Question

I have a Subclass of a BindingSource that just extends it a bit for our special needs, and I would like to support it for the VS2008 Designer.

I have three properties, that I would like to get designer support for, two of them should be set to other Controls on the form, one should be set to a Type.

Displaying them in den Designer as well as setting a default value of null was quite easy, but how do I manage to get VS to select availlable Controls (ideally of desired type only) and or Types ?

Here’s the code for the properties so far, any hint is welcome, since I do not know anything over VS-Designer support.

public class BindingSourceEx
    : BindingSource
{
    [DisplayName("DataSourceType")]
    [Description("Sets the type to bind to.")]
    public Type DataSourceType
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    [DisplayName("BindingNavigator")]
    [DefaultValue(null)]
    [Description("Sets the BindingNavigatorQ1 to use.")]
    public BindingNavigatorEx BindingNavigator
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    [DisplayName("DataGridView")]
    [DefaultValue(null)]
    [Description("Sets the DataGridViewQ1 to use.")]
    public DataGridViewEx DataGridView
    {
        get;
        set;
    }
}

Answer 1

The default implementation of the designer already takes care of the BindingNavigator and DataGridView properties. The property grid uses a combobox to let you select the control that matches the control type. You’d have to drop, say, a BindingNavigatorQ1 control on the form to get anything other than None in the combobox.

The Type property is a tougher, you’ll need at least a TypeConverter to convert between the Type value and a string. Not so sure this ought to be a designable property, the type you want to bind to surely doesn’t yet exist at design time, only at runtime when all the assemblies are compiled.