Generic base class for WinForm UserControl

Question

I created a generic base class for a WinForm UserControl:

public partial class BaseUserControl<T> : UserControl {     public virtual void MyMethod<T>()      {          // some base stuff here      } } 

And a UserControl based on that:

public partial class MyControl : BaseUserControl<SomeClass> {     public override void MyMethod<SomeClass>()      {          // some specific stuff here          base.MyMethod<SomeClass>();     } } 

It works fine, but MyControl cannot be edited in the VisualStudio Designer, because it says it cannot load the base class. I tried to define another class BaseUserControl, non generic, hoping it would load it, but the trick doesn't seem to work.

I already have a workaround: define an interface, IMyInterface<T>, and then create my control as

public partial class MyControl : UserControl, IMyInterface<SomeClass> 

But I lose my base virtual methods (not a big deal, but still...).

Is there a way to create a base generic class for a UserControl, with the possiblity to edit it in the VisualStudio Designer?

Answer 1

We're doing the same thing and we work around by specializing a class first and derive from the specialized class. Using the code from your example this means something like:

public partial class UserControl : UserControlDesignable  {  ... } public class UserControlDesignable : BaseUserControl<Someclass> { } 

The designer is still acting flaky sometimes - but most of the time it works.