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ControlDesigner Class

Provides a base control designer class for extending the design-mode behavior of a Web server control.

Namespace:  System.Web.UI.Design
Assembly:  System.Design (in System.Design.dll)

[SecurityPermissionAttribute(SecurityAction::Demand, Flags = SecurityPermissionFlag::UnmanagedCode)]
public ref class ControlDesigner : public HtmlControlDesigner

The ControlDesigner class provides a base control designer class that can be inherited from and extended to provide design-time support for a Web server control in a design host, such as Visual Studio 2005.

The object model for working with design-time rendering is improved over earlier versions, with the following new base classes to provide access to the simplified object model:

Automatic Formatting

You can create a variety of automatic and pre-defined formats that can simplify the process of page developers who are applying complex style changes to custom Web server controls. For example, the TableDesigner control, which derives from the ControlDesigner class, provides many automatic formats from which to choose. To implement and provide automatic formatting in your custom controls, use the following features:

Action Lists (Smart Tags)

Action lists are menus of important or widely used tasks that a page developer who uses a control can perform in a design-time user interface (UI), such as Visual Studio 2005. For example, the design-time view of your control could provide a menu of available tasks. This includes a task to format the control automatically. To learn about action lists, start with the following features:

Control Designer Regions

Regions are editable areas in the design-time view of a Web server control. This feature offers WYSIWYG-like editing of the template content, inner controls, and properties at design time. You can have the control designer create controls in regions or you can use the Toolbox to drag and drop controls into regions. Regions are managed with the following features:

Templates

The model for creating a UI for design-time editing of templated controls, such as the GridView control, has been greatly improved from earlier versions. You can create complex custom controls that include templates for various parts of the control, and your custom control designer can help page developers who are modifying templates with the following features:

Design-Time Rendering

The ControlDesigner class has the following methods to support design-time rendering of the Web server control. Most of these methods are the same as in earlier versions:

The following code example demonstrates how to create a simple designer class that derives from the ControlDesigner class. This control designer supports a custom TextControl class and provides a command to change the text size of a control at design time. The control designer is associated with the control by specifying the control designer in a DesignerAttribute object declaration on the TextControl class. The key to persisting property changes from the control designer to the HTML markup is found in the ToggleTextSize method of the custom ActionList class.

To try the example, add a reference to the System.Design.dll assembly and compile the code.

No code example is currently available or this language may not be supported.

System::Object
  System.ComponentModel.Design::ComponentDesigner
    System.Web.UI.Design::HtmlControlDesigner
      System.Web.UI.Design::ControlDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design::ContainerControlDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design::DataSourceDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design::ExtenderControlDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design::HierarchicalDataSourceDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design::ReadWriteControlDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design::ScriptManagerDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design::ScriptManagerProxyDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design::TemplatedControlDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design::TextControlDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design::TimerDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design::UpdatePanelDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design::UpdateProgressDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design::UserControlDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::BaseDataBoundControlDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::ButtonDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::CalendarDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::ChangePasswordDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::CheckBoxDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::CompositeControlDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::ContentDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::ContentPlaceHolderDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::DataPagerDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::HiddenFieldDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::LiteralDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::LoginNameDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::LoginViewDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::PasswordRecoveryDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::PreviewControlDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::RepeaterDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::SiteMapPathDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::SubstitutionDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::TableDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls.WebParts::ProxyWebPartManagerDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls.WebParts::WebPartManagerDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls.WebParts::WebZoneDesigner
        System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls::XmlDesigner

Any public static (Shared in Visual Basic) members of this type are thread safe. Any instance members are not guaranteed to be thread safe.

Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows XP Starter Edition, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2000 SP4, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 98

The .NET Framework and .NET Compact Framework do not support all versions of every platform. For a list of the supported versions, see .NET Framework System Requirements.

.NET Framework

Supported in: 3.5, 3.0, 2.0, 1.1, 1.0
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