Text property in a UserControl in C#

Question

I have a control with a inner TextBox. I want to make a direct relationship between the Text property of the UserControl and the Text property of the TextBox. The first thing I realized is that Text was not being displayed in the Properties of the UserControl. Then I added the Browsable(true) attribute.

[Browsable(true)]
public override string Text
{
    get
    {
        return m_textBox.Text;
    }

    set
    {
        m_textBox.Text = value;
    }
}

Now, the text will be shown for a while, but then is deleted. This is because the information is not written automatically within the xxxx.Designer.cs file. How can this behviour be changed?

Answer 1

You need more attributes:

[EditorBrowsable(EditorBrowsableState.Always)]
[Browsable(true)]
[DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible)]
[Bindable(true)]
public override string Text 

Answer 2

For serialization within the InitializeComponent(), all you need is the DesignerSerializationVisibilityAttribute:

[DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible)]

Answer 3

Reflector is a crucial tool for a .NET developer. It is immediately obvious what you need to do when you use it to look at the UserControl.Text property:

[Bindable(false), EditorBrowsable(EditorBrowsableState.Never), Browsable(false),
 DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Hidden)]
public override string Text
{
    get
    {
        return base.Text;
    }
    set
    {
        base.Text = value;
    }
}

Ho showed you what you need to do to cancel these attributes, too bad he didn't show you how he found out. Reflector is free, download it from redgate.com