Use the controls in the Visual Studio designer

How the designer works

WinForms projects for .NET 10 use the out-of-process designer of Visual Studio. The Mordex.Windows package brings its own design files for that designer. You do not install anything else.

Build the project once after you add the package. The controls then show in the toolbox, and you can drag them onto a form.

Open the designer of a control

Many controls have a smart tag (the small arrow at the top right of the control) or extra commands in their right-click menu. These open the designer dialogs of the control.

Control	What you can open
MxDataGrid	The smart tag and the MxDataGrid Designer dialog
MxRibbon	The New Tab command and the MxRibbon Designer dialog
MxNavigationBar	Its tasks and the Add Group command
MxTaskPane	The Groups Designer
MxTimeline	The Control Designer
MxDockManager	Its commands and the Add Panel Wizard

MxCommandManager also has a designer dialog where you build the commands, menus and toolbars of a form.

Edit properties

Select a control and open the Properties window. Properties with a special editor show a ... button or a drop-down. The editor opens from there, and the new value is written to the form when you close it.

When you save the form, Visual Studio writes the code for your controls into the Designer.cs file of the form, as for any other control.

When the toolbox is empty

• Build the project once. The toolbox shows the controls of a package only after a build.
• Check that the project targets net10.0-windows.
• Close the form and open it again after you install or update the package.