Question

I am designing a control where the user can specify the X, Y, Width and Height of the DisplayRectangle property in relation to the ClientRectangle.

From what I have read in the MSDN documentation, DisplayRectangle only has a get accessor, and therefore its dimensions cannot be set, however this is imperative in my control!

Can any one suggest how I might safely implement a DisplayRectangle that has both get and set accessors? – or explain why this is bad practice?

Thanks.

TESTS:

1. Set TabControl style to UserPaint, and adjust the Alignment property, The DisplayRectangle moves to compensate for the location of the tabs. Assuming TabControl has a built in mechanism to set the Rectangle bounds.

2. Created DemoControl : Control, painted ClientRectangle in Red, and DisplayRectangle in Blue and tried calling SetDisplayRectLocation(x, y)…not quite what I wanted…and yielded no results!

Answer 1

In order to allow the user to set the bounds of the DisplayRectangle property for a control, I have come up with the following solution:

public class ExtendedControl : Control
{
    private Rectangle displayRectangle;

    protected override Rectangle DisplayRectangle
    {
        get { return this.displayRectangle; }
    }

    public void SetDisplayRectangle(Rectangle rect)
    {
        this.displayRectangle = rect;
    }

    public ExtendedControl()
    {
        this.displayRectangle = base.DisplayRectangle;
    }
}