How to add custom properties to a custom webcontrol

Question

I want to add custom typed properties to a webcontrol, like for example EditRowStyle in GridView, but in a way that the property's properties can be declared in Source view in ascx/aspx. It's clear that GridView hasn't got a property like EditRowStyle-BackColor, but only EditRowStyle has. Something like this:

public class MyCustomGrid : GridView
{
  [...]
  private MyCustomSettings customSettings;
  public MyCustomSettings CustomSettings
        {
            get { return customSettings; }
        }
  [...]
}

public class MyCustomSettings 
{
  private string cssClass = "default";
  public string CssClass
  {
    get { return cssClass; }
    set { cssClass = value; }
  }
}

And the grid decalartion:

<c1:MyCustomGrid ID="grdCustom" runat="server" CustomSettings-CssClass="customcss" />

Because this solution doesn't work.

Answer 1

Why can't you just have that CssClass property in MyCustomGrid? Then it would work and be assignable via CssClass attribute in the markup. I would just add the properties to MyCustomGrid one by one, don't put them in another class.

Answer 2

public class MyCustomGrid : GridView
{
  [...]
  private MyCustomSettings customSettings;
  [PersistenceMode(PersistenceMode.InnerProperty),DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Content)]
  public MyCustomSettings CustomSettings
        {
            get { return customSettings; }
        }
  [...]
}

[TypeConverter(typeof(MyCustomSettings))]
public class MyCustomSettings 
{
  private string cssClass = "default";
  public string CssClass
  {
    get { return cssClass; }
    set { cssClass = value; }
  }
}

Answer 3

You are on right way. Add set/get to CustomSettings.