Custom color collection

Hi Everyone,

Is it possible to override\expand the color collections list in the designer. Currently selecting BackColor property displays a control of 3 tabs "Custom", "Web" and "System." Is it possible add an additional tab by creating a component that will provide the developer with a restrictive, defined list or colors to be used for application development.

Having created a static serializable collection of colors that can be accessed like the .NET native Colors class, ie. Color blue=MyColors.CorporateBlue;

I would like to know how to take this a step further and expose this in the forms designer.

Please take it easy this is my first post :)

Thanks.

Answer this question

Custom color collection

jimschor
Thank you so much, its nice to have a 1st post perfectly answered.
jdrean
Hi Eli,
Following your help I have successfully created a custom editor with an additional color tab. I added an override for the Backcolor property and specified the custom editor as the editor attribute and all is good.

The component is intended to be used by our designers to promote use of a "common application palette." I was hoping for a suggestion to deploy this component, is it possible to replace color property editor's programmatically

I could override the Backcolor, Foreground, and other color properties... and then get developers to derive from "mycolorcustomform" but it seems a bit of an overkill to just change a designer:)

I could always provide documentated instructions but where is the fun in that.

Thanks.
DeepsB

Sorry, but I don't know any documention or a way to override the form existing properties without creating at least extension of it.

But, maybe there is, I sugest that you post a new thread with this question (pepole tend not to read long thread like this one).
cmoibenlepro

Nice to hear...

Let us know how it turns out.
CsharperNow

Ok, I'll devided my answer to 2 parts:

1. Replacing the designer color picker with your own:

The BackColor property has what is called Editor' for it, so that when ever you choose to set the color, the color picker is opened.

You can't replace the existing controls color picker but you can extend this control and replace the BackColor Editor with your own custom editor.

Read about this at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html/cpconuitypeeditorforwinformssample.asp

This example shows how to create your own editor for any property you want on your UserContrl.

In the end, the color picker editor is just a user control that is rapped up with some functions to allow it to work on desing-time, which leads us to the second question:

2. How to create a color picker with another tab:

Someone allready done this work for you, check out:

http://www.codeproject.com/cs/miscctrl/MultiTabColorPicker.asp

so all you need to do is add your tab...
Custom color collection

Answer this question