How do I inject a custom UITypeEditor for all properties of a closed-source type?

Question

I want to avoid placing an EditorAttribute on every instance of a certain type that I've written a custom UITypeEditor for.

I can't place an EditorAttribute on the type because I can't modify the source.

I have a reference to the only PropertyGrid instance that will be used.

Can I tell a PropertyGrid instance (or all instances) to use a custom UITypeEditor whenever it encounters a specific type?

Here is an MSDN article that provides are starting point on how to do this in .NET 2.0 or greater.

Answer 1

You can usually associate editors etc at runtime via TypeDescriptor.AddAttributes. For example (the Bar property should show with a "..." that displays "Editing!"):

using System;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Drawing.Design;
using System.Windows.Forms;

class Foo
{
    public Foo() { Bar = new Bar(); }
    public Bar Bar { get; set; }
}
class Bar
{
    public string Value { get; set; }
}

class BarEditor : UITypeEditor
{
    public override UITypeEditorEditStyle GetEditStyle(ITypeDescriptorContext context)
    {
        return UITypeEditorEditStyle.Modal;
    }
    public override object EditValue(ITypeDescriptorContext context, IServiceProvider provider, object value)
    {
        MessageBox.Show("Editing!");
        return base.EditValue(context, provider, value);
    }
}
static class Program
{
    [STAThread]
    static void Main()
    {
        TypeDescriptor.AddAttributes(typeof(Bar),
            new EditorAttribute(typeof(BarEditor), typeof(UITypeEditor)));
        Application.EnableVisualStyles();
        Application.Run(new Form { Controls = { new PropertyGrid { SelectedObject = new Foo() } } });
    }
}

Answer 2

Marc's solution bluntly applies the EditorAttribute to the Bar type globally. If you have a delicate disposition, you might rather annotate properties of a specific instances. Alas, that isn't possible with TypeDescriptor.AddAttributes

My solution was to write a wrapper ViewModel<T>, which copies properties from T, annotating some with extra attributes. Suppose we have a variable datum of type Report, we'd use it like this

        var pretty = ViewModel<Report>.DressUp(datum);
        pretty.PropertyAttributeReplacements[typeof(Smiley)] = new List<Attribute>() { new EditorAttribute(typeof(SmileyEditor),typeof(UITypeEditor))};
        propertyGrid1.SelectedObject = pretty;

Where ViewModel<T> is defined:

public class ViewModel<T> : CustomTypeDescriptor
{
    private T _instance;
    private ICustomTypeDescriptor _originalDescriptor;
    public ViewModel(T instance, ICustomTypeDescriptor originalDescriptor) : base(originalDescriptor)
    {
        _instance = instance;
        _originalDescriptor = originalDescriptor;
        PropertyAttributeReplacements = new Dictionary<Type,IList<Attribute>>();
    }

    public static ViewModel<T> DressUp(T instance)
    {
        return new ViewModel<T>(instance, TypeDescriptor.GetProvider(instance).GetTypeDescriptor(instance));
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Most useful for changing EditorAttribute and TypeConvertorAttribute
    /// </summary>
    public IDictionary<Type,IList<Attribute>> PropertyAttributeReplacements {get; set; } 

    public override PropertyDescriptorCollection GetProperties (Attribute[] attributes)
    {
        var properties = base.GetProperties(attributes).Cast<PropertyDescriptor>();

        var bettered = properties.Select(pd =>
            {
                if (PropertyAttributeReplacements.ContainsKey(pd.PropertyType))
                {
                    return TypeDescriptor.CreateProperty(typeof(T), pd, PropertyAttributeReplacements[pd.PropertyType].ToArray());
                }
                else
                {
                    return pd;
                }
            });
        return new PropertyDescriptorCollection(bettered.ToArray());
    }

    public override PropertyDescriptorCollection GetProperties()
    {
        return GetProperties(null);
    }
}

As defined above, this substitutes properties of a specific type, but you can substitute properties by name if you need the greater resolution.

Answer 3

Just add an Editor attribute to your class.