The DesignerAction feature enables components and controls to display context-sensitive information and commands. The DesignerAction feature can be thought of as a replacement for designer verbs, because a DesignerActionItem can be displayed in the smart tag panel and also in the shortcut menu associated with a component or control. The DesignerActionList class represents the main point of interaction for developers who want to add smart tag support to their custom components and controls.
DesignerActionList is the base class, derived from by component developers in order to populate a smart tag panel. A smart tag panel represents the menu-like user interface (UI) for smart tags.
This derived class may implement the virtual GetSortedActionItems method to return a collection of objects derived from DesignerActionItem. These objects represent the smart tag panel items. Each item is displayed in the panel according to its type. For example, a DesignerActionTextItem is displayed as a static text label. Active panel items, represented by the DesignerActionPropertyItem and DesignerActionMethodItem types, have a corresponding publicly accessible property or method, respectively, that implements the functionality for that item.
For more information about how to add items to the smart tag panel, see the GetSortedActionItems method.
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Forms and dialog boxes can be displayed by members of the class derived from
DesignerActionList. By default, the parent of these windows will be the container window for the smart tag panel. Explicitly parenting these child windows to another service or window may cause smart tags to display improperly.
Smart-tag panels do not support scrolling or paging, so be careful not to populate your panels with many smart-tag items. Too many items may result in the smart-tag panel extending beyond the screen boundary.
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