Question

I have a property grid object that requires you to choose an enum, for example, you have:

enum XScalingType { ShowAll, Fixed, Sigma }

Now, based on this enum selection, we only care about certain parameters. Namely:

ShowAll - requires none
Fixed   - double Minimum, double Maximum
Sigma   - double Sigma

This leaves me with the following class

class MyPrefs
   XScalingType XScale
   double minimum  //only matters when XScale = Fixed
   double maximum  //only matters when XScale = Fixed
   double Sigma    //only matters when XScale = sigma

I’m not sure how to proceed from here. My thoughts where, I need to make min\max\sigma all members, and just hide them from the grid if they aren’t used.

However, that doesn’t seem like common practice. Is there a more formal way to use these optional parameters based on other enum selections?

I’m wondering if I’m approaching this from the wrong direction completely.

Answer 1

A better approach is to create state-aware property accessors like the following:

public double? Sigma
{
    get
    {
        if (XScale == XSCalingType.Sigma)
            return _sigma;
        else
            return null;
    }
    set { _sigma = value;}
}

then if XScale is anything other than Sigma, the property Sigma will show empty.