Property in custom control inserts unnecessary lines in designer code

jbrammeier

I have a custom control in C# and one of the properties is an internal class that consists of a list of another class. The control and the class work fine, except that every time I touch a form on which the control exists, it adds extraneous lines to the designer code. Here's the property in the control. The DefaultValue is null, so my assumption is that it should not create anything in the designer code:

private PopupTable gridColumns = null;
\[Category("Appearance"), Description("Collection of Columns to show in grid"), 
        DesignerSerializationVisibility( DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible),     DefaultValue(null)\]
public PopupTable GridColumns
{
    get { return gridColumns; }
    set 
    {
        if (value != null) gridColumns = value;
    }
 }

Here's what it inserts into the designer code in a VB form:

New fctgControls2.PopupTable.Add(PopupColumn1)
New fctgControls2.PopupTable.Add(PopupColumn2)
New fctgControls2.PopupTable.Add(PopupColumn3)
New fctgControls2.PopupTable.Add(PopupColumn4)

So, every time I touch a form, I have to go in and remove this junk from the designer code. After that, the app works fine. Any ideas?

DaveyM69

This normally happens by being set in a default constructor. Have you checked there?

Dave
BTW, in software, hope and pray is not a viable strategy. (Luc Pattyn)
Visual Basic is not used by normal people so we're not covering it here. (Uncyclopedia)

jbrammeier

The default constructor creates a new list. So you're saying if I move that code to another method and leave the default constructor blank, that should take care of it? I'll try that.

jbrammeier

It wasn't quite that straightforward, but that was essentially the problem. Some of the controls were inherited from that base control and there was code in the OnLoad event to initialize the collection. I surrounded that code with

if (!DesignMode)
{
}

That took care of it. Thanks for your help.

DaveyM69

No problem :-D

Dave
BTW, in software, hope and pray is not a viable strategy. (Luc Pattyn)
Visual Basic is not used by normal people so we're not covering it here. (Uncyclopedia)