What is Control's DesignMode property and how to use it?

Question

Hi,
what is DesignMode property? When it is useful? I don't understand it from msdn definition http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.ui.control.designmode.aspx

Some example? Thanks for answer.

Answer 1

The DesignMode property will be set to True when you are editing your asp.net page in Visual Studio. For example if you create a chart control you could show a chart based on dummy data during design-time and at run-time generate a chart based on the provided data.

Answer 2

This is a property that let's you know if you are running in Visual Studio Designer. It is helpful when you are writing a custom control and you want it to behave differently during design time.

Answer 3

On example of when you might use it for design time specific behavior is when creating a custom control and you want to set its display text equal to the name of the control:

if (DesignMode && string.IsNullOrEmpty(Text))
  Text = Name;