Visual Studio opens my class-file (.cs) in the designer mode

Question

I've created a class that extends DbConnection in a brand new project.

public class FakeDbConnection : DbConnection { ... } 

In the Solution Explorer the class looks like this:

And when double-clicking it wants to open it in design mode which won't work. Opening up the .csproj-file reveals the problem

<ItemGroup>   <Compile Include="FakeADO\FakeDbConnection.cs">     <SubType>Component</SubType>   </Compile> </ItemGroup> 

Even if I remove the SubType tag VS2010 immediately re-adds it. Very annoying.

How can I stop VS2010 from opening up my .cs file in designer mode and just open it up as a regular code file?

Answer 1

As described in an answer to this question you can do this:

[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategory("Code")] class FakeDbConnection: DbConnection { ... } 

Important: The attribute needs to be fully qualified otherwise VS2010 will ignore this.

Important (thanks to jmbpiano): The attribute only applies to the first class in the file.