Question

I have a generic base form, and the descendant forms don’t work in the designer. This is apparently a well-known problem, and the same answer is given here and here, to name just two places.

This solution seems to work for everyone else, and when I implement it, at least I get a different error:

“Could not find any resources appropriate for the specified culture or the neutral culture. Make sure “MyBaseForm`1.resources” was correctly embedded or linked into assembly “MyAssembly” at compile time, or that all the satellite assemblies required are loadable and fully signed.”

My classes are:

public partial class MyBaseForm<T> : Form { }

#if DEBUG
public partial class MyIntForm_Design : MyBaseForm<int> {
}
#endif

public partial class MyIntForm
#if DEBUG
: MyIntForm_Design {
#else
: MyBaseForm<int> {
#endif
}

Now what hoop do I have to jump through here?

EDIT: OMG, I found the problem – well, sort of. The base form has its Icon property set, which created something in the resource file. When I removed the icon and recompiled, the base form suddenly works!

Now answer credit for this question goes to whoever finds a workaround so that I can keep the icon in my base form!

Answer 1

Actually I found an easier workaround that doesn’t risk being overwritten whenever you make cosmetic changes to the generic base form: just make the generic form inherit from another concrete form BaseForm, where the Icon property (and any other resources) are set.

Thus:

public partial class MyBaseForm<T> : BaseForm { }

Works a treat!