System.ComponentModel.Design Namespace

Contains classes that developers can use to build custom design-time behavior for components and user interfaces for configuring components at design time. The design time environment provides systems that enable developers to arrange components and configure their properties. Some components may require specific design-time only behavior to function properly in a design time environment. It may also be valuable to provide custom user interfaces which assist developers in configuring components or the values of complex data types. The classes and interfaces defined within this namespace can be used to build design-time behavior for components, access design-time services, and implement customized design-time configuration interfaces.

Classes

ActiveDesignerEventArgs	Provides data for the ActiveDesigner event.
CheckoutException	The exception that is thrown when an attempt to check out a file that is checked into a source code management program is canceled or fails.
CommandID	Represents a unique command identifier that consists of a numeric command ID and a GUID menu group identifier.
ComponentChangedEventArgs	Provides data for the ComponentChanged event. This class cannot be inherited.
ComponentChangingEventArgs	Provides data for the ComponentChanging event. This class cannot be inherited.
ComponentEventArgs	Provides data for the ComponentAdded, ComponentAdding, ComponentRemoved, and ComponentRemoving events.
ComponentRenameEventArgs	Provides data for the ComponentRename event.
DesignerCollection	Represents a collection of designers.
DesignerEventArgs	Provides data for the DesignerCreated and DesignerDisposed events.
DesignerOptionService	Provides a base class for getting and setting option values for a designer.
DesignerOptionService.DesignerOptionCollection	Contains a collection of designer options. This class cannot be inherited.
DesignerTransaction	Provides a way to group a series of design-time actions to improve performance and enable most types of changes to be undone.
DesignerTransactionCloseEventArgs	Provides data for the TransactionClosed and TransactionClosing events.
DesignerVerb	Represents a verb that can be invoked from a designer.
DesignerVerbCollection	Represents a collection of DesignerVerb objects.
DesigntimeLicenseContext	Represents a design-time license context that can support a license provider at design time.
DesigntimeLicenseContextSerializer	Provides support for design-time license context serialization.
HelpKeywordAttribute	Specifies the context keyword for a class or member. This class cannot be inherited.
MenuCommand	Represents a Windows menu or toolbar command item.
ServiceContainer	Provides a simple implementation of the IServiceContainer interface. This class cannot be inherited.
StandardCommands	Defines identifiers for the standard set of commands that are available to most applications.
StandardToolWindows	Defines GUID identifiers that correspond to the standard set of tool windows that are available in the design environment.
TypeDescriptionProviderService	Provides a type description provider for a specified type.

Interfaces

IComponentChangeService	Provides an interface to add and remove the event handlers for events that add, change, remove or rename components, and provides methods to raise a ComponentChanged or ComponentChanging event.
IComponentDiscoveryService	Enables enumeration of components at design time.
IComponentInitializer	Provides a set of recommended default values during component creation.
IDesigner	Provides the basic framework for building a custom designer.
IDesignerEventService	Provides event notifications when root designers are added and removed, when a selected component changes, and when the current root designer changes.
IDesignerFilter	Provides an interface that enables a designer to access and filter the dictionaries of a TypeDescriptor that stores the property, attribute, and event descriptors that a component designer can expose to the design-time environment.
IDesignerHost	Provides an interface for managing designer transactions and components.
IDesignerHostTransactionState	Specifies methods for the designer host to report on the state of transactions.
IDesignerOptionService	Provides access to the designer options located on the Tools menu under the Options command in the Visual Studio development environment.
IDictionaryService	Provides a basic, component site-specific, key-value pair dictionary through a service that a designer can use to store user-defined data.
IEventBindingService	Provides a service for registering event handlers for component events.
IExtenderListService	Provides an interface that can list extender providers.
IExtenderProviderService	Provides an interface for adding and removing extender providers at design time.
IHelpService	Provides methods for showing Help topics and adding and removing Help keywords at design time.
IInheritanceService	Provides methods for identifying the components of a component.
IMenuCommandService	Provides methods to manage the global designer verbs and menu commands available in design mode, and to show some types of shortcut menus.
IReferenceService	Provides an interface for obtaining references to objects within a project by name or type, obtaining the name of a specified object, and for locating the parent of a specified object within a designer project.
IResourceService	Provides an interface for designers to access resource readers and writers for specific CultureInfo resource types.
IRootDesigner	Provides support for root-level designer view technologies.
ISelectionService	Provides an interface for a designer to select components.
IServiceContainer	Provides a container for services.
ITreeDesigner	Provides support for building a set of related custom designers.
ITypeDescriptorFilterService	Provides an interface to modify the set of member descriptors for a component in design mode.
ITypeDiscoveryService	Discovers available types at design time.
ITypeResolutionService	Provides an interface to retrieve an assembly or type by name.

Enums

HelpContextType	Defines identifiers that indicate information about the context in which a request for Help information originated.
HelpKeywordType	Defines identifiers that indicate the type of a Help keyword.
SelectionTypes	Defines identifiers that indicate the type of a selection.
ViewTechnology	Defines identifiers for a set of technologies that designer hosts support.

Delegates

ActiveDesignerEventHandler	Represents the method that will handle the ActiveDesignerChanged event.
ComponentChangedEventHandler	Represents the method that will handle a ComponentChanged event.
ComponentChangingEventHandler	Represents the method that will handle a ComponentChanging event.
ComponentEventHandler	Represents the method that will handle the ComponentAdding, ComponentAdded, ComponentRemoving, and ComponentRemoved events raised for component-level events.
ComponentRenameEventHandler	Represents the method that will handle a ComponentRename event.
DesignerEventHandler	Represents the method that will handle the DesignerCreated and DesignerDisposed events that are raised when a document is created or disposed of.
DesignerTransactionCloseEventHandler	Represents the method that handles the TransactionClosed and TransactionClosing events of a designer.
ServiceCreatorCallback	Provides a callback mechanism that can create an instance of a service on demand.

Remarks

The classes in this namespace include:

• A basic IDesigner interface that you can use to customize design-time behavior for specific types of components.

• A ComponentDesigner class that provides a more sophisticated designer base class which implements the IDesigner, IDisposable, and IDesignerFilter interfaces.

• Designer interfaces and services that enable a designer to support additional functionality, including:

  • IComponentChangeService

  • IDesignerEventService

  • IDesignerFilter

  • IDesignerHost

  • IDesignerOptionService

  • IDictionaryService

  • IEventBindingService

  • IExtenderListService

  • IExtenderProviderService

  • IHelpService

  • IInheritanceService

  • IMenuCommandService

  • IReferenceService

  • IResourceService

  • IRootDesigner

  • ISelectionService

  • IServiceContainer

  • ITypeDescriptorFilterService

  • ITypeResolutionService

• Classes that can be used to customize design-time license context management and serialization: DesigntimeLicenseContext and DesigntimeLicenseContextSerializer.

• Simple collection editors that can be extended: ArrayEditor and CollectionEditor.