c# - Hide some properties in PropertyGrid at run-time

Question

I am doing a project that allows user to customized the properties of a Control. I have a form that has a control like Label, TextBox, Button and PropertyGrid control. When the user clicks on the Label i am showing the properties of the Label in the ProeprtyGrid which is all working fine using below code:

propertyGrid1.SelectedObject = SelectedControl;

But I just want to show some properties like BackColor, Font, ForeColor, Text. Is it possible to hide the properties since I don't want user to change it or show to them? If yes, how?

Answer 1

I believe you are looking for custom type descriptors.

While the other answer is sharing correct information about Browsable attribute and BrowsableAttributes of PropertyGrid, but I'd say it's not a proper practical solution for the problem.

It's not practical to set Browsable attribute, or any other custom attributes for existing control classes like Label, Button, and so on. Because in this way, the op needs to override all properties of those classes and decorate them with suitable attribute. And even worst, not all propertied are overridable.

What's the practical solution?

As I mentioned earlier, I believe you are looking for custom type descriptors. You can provide metadata about an object assigning a new TypeDescriptor or implementing ICustomTypeDescriptor or deriving from CustomTypeDescriptor.

Example

Here for example, I create a CustomObjectWrapper class deriving from CustomTypeDescriptor which accepts an object in constructor. This way I can simply filter the properties of the wrapped object by overriding GetProperties.

Then instead of assigning button1 to PropertyGrid, I wrap it in CustomObjectWrapper and assing the CustomObjectWrapper to property grid. This way it just shows the filtered properties and the properties are actually come from button1.

Here is the implantation:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Linq;
public class CustomObjectWrapper : CustomTypeDescriptor
{
    public object WrappedObject { get; private set; }
    public List<string> BrowsableProperties { get; private set; }
    public CustomObjectWrapper(object o)
        :base(TypeDescriptor.GetProvider(o).GetTypeDescriptor(o))
    {
        WrappedObject = o;
        BrowsableProperties = new List<string>() { "Text", "BackColor" };
    }
    public override PropertyDescriptorCollection GetProperties()
    {
        return this.GetProperties(new Attribute[] { });
    }
    public override PropertyDescriptorCollection GetProperties(Attribute[] attributes)
    {
        var properties = base.GetProperties(attributes).Cast<PropertyDescriptor>()
                             .Where(p=>BrowsableProperties.Contains(p.Name))
                             .Select(p => TypeDescriptor.CreateProperty(
                                 WrappedObject.GetType(),
                                 p,
                                 p.Attributes.Cast<Attribute>().ToArray()))
                             .ToArray();
        return new PropertyDescriptorCollection(properties);
    }
}

And as usage:

propertyGrid1.SelectedObject = new CustomObjectWrapper(button1);

You can simply add new property names to BrowsableProperties of the CustomObjectWrapper. It's a public property.