Question

I have a custom control with a panel wrapping all the other controls. The control is in one of two states, edit-mode and normal. When in edit-mode I want the control to have the option of a different background color.

I have:

In Pre_Render:

Panel1.BackColor = EditMode ? BackEditColor : BackColor;

And the control properties:

[Bindable(true)]
[Category("Misc")]
[Description("The background color.")]
[DefaultValue("white")]
[Localizable(true)]
public Color BackColor
{
    get { return Color.FromName(Convert.ToString(ViewState["BackColor"] ?? "white")); }
    set { ViewState["BackColor"] = value.Name; }
}

[Bindable(true)]
[Category("Misc")]
[Description("The edit-mode background color.")]
[DefaultValue("#FFFFCC")]
[Localizable(true)]
public Color BackEditColor
{
    get { return Color.FromName(Convert.ToString(ViewState["BackEditColor"] ?? "#FFFFCC")); }
    set { ViewState["BackEditColor"] = value.Name; }
}

I can set the colors with no problem via the control’s properties, but they only show as white on render. How should I be saving/reading to ViewState the colors?

Answer 1

How about just:

public Color BackColor
{
    get { return (Color)(ViewState["BackColor"] ?? Color.White); }
    set { ViewState["BackColor"] = value; }
}