CategoryEditor Class

An abstract class for creating custom category editors.

Namespace:  Microsoft.Windows.Design.PropertyEditing
Assembly:  Microsoft.Windows.Design (in Microsoft.Windows.Design.dll)

Syntax

'Declaration
Public MustInherit Class CategoryEditor

'Usage
Dim instance As CategoryEditor

public abstract class CategoryEditor

public ref class CategoryEditor abstract

public abstract class CategoryEditor

Remarks

Derive from this class to provide a custom CategoryEditor for a set of properties in a property browser host. This class represents a custom user interface for editing a related set of properties, such as the properties in the Text category.

The TargetCategory property indicates the category of related properties that this editor is meant to edit. For example, several text-related properties are displayed in the Properties window under the Text category. If an editor is designed to edit these properties, the TargetCategory property returns "Text".

The EditorTemplate property returns the XAML template for the visual interface for this editor. This is typically provided in a ResourceDictionary elsewhere in the project.

Note that before a CategoryEditor will be used by the designer, it must be registered. For more information, see IRegisterMetadata.

Examples

The following code example shows how to use the CategoryEditor class. For more information, see Walkthrough: Creating a Category Editor.

Public Class TextCategoryEditor
    Inherits CategoryEditor

    ' The EditorResources class in this example inherits ResourceDirectory and 
    ' contains the template for the category editor. This would be defined in  
    ' an associated XAML file named EditorResources.xaml 
    Private res As New EditorResources()
    Public Overrides Function ConsumesProperty(ByVal prop As PropertyEntry) As Boolean 
        Return True 
    End Function 

    Public Overrides ReadOnly Property EditorTemplate() As System.Windows.DataTemplate
        Get 
            Return CType(res("TextCategoryEditorTemplate"), DataTemplate)
        End Get 
    End Property 

    Public Overrides Function GetImage(ByVal desiredSize As System.Windows.Size) As Object 
        Return Nothing 
    End Function 

    Public Overrides ReadOnly Property TargetCategory() As String 
        Get 
            Return "Text" 
        End Get 
    End Property 
End Class

public class TextCategoryEditor : CategoryEditor
{

    // The EditorResources class in this example inherits ResourceDictionary  
    // and contains template for the category editor. This would be  
    // defined in an associated XAML file named EditorResources.xaml 
    private EditorResources res = new EditorResources();
    public TextCategoryEditor()
    {
    }

    public override bool ConsumesProperty(PropertyEntry property)
    {
        return true;
    }

    public override DataTemplate EditorTemplate
    {
        get
        {
            return res["TextCategoryEditorTemplate"] as DataTemplate;
        }
    }

    public override object GetImage(Size desiredSize)
    {
        return null;
    }

    public override string TargetCategory
    {
        get { return "Text"; }
    }
}

Inheritance Hierarchy

System.Object
  Microsoft.Windows.Design.PropertyEditing.CategoryEditor

Thread Safety

Any public static (Shared in Visual Basic) members of this type are thread safe. Any instance members are not guaranteed to be thread safe.

See Also

Reference

CategoryEditor Members

Microsoft.Windows.Design.PropertyEditing Namespace

Other Resources

Property Editing Architecture

WPF Designer Extensibility