Controls disappear from designer...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Aaron Smith
  • Start date Start date
A

Aaron Smith

I have a problem... Have a form, made some changes.. now all the
controls are gone. I didn't make any changes to the designer generated
region.. I'm not really sure what happened to them, but this has
happened before where one or two will disappear.. They are still in the
code too.. And if I try to add a new control with the same name, it says
it exists... Any ideas?
 
Aaron Smith said:
I have a problem... Have a form, made some changes.. now all the controls
are gone. I didn't make any changes to the designer generated region.. I'm
not really sure what happened to them, but this has happened before where
one or two will disappear.. They are still in the code too.. And if I try
to add a new control with the same name, it says it exists... Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Maybe the designer lost the 'Me.Controls.AddRange(...)' line that adds all
the controls to the form. Make a backup of the form and check if the
controls are added to the form's 'Controls' collection and add the line if
it is missing.
 
Aaron -

There are a number of reasons this will happen, so I can't tell you why it
happened. Usually this happens because some code you wrote created an error
condition that would not allow the form design to complete.

I can tell you how to fix it without starting all over, however. In the
code for the form, check the mysterious "Windows Form Designer generated
code" region...

It normally looks something like this:

Public Sub New()
MyBase.New()

'This call is required by the Windows Form Designer.
InitializeComponent()

'Add any initialization after the InitializeComponent() call

End Sub

'Form overrides dispose to clean up the component list.
Protected Overloads Overrides Sub Dispose(ByVal disposing As Boolean)
If disposing Then
If Not (components Is Nothing) Then
components.Dispose()
End If
End If
MyBase.Dispose(disposing)
End Sub

'Required by the Windows Form Designer
Private components As System.ComponentModel.IContainer

'NOTE: The following procedure is required by the Windows Form Designer
'It can be modified using the Windows Form Designer.
'Do not modify it using the code editor.
Friend WithEvents TextBox1 As System.Windows.Forms.TextBox
<System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThrough()> Private Sub
InitializeComponent()
Me.TextBox1 = New System.Windows.Forms.TextBox
Me.SuspendLayout()
'
'TextBox1
'
Me.TextBox1.Location = New System.Drawing.Point(0, 0)
Me.TextBox1.Name = "TextBox1"
Me.TextBox1.TabIndex = 0
Me.TextBox1.Text = "TextBox1"
'
'Form2
'
Me.AutoScaleBaseSize = New System.Drawing.Size(5, 13)
Me.ClientSize = New System.Drawing.Size(568, 421)
Me.Controls.Add(Me.TextBox1)
Me.Name = "Form2"
Me.ResumeLayout(False)

End Sub

#End Region

What usually is missing is the line(s) in the InitializeComponent section
thats sets your control objects to new instances of the control:

"Me.TextBox1 = New System.Windows.Forms.TextBox"

OR the line(s) that add the control(s) to the form's control collection are
missing:

"Me.Controls.Add(Me.TextBox1)"

Just figure out what is missing, and type it in, and you should be good to go!

--Zorpie
 
Herfried said:
Maybe the designer lost the 'Me.Controls.AddRange(...)' line that adds
all the controls to the form. Make a backup of the form and check if
the controls are added to the form's 'Controls' collection and add the
line if it is missing.
Click to expand...

I think you are right.. And I think I know what happened... I had three
forms that were inheirited from another form and that form had a panel
on it.. I got rid of the panel and rebuilt the app by accident.... I bet
that did it... ugh. This sucks.
 
Herfried said:
Maybe the designer lost the 'Me.Controls.AddRange(...)' line that adds
all the controls to the form. Make a backup of the form and check if
the controls are added to the form's 'Controls' collection and add the
line if it is missing.
Click to expand...

By the way,



THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! lol I was freaking out... I added one
line and now they are coming back... whew.
 
Yep, Herfried, clued me in to look around and I found it.. Let me tell
ya, I was freaking out there for a minute!
 
Aaron Smith said:
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! lol I
was freaking out... I added one line and now they are
coming back... whew.
Click to expand...

Glad to see that you were able to solve the problem :-).
 
I have a problem... Have a form, made some changes.. now all the
controls are gone. I didn't make any changes to the designer generated
Click to expand...

I see that the others have helped you. I just wanted to report another
cause that I discovered. It happened to me at least. I was working on a
project and my controls on my form started disappearing or displaying
incorrectly. It turned out that I had messed up the app.config and the xml
in that file was not properly formed. I'm not sure why that would affect
the designer, but it did and as soon as I fixed it, the form returned to
normal.

--
Chris

dunawayc[AT]sbcglobal_lunchmeat_[DOT]net

To send me an E-mail, remove the "[", "]", underscores ,lunchmeat, and
replace certain words in my E-Mail address.
 
Why does this happen? I get this happening quite frequently and other odd
events at design time. The IDE is SOOO flakey! I am using VS.NET 2003, I
hope these issues are fixed in the 2005 version!

Landley
 
Nope, same rubbish in VS2005 I'm afraid. Microsoft need to get their act together, we're seriously considering ditching them and moving to another technology platform because we spend more time sorting out problems like THIS than real developing, and it costs our business millions in lost time each year. HELLO STEVE BULLMER, ANYONE HOME ???? HELLO?!! HELLO!?? Stupid marketers, no idea how much time this wastes in IT, fools are just there for their expense accounts whilst someone else puts up with the misery they induce.
ex-Microsoft fan

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