Using Property Grid In C#

Mike Gold

8y691.3k29100Article

C#Property GridGrid In C#Property Grid In C#

29 Comments

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Merlin El4y ago
Simple and nice explanation. Thank you sir :-D
Rajender Pal4y ago
Sir How to add Multiple Record
Phụng Nguyễn8y ago
Perfect! Shortly and Concise!
kalu singh rao10y ago
Nice...
Sarath KS12y ago
Good article. Simple and well explained :)
Meenakshi Kumari Syal13y ago
I want to export the values displayed in property grid to excel . IS it possible to do so ......if yes then how pls send me code
ketakee bhinge14y ago
in this example you assign like bill.SSN = "123-345-3566"; bill.Email = [email protected]; but that value i want assign on form. suppose we have 3 forms in 1st form contain personal info in this different text box for id,name,radio button for gender. 2nd form contain combobox for class and on third form contain serial no.that is in numeric updown and here add property grid. when user run this project they fill that data on textbox,radio button that all information display on 3rd form property grid whwt ever he fill data that display on property grid on runtime for that what code require plz help me its arjent plz...................
Franz15y ago
Hi, this tutorial is very easy to understand thanks to you. However, is there a way to hide the inherited property of a user control? I created a user control with a label and a data grid. I just want to display the text property of the label and hide all the other properties within the user control.. I really need your help please.. God Bless
Tushar Malhotra15y ago
I'm creating a custom control in ASP.NET suing C#.NET The control has a property say drives, that shows the list of all drives in the property window. If I select any drive from the "Drive" Property of that control then how can i map the selected Item in the code behind. public List<string> allDrives = new List<string>(); Public List<string> Drive { get { return allDrives; } set { allDrives = value; } } Now, this property of my custom control helps to load the list of drives in the "Drive" property and shows all the list of drives as a collection. If I select any drive then there is another property that loads the list of directories in the another property in that selected drive.
howdy_nun16y ago
thank you verty much. I find this for long time. Thank again.
DEEPTI AST18y ago
I M TRYING TO EDIT APP CONFIG FILE AND SAVE THE CHANGES
dattatraya dattatraya18y ago
Excellent Article. Keep Posting.
neda aryan19y ago
hi,could you please tel me hom we canadd a chech box in a propertygrid?
Amar Chaudhary19y agoedited
How can I hide/disable some elements in property grid for Button or any other control which is a default control
Varadharajan Rajan19y ago
I created Check Boxes in Property Grid using UITypeEditor. I also need to create Property items dynamically , so I used Custom Property creation using PropertyDescriptor class adn created properties using CreateProoperty. The problem is: After using CustomProperty descriptor I am no longer able to see checkboxes or listBoxes created using UIType Editor . Any one have faced this problem before ? How to use UITypeEditor and PropertyDescriptor together in my class and does not lose the UITypeEditor visual (checkboxes, Listboxes) Cheers, Rajan
Varadharajan Rajan19y ago
I created Check Boxes in Property Grid using UITypeEditor. I also need to create Property items dynamically , so I used Custom Property creation using PropertyDescriptor class adn created properties using CreateProoperty. The problem is: After using CustomProperty descriptor I am no longer able to see checkboxes or listBoxes created using UIType Editor . Any one have faced this problem before ? How to use UITypeEditor and PropertyDescriptor together in my class and does not lose the UITypeEditor visual (checkboxes, Listboxes) Cheers, Rajan
Varadharajan Rajan19y ago
Is it possible to dynamically add Items (like adding 50 drop down boxes in Property grid) at runtime ? How can I do it ?
sree lakshmi19y ago
I want to show the items under the category in my order...like firstname,lastname,dob etc.
- Varadharajan Rajan19y ago
  Is it possible to dynamically add Items (like adding 50 drop down boxes in Property grid) at runtime ? How can I do it ?
padma p19y ago
Hi, I want to populate a propertygrid with data that comes at runtime.By runtime, i mean not only the values, but the filed names also, that is, when the user selects a node from a treeview.
Steffen Jensen19y ago
Hi there. Is it possible to format numbers in the Property Grid i.e. thousands separator and numbers of decimals? Tia Steffen
Steffen Jensen19y ago
Hi there. Is it possible to format numbers in the Property Grid i.e. thousands separator and numbers of decimals? Tia Steffen
Mustafa Yildiz19y agoedited
Thank you very much, helped me alot p.s if you could explain how to disable any item we dont want it to be changed, i would be grateful
- Tobias19y ago
  Every property wich is read only it self (by having only a get block) is disabled in the grid. If you want to disable a readable property, use the ReadOnlyAttribute.
Swetha19y ago
how do i Disable a property in a property grid
keerti20y ago
Hi could you please tel me how we can add a combo box in a property grid??
- Andrew Borys19y ago
  Hi! I really need to use ComboBoxed item but I can not use Property of Enum type. (This is because I do not know the entire content of the Combo during the compile time only in a run-time. May be there is possible to create some type inherited from the System.Enum but i do not know exactly how PropertyGrid control will use it and what do I need to overwrite.) Does anybody have any suggestions?
- Jason19y ago
  If you use an enum type then the PropertyGrid creates a combo box.
- praveen15y ago
  Dear, Please see the article on the below url http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa302326.aspx

