TosChartControl()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
}
I did clean and rebuild the soloution and projects but I cant still see this field in Properties window. Even restarting the Visualstudio didnt help.
UPDATE: Your public properties are visible in the designer only when it's in another control in the designer. It turns out that you don't need to add this attribute, properties are visible by default in the designer. As far as I understand, when it's in another component's design view, an instance of the user control is created and properties can be shown. Sorry for misleading you in the beginning, I thought it was necessary to add it.
Try this attribute:
[Browsable(true)]
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.componentmodel.browsableattribute.aspx
To elaborate on henginy's updated answer:
Be sure that you are looking at an instance of the control you want to modify properties for, and not the definition of the control itself.
To clarify, when you add a property to your TosChartControl class, you won't see the property in the TosChartControl.cs [Design] tab, you will see it where you implement a TosChartControl, such as your Form1.cs [Design] tab, e.g. the containing control to which you have added your custom control.
...Assuming that your Properties window is visible, and that you have the control selected.
What to take away from this lesson:
Understanding what the properties window is actually showing you — It's contextual.
The difference between the model and the implementation of the model — e.g. Designing the custom control and designing the form that uses the custom control.
The ToolboxItem(false) works for Winforms controls.
ToolboxBrowsable(false) does not work for the WPF controls.
[ToolboxBrowsable(false)]
public class MyControl : UserControl
{
}
The MyControl even with ToolboxBrowsable(false) shows up in the Visual Studio toolbox.
What am I doing wrong?
-Datte
The [ToolboxBrowsable(false)] attribute does not have any effect within the same solution.
This is because you might want to be able to use the control in any forms within that solution.
If you compile the class library, remove it from the solution and add a reference to it you should see the control disappearing from the toolbox.