如何在设计时将复杂的属性值从一个用户控件复制到另一个用户控件？

Question

TL;DR;
How can I add copy-paste capability to a complex, multiple values property that will enable me to copy the property value from one user control and paste it to another at design time?

The long story

I have created a user control ( StylableControl ) that has a complex property called Style .

This property contains an instance of a class called StylableControlStyles , that contains multiple instances of a class called Style , where each one holds values such as BackColor , ForeColor , Image , Gradient (another class I've created) etc'.

I've also created a custom control designer to allow editing style property for the user control. It shows a form where each style class in the style property can be edited easily.

Now I want to provide the users of this control an easy way to copy the entire content of the Style property from one instance of the user control to another instance, at design time.

I could, of course, override the ToString() method of the StylableControlStyles object to create a string representation that will encapsulate all the data saved in this object, but that would create a hugh string and of course would need a lot of work parsing it in the class converter (currenty I'm just using an ExpandableObjectConverter ).
I would like to avoid that if possible.

Answer 1

Following Ash's advice in the comments I've used a DesignerVerb to copy and paste the Style to and from a private static member of type Style of the control designer.

So in my control designer class I have:

private static ZControlStyle _CopiedStyle;

And have added these designer verbs:

_Verbs.Add(new DesignerVerb("Copy Styles", CopyStyle));
_Verbs.Add(new DesignerVerb("Paste Styles", PasteStyle));

And the methods for copy ans paste:

private void PasteStyle(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (_CopiedStyle != null)
    {
        var toggleButton = Control as ZToggleButton;
        if (toggleButton != null)
        {
            toggleButton.Style.FromStyle(_CopiedStyle);
        }
        else
        {
            (Control as ZControl).Style.FromStyle(_CopiedStyle);
        }

    }
}

private void CopyStyle(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    var toggleButton = Control as ZToggleButton;
    if (toggleButton != null)
    {
        _CopiedStyle = toggleButton.Style;
    }
    else
    {
        _CopiedStyle = (Control as ZControl)?.Style;
    }
}