Writing and. NET Properties Window Interactive Rad component (i)

Interaction One, Summary:
This article will show you how to develop with. The RAD component of the Net Properties window interaction

Second, the content:
Brief introduction

What can the Properties window do

Basics: Using attribute to customize the display of the property window

Extended Properties and String conversions: TypeConverter and Properties Window

Write and display custom types

Provides an interactive view of properties

We can also use it

Conclusion

Iii. Introduction
In Visual Basic, the Properties window is a key tool for truly rapid application development (RAD:RAPID application Development). In Visual Studio. NET, the Properties window provides more features to support rapid development. If you are using visual Studio. NET development environment to write components or other objects, you can use the attributes provided by the property window to enrich the design-time characteristics of your component.

Four, what the Properties window can do
The previous Properties window version processes COM based information and displays the intrinsic properties of the control. The public API for a COM component is generally declared with IDL (Interface Definition Language) and has its own properties. For example: Nonbrowsable can let the property window not display it, or bindable can let the property implement data binding. Other display features, such as standard value list (standard value lists) and categorized Properties (attribute categories) require components to implement COM interfaces iperpropertybrowsing and icategorizedproperties. NET Framework and properties windows provide these support in a simpler, more unified way, At the same time there are more new features.

Natural. NET Properties window continues to support previous versions of functionality, he gets type information from ITypeInfo and supports the attributes mentioned above. However, if you want to use powerful new features, you must use managed code to implement the components. Here are some new features listed:

1. Lmetadata attribute (meta data characteristic)

The attribute's attributes largely determine how the property window interacts with your component. Attributes make it easy for component writers to control whether properties are visible in the Properties window, how they are categorized, whether they can be included in multiple checks, and whether they affect other properties ' values. These features can be easily used.

2. Lhierarchical Support (Inheritance support)

Property can also have logical child properties.

3. Lgraphical Value Representation (graphical representation of property values)

In addition to providing a literal representation of a property value, we can also provide a graphical representation of the value of the property.

4. Lcustom type Editing (custom type Edit)

Components can provide custom user interfaces for property editing, such as the choice of date properties for date controls, or how color controls are selected. Now, the Properties window is no longer determined by the supported type, but by the component. The framework provides a number of tools to support all inline type edits.

5. Lextensible Views (Extended Properties view)

Like property tabs, components can add their own views to properties and events, so that you can support the graphics of properties in design state.

6. Lreusable component (Reusable component)

. NET Properties window is primarily made up of System.Windows.Forms.PropertyGrid controls, and we can also use its features when our application is running.

Obviously, there are more features in the property window. This article is about how you can use these features to extend the features of your own components.

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