Winform extended control not showing up in the designer

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I have extended a combo box to over ride the OnSelectedIndexChanged event. The control works as intended. When the form that the control has been placed on is opened, the control displays. After running the application in debug mode and looking at the form (that was open when debugging started) the control is not visible. It is still there, just not visible. If the form is closed and opened again, the control is then visible.

Here is an example of my extended combo box:

C#

using System;
using System.ComponentModel;

namespace CustomControls
{
    public partial class ComboBoxSN : ComboBox
    {
        private bool _haltSelection = false;

        /// <summary>
        /// Set whether to run the selectedindex event for the control
        /// </summary>
        [Description("Set this to true to keep the selected index from firing"), Category("CustomControl"), DefaultValue(false), Browsable(true)]
        public bool HaltSelection
        {
            get { return _haltSelection; }
            set { _haltSelection = value; }
        }

        protected override void OnSelectedIndexChanged(EventArgs e)
        {
            if (!_haltSelection)
                base.OnSelectedIndexChanged(e);
        }
    }
}

What I have tried:

I have searched CodeProject with out any success.
What is needed so the control always shows in the designer?
Thank you.

Posted 27-Apr-20 6:03am

Member 14116411

Updated 27-Apr-20 8:36am

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raddevus · Answer 1 · 2020-04-27T08:37:00

This can be a bit tricky. It is really related to Visual Studio and there are surely differences in the various versions.
I've struggled with this in the past also and it can drive you crazy.
Method 1
Anyways, the easiest way that will probably work is to
1. open your target project
2. open the form where you want to use the control. (if you don't open a form then the toolbox item in Visual Studio doesn't normally appear)
3. open your Toolbox (the place where you choose controls that you'll drag and drop onto a form).
4. Have you ever noticed these are grouped into collapsible tabs? well, go to the tab that says general...and go below it and right-click and a menu will appear that looks something like this --> https://i.stack.imgur.com/zwUqR.png[^]
5. you want to select the [Choose items...] menu item.
When you select that then another dialog box will appear.
This is where you will choose the control that you want Visual Studio to know about.
6. click the browse button and browse to the location where you have the dll that contains the control and select it.

This will add it to the General list and will register it with VStudio and _probably_ solve the problem.

Method 2
If you have a UserControl defined within your project you will have something like I have with a TextArea.cs (mine is a special textbox).
If you have that, then
1. go under Solution Explorer
2. navigate to your file (mine's TextArea.cs) and drag it over to the General tab and drop it on the Toolbox General tab.
3. This will create a reference to the control and register it so Visual Studio will know how to render it.

Either or both of these may require a VSTudio restart.
Good luck.