Custom Controls Design Time Support Part 8: Implementing UITypeEditor

In the previous post I gave a brief introduction on what is a UITypeEditor and what you can get from using it, this part I will show you how to implement one.

So here are the steps:

1. Define a class that derives from System.Drawing.Design.UITypeEditor.
2. Override GetEditStyle to return a supported UITypeEditorEditStyle.
3. Override EditValue and pass any controls necessary to the IWindowsFormsEditorService.
4. Override GetPaintValueSupported.
5. Override PaintValue if the editor supports painting.
6. Override IsDropDownResizable if the editor is resiazble.

Now we will go through the steps one by one, the example I will introduce here will be another ColorEditor, I will use the ColorWheel introduced and explained in this MSDN magazine article.

The final editor that we will make will look like this

[more]

Step 1

[code:c#]

public class ColorWheelEditor : UITypeEditor

[/code]

Step 2

[code:c#]

public override UITypeEditorEditStyle GetEditStyle(System.ComponentModel.ITypeDescriptorContext context)
{
   return UITypeEditorEditStyle.DropDown;
}

[/code]

Step 3

[code:c#]

public override object EditValue(System.ComponentModel.ITypeDescriptorContext context, IServiceProvider provider, object value)
{
   IWindowsFormsEditorService iwefs = provider.GetService(typeof(IWindowsFormsEditorService)) as IWindowsFormsEditorService;
   Color c;
   using (ColorWheelContainer cwc = new ColorWheelContainer(iwefs))
   {
     cwc.Color = (Color)value;
     iwefs.DropDownControl(cwc);
     if (cwc.Result == DialogResult.OK)
     {
       c = cwc.Color;
     }
     else
     {
       c = (Color)value;
     }
   }
  return c;
}

[/code]

Here, I need to introduce you to the IWindowsFormsEditorService .

Step 4

[code:c#]

public override bool GetPaintValueSupported(System.ComponentModel.ITypeDescriptorContext context)
{
    return true; // we will use the picked color and fill the rectangle.
}

[/code]

Step 5

[code:c#]

public override void PaintValue(PaintValueEventArgs e)
{
   Color c = (Color)e.Value;
   e.Graphics.FillRectangle(new SolidBrush(c), e.Bounds);
}

[/code]

Step 6

[code:c#]

public override bool IsDropDownResizable
{
   get
   {
     return false;//we don't want it to be resizable
   }
}

[/code]

Now don't forget to associate the editor with the color property using the Editor attribute.

[code:c#]

[Editor(typeof(ColorWheelEditor),typeof(UITypeEditor))]
public Color ColorProperty

[/code]

In this part I showed how to implement a UITypeEditor that appears in a Drop Down. See you soon.

ColorWheelEditor.zip (13.99 kb)