Hi,

Does any one has idea on how to add controls to the designer surface during run time.

Purpose: Controls that are added to the designer surface will be saved in a file and while loading the saved file,the same controls that has been saved should be redrawn on the designer surface.

Problem: Only the child level controls are drawn. I mean if there is a panel which contains TextBox and Label, then only the Textbox and Label are drawn but the panel is not drawn. and after the controls are drawn , I am not able to select the controls and also they are fixed.

Thanks in Advance.

Hi lakshmi09,

Based on my understanding, you want to create an application with design time features supported and generate and save code for this, like we do in Visual Studio, right? If so, you need to use the CodeDom to generate source code. The CodeDom (Code Document Object Model) enables developers of programs that emit source code to generate source code in multiple programming languages at run time, based on a single model that represents the code to render. Here is a sample for your reference.

· http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813808/

For more information about CodeDOM, please check:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/y2k85ax6.aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/f1dfsbhc.aspx

Hope this helps.
Best regards.
Rong-Chun Zhang

Me.Controls.Add(member) or if u want to add it to panel then use Me.Panel1.Controls.Add(member)

This will work....

Hi Sreenath,

Thank you. I added the controls to the form/panel in the same way as mentioned, but my problem is that the controls aredrawn while loading the file, but I am not able to select those controls and they are fixed in position.

Adding the controls to the designer form while design time and run time is same? If same, why am I not able to select the controls or move them (this behaviour is not seen dusring design time)

If any one has idea on this, please let me know. Thank you.

sorry to interrupt you but can u explain problem clearly regarding moving controls...wat does this mean actually...

Dusring design time we select a partcular control to set its properties and we will be able to move it to change to desired location/resize it.

As I am saving the controls and drawing them when loading the saved file, I am not able to select those controls just the way when we run any application(where we cannot change its location or any other properties). But I want to behave the application the same way as it was while the controls are drawn initially(design time) at run time also.

Hi lakshmi09,

Based on my understanding, you want to create an application with design time features supported and generate and save code for this, like we do in Visual Studio, right? If so, you need to use the CodeDom to generate source code. The CodeDom (Code Document Object Model) enables developers of programs that emit source code to generate source code in multiple programming languages at run time, based on a single model that represents the code to render. Here is a sample for your reference.

· http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813808/

For more information about CodeDOM, please check:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/y2k85ax6.aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/f1dfsbhc.aspx

Hope this helps.
Best regards.
Rong-Chun Zhang

Assuming you are hosting the designer inside your application, I came up with this little code snippet to do progamatically add controls to a design surface.