Building Visual studio like application, need inputs..

Question

Hi,

I am working on a Visual studio like application i.e. have a tolbox, an editor and property grid similar to VS.

User can drag and drop the controls(custom and third party) to the editor window and perform operations like resize, move, align, group etc.; Properties of that control needs to be displayed in property grid and user can update them from there.

As per my current understanding I will have to extend the Canvas to create my own editor and and Interface for controls which it supports; Each supported control will have to implemnt this interface so that it can be placed in our editor.

Something similar to this - http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WPF/WPFDiagramDesigner_Part4.aspx

Looking forward for any kind of help, comment or links.

Answer 1

If WPF is a requirement, wait for the VS2010 release and use the Visual Studio Shell in either isolated mode or integrated mode. Otherwise you can use the Visual Studio 2008 Shell isolated or integrated.

You'll get the docking support, addin model, editors with highlight and much more almost for free that way.

Answer 2

Finally, I used the Diagram designer approch to build my application. Although, I had to create my custom property grid which was painful.

Recently I came across following post which suggests that .Net DesignSurface can be used for building this kind of application -

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3278488/how-to-create-an-ui-designer-utility/3279890#3279890