How to create custom properties in user control?

Question

I have a user control with two fields:

public string OffText { set; get; }
public string OnText { set; get; }

After added this control in my form and fill OffText and OnText properties. In control's constructor i have:

    public FakeToggleSwitch()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        if (State)
        {
            CheckEdit.Text = OnText;
        }
        else
        {
            CheckEdit.Text = OffText;
        }
    }

And in debug mode i see that OnText and OffText are null . Whats can be wrong here? What have to i make with fields?

Answer 1

Those are not fields, but auto-properties .

If you use auto-property and its default value should be different from 0 (value type) or null (reference type), then you can set it in the constructor

public string OffText { set; get; }
public string OnText { set; get; }

public Constructor()
{
    // init
    OffText = "...";
    OnText = "...";
}

Otherwise you may decide to use normal properties

private string _offText = "..."; // default value
public string OffText
{
    get { return _offText; }
    set { _offText = value; }
}

If you use wpf , then typically UserControl properties there have to be dependency properties (to support binding). Creating dependency property is easily done by using code snippets . Type

propdp Tab Tab

to get

public int MyProperty
{
    get { return (int)GetValue(MyPropertyProperty); }
    set { SetValue(MyPropertyProperty, value); }
}

// Using a DependencyProperty as the backing store for MyProperty.  This enables animation, styling, binding, etc...
public static readonly DependencyProperty MyPropertyProperty = 
    DependencyProperty.Register("MyProperty", typeof(int), typeof(ownerclass), new PropertyMetadata(0));