Question

I am building a WinForms custom control which extends DataGridView.

interface IMyControl<A, B> { }
public partial class MyControl<A, B> : DataGridView, IMyControl<A, B>
{
}

A and B are business domain object types.

However, the code will not compile. The MyControl.Designer.cs cannot be compiled.

protected override void Dispose(bool disposing) //no suitable method found to override
{
    if (disposing && (components != null))
    {
        components.Dispose();
    }
    //'object' does not contain a definition for 'Dispose'
    base.Dispose(disposing); 
}

‘Infrastructure.MyControl.Dispose(bool)’: no suitable method found to override MyControl.Designer.cs

Answer 1

You can’t have generic controls.

Try this:

interface IMyControl<A, B> { }
public partial abstract class MyControlBase<A, B> : DataGridView, IMyControl<A, B>
{
    // Generic code goes here
}

// Create non-generic wrappers for the generic base class
public partial class MyControl_One : DataGridView, MyControlBase<SomeType, OtherType>
{
     // Type-specific (if any) code goes here
}
public partial class MyControl_Two : DataGridView, MyControlBase<MyType, YourType>
{
     // Type-specific (if any) code goes here
}

Leave whatever generic code you currently have in the generic base class. The wrapper classes can be very thin because then only serve to provide a non-generic Control to add to your form.