Add Categories to the .NET PropertyGrid

Question

Is it only possible to add categories to the .NET PropertyGrid by annotating my data class with attributes like CategoryAttribute?

Answer 1

You can use the CategoryAttribute. The documentation states:

A new category can be created for any name by specifying the name of the category in the constructor for the CategoryAttribute.

Example:

[
Category("MyCategory"),
Description("Specifies something")
]
public string Something { //... }

Answer 2

Doing this with ICustomTypeDescriptor and your own PropertyDescriptor class is quite easy and does not involve so much code.

This article Customized display of collection data in a PropertyGrid describes how to do this in detail. For adding categories you would also need to override the Category property in your PropertyDescriptor class.