Working in the visual designer of a WinForm project, when one selects an element the properties pane lists all the properties for that element. Selecting a property in the properties pane then displays a description for that property (the value of the assigned DescriptionAttribute) in a property description box immediately below the list of properties. Even without the visual designer open, one can select another item (e.g. an entry in the solution explorer) to show its properties in the properties pane and the property description box is still active and visible.
When working in the visual design of a WPF project, on the other hand, the property description box does not appear (true for both VS2008 and VS2010). Is there a way to expose it? Surely it must be available, or is this a defect?
The only page I could find in VS documentation is Quick Tour of the IDE that illustrates and describes each section of the visual designer -- except for the properties pane!
2010.02.11 Update
Since, according to Will Eddins answer, there is no way to do this (and the situation is unchanged with the just released VS2010 release candidate) I have filed a defect report against VS2010.
To show the properties pane, on the menu select View >> Properties Window. Alternatively, press F4.
Seems to me a bug too. I don't know if you got any answers from Microsoft Connect but I had a work-around which worked for me always.
First, open VS2008/2010 in waiting mode(meaning; if you have set a starting project, unset it). Go to the solution explorer panel. On the top left of the panel, you may see a box named "properties", click on it. You can alternatively press Alt+Enter.
http://i43.tinypic.com/52nxtv.png
Now, as you open the properties panel, you can see the description box down in the panel(if it is not hidden in your settings file). You may have to resize it.
Now load any project you want ;)
Related
I'm styling a menu in WPF and would like to see how it looks, without having to launch the application to open the menu.
Is there a way to keep the menu open (so I can see the menu items) at design-time, so I can see the changes as I go?
I currently only have Visual Studio 2010 to work with.
You can set IsSubmenuOpen="True", but if you click somewhere else, menu will close. Set it again to open.
You should be able to see changes in the design window as soon as you make changes - are you using VS2010 express? I found that in express the designer didn't refresh when I made style changes - I had to close/re-open the form to see the changes reflected. You shouldn't need to build to see design changes unless of course you are adding new user controls etc that need to be built before the designer can process them
I have an attached property and I am registering it with the designer using a design-time assembly. I am using the AttachedPropertyBrowsableForTypeAttribute so that the property will be shown when a TextBox is selected.
The property shows up fine in Expression Blend 4, but does not show in Visual Studio 2010 SP1.
Does anyone know why it would not show up in Visual Studio?
You can download a test project demonstrating the problem from here:
Test Project
Thanks!
The short answer is indeed because the Cider designer is a complete piece of crap. Here's the longer answer:
From a Microsoft blog:
One thing to keep in mind is that one of the requirements of showing
attached properties in the designer is that the owning type needs to
have been loaded by the designer. This happens whenever the designer
accesses the type because it is in the XAML source or is a dependency
of an element loaded from the XAML source.
So the problem is the Cider designer only cares about types which have already been loaded. You can see an example of this by changing your containing Grid to a StackPanel: the Grid.Row and Grid.Column attached properties will then disappear from the list of TextBox properties within Visual Studio. The Blend design surface is somehow more forgiving and recognizes your type. In addition, Blend dutifully displays the Grid.IsSharedSizeScope (under Layout properties) even when using a StackPanel.
Looking at how Microsoft uses and supports attached properties, they seem to favor using them on layout containers. For example there's the AttachedPropertyBrowsableForChildrenAttribute. It's so you can do things like show Canvas.Left for children of a Canvas element. I get the impression they did not thoroughly consider how most people actually are using attached properties today (bolting functionality onto the side of an object versus having functionality flow downhill from a parent).
Is there any way to "un-Reset" the Toolbox in Visual Studio 2008?
I was trying to get my first-ever WPF UserControl to appear in the Toolbox. I rebuilt my project, then right-clicked on the Toolbox and chose "Reset Toolbox" from the pop-up menu; hoping that would "refresh" the control list (I know better now). Alas, the reset removed ALL the controls from the Toolbox for WPF projects (It's still OK for Win-Forms projects).
So is there a relatively quick way to restore all "the standard WPF controls" to the Toolbox?... I only had the standard controls (being a WPF noob) so "No" I didn't take a backup before I hit the reset switch... BIG Sigh!
Thanking you all in advance,
Keith.
EDIT: To document my (sort of) resolution to the problem...
