Jul
17
Getting generic forms to work in C#
Recently I needed a form, loaded by reflection, that dealt with a collection of some type. I figured that we need to know the type when we loaded the form, so it would be better to have a generic form (save it having to check the object type through reflection for every action).
Turns out that .Net can handle generic forms fine, but the form designer in VS2008 can't. So, a code example:
public partial class MyGenericForm<T> : Form where T : class { /* form code */ public List<T> TypedList { get; set; } } This compiles and runs but crashes the form's designer. It will also crash if you have any resources loaded for the form (images for instance).
Turns out that .Net can handle generic forms fine, but the form designer in VS2008 can't. So, a code example:
public partial class MyGenericForm<T> : Form where T : class { /* form code */ public List<T> TypedList { get; set; } } This compiles and runs but crashes the form's designer. It will also crash if you have any resources loaded for the form (images for instance).
