How to apply dependency injection to UserControl views while keeping Designer happy?

Question

public class StatisticsViewPresenter
{
    private IStatisticsView view;
    private Statistics statsModel;

    public StatisticsViewPresenter(IStatisticsView view, Statistics statsModel)
    {
        this.view = view;
        this.statsModel = statsModel;
    }
}

I don't use events (but am willing to if it can solve my problem), so my View classes look like this:

public class StatisticsForm : Form, IStatisticsView
{
    public StatisticsForm()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    [Inject]
    public StatisticsViewPresenter Presenter
    {
        private get;
        set;
    }
}

With

kernel.Bind<StatisticsPresenter>().ToSelf().InSingletonScope();
kernel.Bind<IStatisticsView>().To<StatisticsForm>();
kernel.Get<IStatisticsView>();

it builds up the Form, builds up the presenter, then injects the presenter into the Presenter property. Everything's peachy. (Except for that singleton-scoped presenter--any thoughts on a better way to do that? Perhaps just manually inject the presenter into the view's Presenter property inside the presenter's constructor: this.view.Presenter = this).

But if I turn StatisticsForm into StatisticsUserControl and drag-drop it onto my MainForm, it's not being injected into MainForm by Ninject, it's simply being new'd by the Designer. I see three solutions here:

1) Don't use UserControls and just use one giant form that implements these multiple views (eww);

2) Inject UserControls into my form and lose Designer support;

3) Your solution! :)

Answer 1

This is certainly an interesting area of, should I say, research. We've made ourselves a solution where we host user controls in a generic form.

Our generic form is not intended for use with the Designer. Through code we add the chosen user control to the Form dynamically.

For other frameworks you should look at Prism/Composite from the Microsoft Patterns & Practices group. Here's an article discussing extensions for WinForms.