using Custom Formatter when format is unknown at design time

Greetings - I was referred here by MSDN forums hope this is the right place -  

I have a custom control (:WebControl) that renders web.sitemap in a specific way. While it runs error free and produces the expected result, at Design-Time it complains

Error Creating Control - MyControl  The provider 'AspNetXmlSiteMapProvider' specified for the defaultProvider does not exist in the providers collection.

I have discovered that the error is cause by this line of code:

string div = string.Format("<div class='{0}' id='{1}'>{2}</div>", this.CssClass, this.ID.ToString(), EnumerateNodesRecursive(SiteMap.RootNode, level));

or more specifically, by the reference to SiteMap.RootNode - I am not clear what is missing thoough because I have configured the SiteMapProvider in web.config as this:

<siteMap>
      <providers>
        <clear/>
        <add name="AspNetXmlSiteMapProvider" 
             type="System.Web.XmlSiteMapProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.3600.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" 
             siteMapFile="web.sitemap" 
             securityTrimmingEnabled="true"/>
      </providers>
    </s

Let's say that I've got one custom webcontrol called MyControl.

[ParseChildren(true)]
public partial class MyControl: WebControl {
[DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Content)]
[PersistenceMode(PersistenceMode.InnerProperty)]
public IComplex Complex { get; set; }
}

The control is a very simple control but it holds an instance of a complex type that is accessable through a property. The property has the propertytype IComplex

public interface IComplex {
string Name { get; set; }
List<IComplex> Children {get;}
}

Let's say that I am able to pick one of several different types of object that derives from IComplex in design-time and assign it to the controls property "Complex" property.

Naturally I would like to persist this information to the HTML-View in a user-friendly way.

Because we don't know what type the user has picked there is no way to instansiate the type if we don't persist the name of that type. The Type could also contain more properties than the Interface the controls property is refering.

<cc1:MyControl id="MyControl1" runat="server">
<Complex> <!-

In this article, Paul Ballard shows how you can provide data binding support for your custom collections to enable sorting, searching, and editing in as simple a manner as possible. In addition, he shows how to make all of these features available in the Windows and Web Forms Designers, just like an ADO.NET DataSet.

Paul Ballard

MSDN Magazine August 2005

Dino Esposito

MSDN Magazine December 2003

Hi,

I created an Extender which has a custom property that drills down a list XML elements from an xml file, where users can select xml elements during design-time. This works perfectly fine. However, my code only has a hardcoded xml filename (source of the xml elements list) and I need to change this by maxing the xml file user-specified.

What I did is that I created another control (panel) which has a custom property that when clicked (through the ellipsis), it will allow a developer to select the xml file which is supposed to be the source xml file that the Extenders shall use. The filedialog from custom panel's property works perfectly fine.

However, my problem now is that when I drag-drop my Extender, I cannot find a way to get the property value of the custom Panel Control which contains the xml filename. I tried creating a static variable which I thought the custom controls can share but VS2010 is breaking.

Please take note that my problem is on Design-time, asp.net.

Appreciate any help. Thanks a lot.

Dhon Nuevo.

Hi there,

I derive a control from an existing one (a treeview) and properties to it. I want these properties to be easily editable during design-time in the properties window of the control.

When I add a public property representing a simple datatype (boolean, integer, ...) the property value can be edited in the property window. But when the datatype is a morge complex object, the property is disabled in the property window and can't be edited.

Below is a sample property which should be used to allow the user of the property to choose a color. What needs to be added to the code to make it work?

  Private _SelectedNodeColor As System.Drawing.Brush
  ''' <summary>
  ''' Gets or sets the SelectedNodeColor.
  ''' </summary>
  ''' <value>SelectedNodeColor</value>
  ''' <returns>SelectedNodeColor</returns>
  ''' <remarks></remarks>
  Public Property