I am struggling with Smart Tag support for a custom designer I have developed. Here are the relevant details:

* I am hosting my own DesignSurface (MyDesignSurface)
* I am using VS2008 SP1 on Windows XP w/ .NET 3.5 SP1
* The designer, MyDesigner, inherits from DocumentDesigner
* The control I am designing, MyControl, is the root control for the surface and inherits from Panel.

When MyDesigner is created, the ActionLists property is never accessed and my smart tags do not show up. I am able to force them to display through the DesignerActionService, but it's not a pretty solution.

There are some wrinkles in my design. First, the control I am designing does NOT have a Designer attribute on it. Instead, I use the DesignSurface to create the right designer in the "CreateDesigner" method:

public class MyDesignSurface : DesignSurface {
...
protected override IDesigner CreateDesigner(IComponent component, bool rootDesigner) {
if (component is MyControl && rootDesigner)
return new MyDesigner();
else ...
}
...
}

The "CreateInstance" method on MyDesignSurface is also a little special. "MyControl" is returned when ANOTHER type is going to be designed. Essentially, "MyControl" stands in as a proxy:

protected override object CreateInstance(Type type) {
...
if (type == typeof(MyRealComponent))
{
return new MyControl();
}
}

In case it's relevant, "MyRealComponent" above inherits from Component. In MyDesigner, the override for ActionLists looks like:

public class MyDesigner : DocumentDesigner {
...
DesignerActionListCollection _actions;

public override DesignerActionListCollection ActionLists {
get {
if (_actions == null) {
_actions = new DesignerActionListCollection();
_actions.Add(new MyActionList((MyControl) this.Control));
}

return _actions;
}
}
}


Where MyActionList is implemented in the obvious way.

Finally, because MyControl inherits from Panel, it has some attributes and properties I don't want. I override PreFilterAttributes and PreFilterProperties in MyDesigner to remove those.

Can anyone give a hint why my smart tag actions do not show up? Through trace messages I have confirmed the ActionLists property is never accessed.

I'm glad to provide more information as needed! Thanks in advance.

If anyone has an idea what might be going on here, I'd love to hear it. What can I add to help you answer the question? More code? Is the problem just too obscure? I'm glad to give more info!

Justin