How to show controls hierarchy in Winform designer

Question

Hi,

One of our client has an old winform application that contains forms with a lot of controls on them. Some of those controls have a deep hierarchy and that make it to hard to select them in the designer.

I would need to understand this hierarchy to make modification and correct some bugs, is there a tools, plugin or something to be able to clearly see this hierarchy ? Something like in the aspx source when you have a breadcrumb of where you are in the HTML hierarchy (HTML > Body > div > etc ...) or something more visual maybe ?

Any ideas ?

PS : we use Visual Studio 2008, .NET 2.0

Answer 1

You need to use the Document Outline

View > Other Windows > Document Outline

Or

Ctl + ALT + T

Answer 2

Click on View > Other Windows > Document Outline in Visual Studio.

That should show the control hierarchy.

Answer 3

Visual Style Builder for UI Customization - Download this tool and use it...

Another tool is present which is "Control Spy Tool for Easier Development"

You will find the solution easily..