Figure 1 - The property grid in action

Are you familiar with the window in Visual Studio .NET that lets you edit all your forms? You know, the one that you wish you could add to all your programs because it has such a cool interface? You know, the Property Window! Well guess what? You can add it to your windows form as part of your design and use it to allow users to edit class properties directly because Microsoft has provided it, they just don't display it initially in the toolbox.The control is called the Property Grid and you have full access to it. Simply right click on the toolbox and choose Add/Remove Items... as shown in figure 2 below,

Figure 2 - Adding the Property Grid to the ToolBox

This will bring up the Customize Toolbox dialog which will give you a choice of either .NET Components or COM Components. Scroll down to PropertyGrid, check this item and click OK.Walla! You now have access to a very powerful editting control in which you can allow users to edit properties in your classes through the slick interface of the property grid.

Figure 3 - Customize ToolBox Dialog for Adding your PropertyGrid Control to the Toolbox

Readying your Class for the Property Grid

The property grid is fairly easy to use.The hard part is making the class that you want to display in the grid "Property Grid Friendly". The first step is to create public properties for fields you want to expose. All properties should have get and set methods.(If you don't have a get method, the property won't show up in the PropertyGrid). If you just do the bare minimum of making public properties with get and set methods, your class instance can be displayed in the property grid. However, your property grid will be void of descriptions, categories and other niceties that property grids such as Visual Studio.NET contains. In order to really make your property grid soar, you need to add special attributes to each of your properties. These attributes are contained in the System.ComponentModel namespace and are shown in the table below,

Attribute	Description
CategoryAttribute	This attribute places your property in the appropriate category in a node on the property grid.
DescriptionAttribute	This attribute places a description of your property at the bottom of the property grid
BrowsableAttribute	This is used to determine whether or not the property is shown or hidden in the property grid
ReadOnlyAttribute	Use this attribute to make your property read only inside the property grid
DefaultValueAttribute	Specifies the default value of the property shown in the property grid
DefaultPropertyAttribute	If placed above a property, this property gets the focus when the property grid is first launched. Unlike the other attributes, this attribute goes above the class.

Table 1 - Attributes to ready your class's properties for the property grid

The Customer Class

Now we are ready to create our customer class to make it displayable in the property grid.In order to utilize the property grid attributes in Table 1, we need to import the namespace for these attributes so we add the using clause for the System.ComponentModel:

using System.ComponentModel;

Then we simply create the customer class with private fields and public properties that access these fields. Attributes are placed above the properties to ready each property for the property grid.

