How to programmatically add items to CollectionEditor's list. [modified]

[ravtos]

Hello! I have a custom collection editor which inherits after CollectionEditor class (System.ComponentModel.Design)and I want to programmatically add items to it's collection (listbox). There is a method 'AddItems' which takes a collection object and items to add, but I cannot figure out what collection object I should pass to it.. So my question is, how I can get to CollectionEditor's inner item's list? [update] Ugh.. proper method name is 'SetItems' [/update] [update 2 - source code]

public class MyCollectionEditor : CollectionEditor
{
private Type m_itemType = null;

    public MyCollectionEditor(Type type)
            : base(type)
    {
            m\_itemType = type;
    }

    protected override CollectionForm CreateCollectionForm()
    {
            Button buttonLoadItem = new Button();
            buttonLoadItem.Text = "Load from DB";
            buttonLoadItem.Click += new EventHandler(ButtonLoadItem\_Click);

            m\_collectionForm = base.CreateCollectionForm();

            TableLayoutPanel panel1 = m\_collectionForm.Controls\[0\] as TableLayoutPanel;
            TableLayoutPanel panel2 = panel1.Controls\[1\] as TableLayoutPanel;
            panel2.Controls.Add(buttonLoadItem);

            return m\_collectionForm;
    }

    private void ButtonLoadItem\_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
            if (m\_itemType.Equals(typeof(MyCustomCollection)))
            {                               
                    MyCustomItem item = ...load from DB...

                    //definition: SetItems(object editValue, object\[\] value);
                    SetItems( -> what goes here?! <- , new object\[\] { item });
            }
    }

}

[/update]

A man has got to know his limitations. Harry Callahan

modified on Tuesday, July 28, 2009 6:34 AM

[ravtos]

I've found solution thanks to .NET Reflector and reflection mechanism. Instead of using SetItems method I'm invoking private method of CollectionForm:

private void AddItems(IList instances)

, like this:

MethodInfo methodInfo = m_collectionForm.GetType().GetMethod("AddItems", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);
methodInfo.Invoke(m_collectionForm, new object[] { /* my items here */ });

PS. See the rest of code in previous post...

A man has got to know his limitations. Harry Callahan