Windows Forms Designer Problem When Renaming New Form Before Adding Controls

Question

Note: I have reported the problem below in Visual Studio 2022 Feedback. Just wanted to see if any of you have a suggestion.

Normally, when you create a new Form in Windows Forms and add controls to the form, the Designer automatically fills in the Designer.cs file with information about those controls, properties set, etc. However, If you create a new form and before adding controls you rename the form from its default name of Form (Form.cs, etc.) when you add controls and set properties for those controls in the form the Designer does not update the new form Designer.cs file. Then when you build and run the application, the displayed form is empty; none of the controls that were added using the Designer appear there because the Designer.cs file didn’t record the information. This is very frustrating. At this point, one either has to delete the form and start over, adding controls to the default Form.cs file and only afterwards renaming it, or creating a new InitializeComponent method from scratch doing all the work yourself. I would like the VS Designer to be smart enough to know that if the form is renamed before adding controls that the Designer.cs file should still be filled in correctly when controls are added to the form. Shown below is the minimal Designer.cs file for a form that was renamed to ConvertLength.
namespace MathHelper
{
partial class ConvertLength
{
/// <summary>
/// Required designer variable.
/// </summary>
private System.ComponentModel.IContainer components = null;

    /// <summary>  
    /// Clean up any resources being used.  
    /// </summary>  
    /// <param name="disposing">true if managed resources should be disposed; otherwise, false.</param>  
    protected override void Dispose (bool disposing)  
    {  
        if (disposing && (components != null))  
        {  
            components.Dispose ();  
        }  
        base.Dispose (disposing);  
    }  

    #region Windows Form Designer generated code  

    /// <summary>  
    /// Required method for Designer support - do not modify  
    /// the contents of this method with the code editor.  
    /// </summary>  
    private void InitializeComponent ()  
    {  
        this.components = new System.ComponentModel.Container ();  
        this.AutoScaleMode = System.Windows.Forms.AutoScaleMode.Font;  
        this.ClientSize = new System.Drawing.Size (800, 450);  
        this.Text = "DialogLength";  
    }  

    #endregion  
}  

}

Answer 1

I found a more suitable answer to this problem than my previous workaround. Here are the steps to take:

1. After creating the new Windows Forms project, rename Form1.cs to your desired name. This will also rename the designer.
2. If desired, you may also rename Program.cs.
3. Open the Xxx.Designer.cs file.
4. In InitializeComponent()
   1. Add "this.Name = "<your renamed filename base>"
   2. Save all changed files.
   3. Shutdown Visual Studio.
   4. Re-open Visual Studio.
   5. You should now be able to drag controls into the Design View and have them correctly reflected in the Xxx.Designer.cs file and/or use the Design View properties window to change properties, add event handlers, etc.

Answer 2

I figured out the workaround today. I created a solution with two test projects. I created a Windows Forms project which, of course, defaulted to names Form1.cs and Form1.Designer.cs. Then before adding controls, I renamed the files to FormTest1.cs, etc. I then dragged three controls (a Button, a Label, and a TextBox) from the Toolbox to the form. I built and ran the project and, as I have seen before, the form was displayed with no controls. I closed the application and examined the FormTest1.Designer.cs file and found that there was no information about the controls I had dragged in.

I then created a second Windows Forms project with the default name of Form1.cs. This time, before renaming the form I dragged the same three controls as in the previous project to the form. Then I renamed the form file to FormTest2.cs. I built and ran the project and this time the form was displayed with all three forms. I closed the application and examined the FormTest2.Designer.cs file and found that all the information about the dragged in controls was present.

It seems Visual Studio just can't handle renaming the Form files before adding controls.

You can see the projects I created to demonstrate this on GitHub at https://github.com/nick1941/DesignerTest. Project1 is the result of renaming before adding controls. Project2 is the result of renaming after adding controls.

I have reported this problem to the Microsoft Visual Studio development team.

Answer 3

Hello,

I struggled with the same problem, I tried to do everything you did but I didn't try to do one simple thing.

Namely, choose "Windows Forms App (.NET Framework)" instead of the normal "Windows Forms App" when creating the project. This solved my problem. Just create a project with (.NET Framework) and you're done, you can change the name at the very beginning and VS will do the rest for you.

Yes, it's that simple... And I'm sad that I and you spent so much time struggling with this problem :D

I hope this helps someone else.

Answer 4

I was seeing the same thing. I like to name my forms/controls before adding code to them. I tried a variety of things to no avail. Nicolas's answer of changing the form name, adding the name to InitializeComponent, saving, closing VS, and restarting - worked like a charm. Shouldn't need to do that though. Never had to on previous versions of VS.

I had even tried the "Windows Forms App (.NET Framework)" option but ran into a different problem. It appeared to work as far as changing the form name fine. The problem came when I added a custom DLL. I could set the reference fine, add the using clause, and type ahead worked, but if I clicked the button with the code behind - I would get a System.IO.FileNotFoundException: 'Could not load file or assembly' error out in the Application.Run(new Main()); call in Program.cs.

I know Windows Forms apps aren't popular these days but I think these 2 Windows Forms choices need to be tested a little more thoroughly.

Answer 5

I was seeing the same thing. I like to name my forms/controls before adding code to them. I tried a variety of things to no avail. Nicolas's answer of changing the form name, adding the name to InitializeComponent, saving, closing VS, and restarting - worked like a charm. Shouldn't need to do that though. Never had to on previous versions of VS.

I had even tried the "Windows Forms App (.NET Framework)" option but ran into a different problem. It appeared to work as far as changing the form name fine. The problem came when I added a custom DLL. I could set the reference fine, add the using clause, and type ahead worked, but if I clicked the button with the code behind - I would get a System.IO.FileNotFoundException: 'Could not load file or assembly' error out in the Application.Run(new Main()); call in Program.cs.

I know Windows Forms apps aren't popular these days but I think these 2 Windows Forms choices need to be tested a little more thoroughly.