Listing 1 - PropertyGrid-Ready Customer Class

///<summary>
// Customer class to be displayed in the property grid
///</summary>
///
[DefaultPropertyAttribute("Name")]
publicclass Customer {
privatestring _name;
privateint _age;
private DateTime _dateOfBirth;
privatestring _SSN;
privatestring _address;
privatestring _email;
privatebool _frequentBuyer;
// Name property with category attribute and
// description attribute added
[CategoryAttribute("ID Settings"), DescriptionAttribute("Name of the customer")]
publicstring Name {
get {
return _name;
}
set {
_name = value;
}
}
[CategoryAttribute("ID Settings"),
DescriptionAttribute("Social Security Number of the customer")
]
publicstring SSN {
get {
return _SSN;
}
set {
_SSN = value;
}
}
[CategoryAttribute("ID Settings"),
DescriptionAttribute("Address of the customer")
]
publicstring Address {
get {
return _address;
}
set {
_address = value;
}
}
[CategoryAttribute("ID Settings"),
DescriptionAttribute("Date of Birth of the Customer (optional)")
]
public DateTime DateOfBirth {
get {
return _dateOfBirth;
}
set {
_dateOfBirth = value;
}
}
[CategoryAttribute("ID Settings"), DescriptionAttribute("Age of the customer")]
publicint Age {
get {
return _age;
}
set {
_age = value;
}
}
[CategoryAttribute("Marketting Settings"), DescriptionAttribute("If the customer as bought more than 10 times, thisisset to true")]
publicbool FrequentBuyer {
get {
return _frequentBuyer;
}
set {
_frequentBuyer = value;
}
}
[CategoryAttribute("Marketting Settings"), DescriptionAttribute("Most current e-mail of the customer")]
publicstring Email {
get {
return _email;
}
set {
_email = value;
}
}
public Customer() {}
}

Assigning the PropertyGrid an Object

All that is left to do to get the grid running is assign an instance of our customer class to the property grid.The property grid will automatically figure out all the fields of the customer through reflection and display the property name along with the property value on each line of the grid. Another nice feature of the property grid is it will create special editing controls on each line that correspond to the value type on that line. For example, a Date of Birth property (of type DateTime) of the customer will allow you to edit the value of the the date with the calendar control. Booleans can be edited with a combo box showing True or False (saves you from excess typing).

In Listing 2 we created a new customer and populated it with values through its properties. We then use the SelectObject property of the PropertyGrid and assign our customer object to this property.Upon assigning the customer to the grid, the grid will display all of the public properties we defined in our Customer class.

Listing 2 - Assigning the customer object to the property grid.

privatevoid Form1_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e) {
// Create the customer object we want to display
Customer bill = new Customer();
// Assign values to the properties
bill.Age = 50;
bill.Address = " 114 Maple Drive ";
bill.DateOfBirth = Convert.ToDateTime(" 9/14/78");
bill.SSN = "123-345-3566";
bill.Email = bill @aol.com;
bill.Name = "Bill Smith";
// Sets the the grid with the customer instance to be
// browsed
propertyGrid1.SelectedObject = bill;
}

Examining the Results

Figure 1 shows the results of our efforts of creating a property grid in our form. If we examine figure 1 again we see that the two categories we defined in our CategoryAttribute,ID Settings and Market Settings, are shown as headers in the two tree nodes.The description of the FrequentBuyer is shown at the bottom of the PropertyGrid retrieved from our DescriptionAttribute for the FrequentBuyer property.Upon selecting the boolean FrequentBuyer property value, we get a drop down for the possible boolean values, True or False.

Conclusion

The property grid is a powerful control for allowing users to edit the internals of your published classes. Because of the ability for the property grid to reflect and bind to your class, there is not much work involved in getting the property grid up and working. You can add categories and descriptions to your property grid by using the special grid attributes in the System.Component model. Anyway, here is yet another powerful control available to you and the latest property of your .NET mindshare.