Adding designer support

If your custom metadata type needs more than the simple text box the property grid provides, you need to add designer support. Otherwise, users have no way to enter values for properties of that type. To add designer support, build an editor for your type or use an existing one. An editor is a class that derives from the .NET System.Drawing.Design.UITypeEditor class.

Example

The CustomPropertiesSample project contains the source code for several CodeSmith Generator editors. You'll find it in your extracted samples folder: Documents\CodeSmith Generator\Samples\<version>\Projects\CSharp\CustomPropertiesSample.

In that sample, DropDownEditorProperty is a class that combines a string and a Boolean value into a single piece of metadata. To edit it, the sample provides DropDownEditorPropertyEditor, which derives from UITypeEditor. An Editor attribute on DropDownEditorProperty tells Generator to use that editor in the property grid:

[Editor(typeof(CodeSmith.Samples.DropDownEditorPropertyEditor), typeof(System.Drawing.Design.UITypeEditor))]
public class DropDownEditorProperty

In a template, you use the type like any other. Remember to reference its assembly, because Generator doesn't know about the type otherwise:

<%@ Property Name="DropDownEditorProperty" Type="CodeSmith.Samples.DropDownEditorProperty" Category="Options" Description="This property uses a custom dropdown editor." %>
<%@ Assembly Name="CodeSmith.Samples" %>

When the user edits DropDownEditorProperty in the property grid, Generator shows the custom editor:

For a step-by-step walkthrough, see Building a custom UITypeEditor.

Predefined UITypeEditors

These editors ship with Generator:

Editor	Assembly	Description
CodeSmith.Engine.CodeFileParserPicker	CodeSmith.Engine	Browse for a C# or Visual Basic class file.
CodeSmith.Engine.XmlPropertyFilePicker	CodeSmith.Engine	For a class that supports XML serialization: lets the user pick an XML file and deserializes it into the class.
CodeSmith.Engine.XmlSchemaFilePicker	CodeSmith.Engine	Browse for an XSD schema.
CodeSmith.CustomProperties.AssemblyFilePicker	CodeSmith.CustomProperties	Browse for an assembly.
CodeSmith.CustomProperties.FileNameEditor	CodeSmith.CustomProperties	Browse for a file.
CodeSmith.CustomProperties.NameValueCollectionEditor	CodeSmith.CustomProperties	Edit a NameValueCollection. Marked obsolete.
CodeSmith.CustomProperties.StringCollectionEditor	CodeSmith.CustomProperties	Edit a string collection. Marked obsolete.
CodeSmith.CustomProperties.XmlSerializedFilePicker	CodeSmith.CustomProperties	Browse for an XML file.

For the editors in CodeSmith.CustomProperties, add this Assembly directive to your template:

<%@ Assembly Name="CodeSmith.CustomProperties" %>

To use an editor with a property, name it in the Editor attribute of the Property directive.