Member Categories
In This Topic
The members of a node (i.e. its properties and child slots) are hierarchically organized in categories. Categories are strings in which sub-categories are divided by the . (dot) character. For example consider the following editor of the Diagram Shape - Geometry element:
fig. 1 Member Categories
The FillRule property is a member of the General.Filling and Rounding category, which also contains the CornerRounding property. The General.Filling and Rounding category is a child category of the General category, which also contains the General.Behavior and General.End Points Direction sub-categories.
Assigning Members to Categories
You can assign members (properties and child slots) to categories by using the NDesigner-SetMemberCategory method. The following code shows how the NGeometry properties are distributed to categories:
| Assigning Members to Categories |
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public class NGeometryDesigner : NDesigner
{
public NGeometryDesigner()
{
// general - behavior
SetMemberCategory(ClipWithTextBlockProperty, "General.Behavior");
SetMemberCategory(ClipWithImageBlockProperty, "General.Behavior");
// general - filling and rounding
SetMemberCategory(FillRuleProperty, "General.Filling and Rounding");
SetMemberCategory(CornerRoundingProperty, "General.Filling and Rounding");
// general - end points direction
SetMemberCategory(BeginDirectionProperty, "General.End Points Direction");
SetMemberCategory(EndDirectionProperty, "General.End Points Direction");
}
}
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Category Editors
You can assign different editors to the categories via the NDesigner - SetCategoryEditor method. For example, in the context of our NGeometry example, the General and Appearance categories are displayed in tab, while the sub-categories of the General category are embedded in group boxes. In code this is achieved with the following code:
| Setting Category Editors |
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public class NGeometryDesigner : NDesigner
{
public NGeometryDesigner()
{
// set category editors
SetCategoryEditorFactory(string.Empty, NTabCategoryEditor.HeadersTopTemplate);
SetCategoryEditorFactory(General_Category, NStackCategoryEditor.VerticalEmbedChildEditorsTemplate);
}
}
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For more information see the Category Editors topic.
Ordering Members and Categories
The editors of the browsable members inside each category are by default ordered by their Original Title (non-translated to the current UI language name of the property, category etc.). You can control the order of the items in each category by settings an editor comparer to each specific category via the NDesigner - SetCategoryEditorsComparer method. For example the following code snipped explicitly orders the NGeometry categories, so that the General category appears before the Appearance category:
| Explicitly Ordering Editors |
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public class NGeometryDesigner : NDesigner
{
public NGeometryDesigner()
{
// explicitly order editors
SetCategoryDisplayOrder(General_Category, 0);
SetCategoryDisplayOrder(Appearance_Category, 1);
SetCategoryEditorsComparer(string.Empty, NEditorComparer.DisplayOrder);
}
}
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The different ordering types are discussed in detail in the Editor Comparers topic.
