Suppose we have two classes A
and B
. Class A
has some browsable and non-browsable properties, class B
is derived from A
and implements ICustomTypeDescriptor
interface (simply through the calls to the TypeDescriptor
methods with true
passed as noCustomTypeDesc
parameter). Here is the code:
public class A
{
public int BrowsableProperty { get; set; }
[Browsable(false)]
public int NonBrowsableProperty { get; set; }
}
public class B : A, ICustomTypeDescriptor
{
public AttributeCollection GetAttributes() => TypeDescriptor.GetAttributes(this, true);
public string GetClassName() => TypeDescriptor.GetClassName(this, true);
public string GetComponentName() => TypeDescriptor.GetComponentName(this, true);
public TypeConverter GetConverter() => TypeDescriptor.GetConverter(this, true);
public EventDescriptor GetDefaultEvent() => TypeDescriptor.GetDefaultEvent(this, true);
public PropertyDescriptor GetDefaultProperty() => TypeDescriptor.GetDefaultProperty(this, true);
public object GetEditor(Type editorBaseType) => TypeDescriptor.GetEditor(this, editorBaseType, true);
public EventDescriptorCollection GetEvents() => TypeDescriptor.GetEvents(this, true);
public EventDescriptorCollection GetEvents(Attribute[] attributes) => TypeDescriptor.GetEvents(this, attributes, true);
public PropertyDescriptorCollection GetProperties() => TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(this, true);
public PropertyDescriptorCollection GetProperties(Attribute[] attributes) => TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(this, attributes, true);
public object GetPropertyOwner(PropertyDescriptor pd) => this;
}
Now let's see what TypeDescriptor.GetProperties returns for the instances of these classes:
var a = new A();
var b = new B();
var browsable = new Attribute[] { BrowsableAttribute.Yes };
Console.WriteLine("Properties of A:");
foreach (PropertyDescriptor property in TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(a, browsable, true))
Console.WriteLine(property.Name);
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine("Properties of B:");
foreach (PropertyDescriptor property in TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(b, browsable, true))
Console.WriteLine(property.Name);
Note that noCustomTypeDesc
= true
is intentional here. This is just a demonstration of what it looks like inside the ICustomTypeDescriptor
implementation, where it is invoked with the same parameters. Strangely, this results in the following output:
Properties of A: BrowsableProperty Properties of B: BrowsableProperty NonBrowsableProperty
Why?