I got my WPF controls back, but they're not in there nice seperate toolboxes (i.e. the expandable sections, or whatever you call them). Meh! It'll have to do ;-)
To get them back... With a WPF Window open (Window1.xaml for example): right-click on the General "toolbox", select "Choose items ..." from the pop-up menu, goto the "WPF Components" tab, select ALL items and click the checkbox of the last item (to make all tools visible), then click the OK button... then (if you want) right-click on the toolbox and select "Sort Items Alphabetically" then go back into right-click-Toolbox ~ Choose Items ~ WPF Components; and untick all those items which don't have distinctive icon (the "default icon" is a white window with a blue border containing a "cone" which appears to be blowing red bubbles... stoners beware?!?!). You'll probably have to OK your "unticks" half-way down the list, coz you can't scroll the toolbox (too see the icons) whilst the Choose Items dialogue is open.
Cheers all. Hope this helps the next MS Victim.
Keith.
PS: For what it's worth, I still think this is a "bug" in VS2008... Resetting the toolbars should retore them to there original condition. Which, as far as I'm concerned, includes the "out of the box" WPF toolbox configuration. I presume it's lost them coz the WPF Toolbox's where/are a "tack on"... implemented as "custom" toolboxs (the same as a user-defined toolbox). Sigh.
If it's still a "bug" in VS2010 then maybe it should be reported, so that atleast it (probably) won't be propagated to 2012, or whatever comes next.
Did you try running this command in VS2008 Command Prompt-
del "%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\*.tbd"
Refer to this link - http://msmvps.com/blogs/coad/archive/2010/05/07/reset-the-visual-studio-toolbox.aspx
As per this it will re-populate the data.
It's probably a bit late now, but I find if I change environment settings etc and want to get them back I open a 2nd copy of Visual Studio before I close the other Visual Studio instance. Then close the one you changed and then immediately close the 2nd version.
This normally persists your settings from the last instance closed for next time opening.
If I create a WPF user control, it appears automatically in the Visual Studio toolbox.
Is there a way to make other controls appear automatically in the Visual Studio toolbox?
Conversely, is there a way to hide a user control from the toolbox?
You can right click on the toolbox and select Choose Items... Then from there you will get a dialog that allows you to select which controls to show or hide.
Per comment below if you are trying to figure out how to do this for a Third Party that you are providing your control to check out this MSDN article that describes packaging your control:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms165358.aspx
Auto population is described here (at the end), but to summarize you can add DesignTimeVisible(false) to your UserControl to prevent it from being added to the Toolbox.
Your controls should be added just like your UserControls, assuming they meet the requirements at the end of the link above, which are:
To appear in the Auto-Population
Toolbox process a type must derive
from FrameworkElement and:
Are public and have a default public or internal constructor or are
internal and have either a default
public or internal constructor
Types deriving from Window or Page are ignored
FrameworkElements in other .exe projects are ignore
Internal classes will only be displayed when the active designer is
for an item in the same project
Friend Assemblies are not taken into account for Toolbox
Auto-Population
If you are building reusable controls (where your end-users will simply add a reference to your assembly), then you'd need to tell Visual Studio that it should load your controls into the Toolbox. There is a tutorial for WinForms controls on doing this here, but the concepts are the same. A VSIX installer tutorial can be found here.
A lot of the resources out there are for older versions of Visual Studio, but again the same concepts should apply. You simply need to update version information where appropriate.
I cannot see it any more in Visual Studio 2010. How can I do to get it back?
I have no addins as I just installed VS Studio.
Nevertheless this occurs on an existing solution with many projects inside. When I create a new WPF project from scratch the tab reappears.
It sounds like a piece of UI is missing from your Visual Studio display. Try the following to get it to show back up in it's original location
Tools -> Import / Export Settings
Select "Reset all settings" and hit Next
Save your current settings if you desire and hit Next
Pick the profile of your choice and hit "Finish"
Possible ways to fix:
Try remove all add-ins and
extensions.
Tools -> Import And Export Setting
-> Reset all settings
Repair Visual Studio installation.
It's not possible to give exact solution with such description of problem.
Your User Options file is broken.
To fix it, do the following:
Close Visual Studio
Go to the folder in which your .sln file reside
Delete the User Options file
Open the solution again
The Events tab is back!
Are you talking about the Properties Window? If the Properties Window is displayed, click on the yellow lightning bolt button towards the top. That will show you the events for the currently selected WPF element. If the Properties Window isn't open, press F4.
This is not a bug, but rather where the focus is set in your visual studio instance design view. From the design view click the window and then do properties (F4). This will enable the events to show and be set from the properties tag. Just make sure the focus is set on the proper item from which you want to set the events (dropdownlist, window, ect.). Hope this helps.
I clicked on the "Design" tab in the bottom and the "Lightning bolt" (Event tabs) reappeared, then it was still available after going into "Source" view mode.
Hope this helps someone.