UserControl Issue

Question

I have a userControl, I need to know how can I add it to the toolbox if its possible. and how can I set its Icon(ToolbooxBitmap Icon).

Answer 1

This is a designer problem. Moving from WPF forum.

 

Answer 2

1. Add an image to your user control assembly with the following naming convention <control class name>.icon.<ext>, such as "UserControl1.icon.png" and set its BuildAction property to "Embedded Resource".
2. Build the user control assembly.
3. With a WPF Design tab activated go to the Toolbox, right click and select "Choose Toolbox Items"
4. Click the "Browse..." button on the WPF Components tab and navigate to your user control assembly.
5. Your user control should now show up in the list together with the icon you added.
6. Click "OK" to add your user control to the Toolbox.

Answer 3

Note as well that by using a metadata assembly (http://blogs.msdn.com/jnak/archive/2007/08/10/adding-design-time-metadata-to-cider-and-blend.aspx) you can also use the ToolboxBrowsableAttribute to control which types within your assembly will be listed in the add items toolbox UI.

Answer 4

I already follow these steps but I get the following error" There are no component in MyControl.dll that can be place on the toolbox. but I have 3 Controls in that assembly,

 

Thanks,

 

 

Answer 5

Are you doing this from the "WPF Components" tab of the Choose Toolbox Items dialog and not the .Net tab?  That is important.  If you are, then what are the base classes of your components?

 

Jim

Answer 6

There is no "WPF Components" tab. I just have .Net and COM components.

 

Answer 7

What version of Visual Studio are you using? We didn't add the WPF Components tab until Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2. The .Net Components tab only knows about Windows Forms controls - you cannot add any WPF user controls that way.

 

Answer 8

I am using VS2005, so there is no way or workaround to do that in VS2005

Answer 9

No, I'm sorry. The WPF support for VS 2005 was a very early prototype of our designer with a very limited feature set and is not recommended for use in a production environment.

Answer 10

Thanks Marco for solution to add custom icons for custom WPF controls. One more problem in this field:

 

i.e.  I'm inheriting from some standard control 

class MyButton: System.Windows.Controls.Button

 

Question is: How to define that I would like to use standard Button icon in Visual Studio Toolbox for my custom control? Now I see some crossed squares as icons near my custom controls inherited form standard controls.

 

One point to mention is if I add controls manually (not using ToolboxControlsInstaller) by using Choose Items in Toolbox then my custom controls inherited from standard controls have correct icons.

Testing on VS 2008 RTM + VS 2008 SDK

 

Thanks

Answer 11

Saulius,

 

The reason why this works from the Choose Items dialog is that these icons are part of our WPF Designer package assembly Microsoft.VisualStudio.Xaml but not part of the ToolboxControlsInstaller.

 

Feel free to use our icons by doing the following:

• copy %WINDIR%\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Xaml\9.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Xaml.dll to a local directory (Reflector had issues seeing this assambly in the GAC on my nachine)
• open it with Reflector
• save the icon from the Resources section locally to use them for your UserControl

Answer 12

Also add theese lines in the code of the control :

Imports Microsoft.Windows.Design

<ToolboxBrowsable(True)> _