How to keep Visual Studio from treating files as components or forms

Question

Today I noticed that Visual Studio 2008 always treats a file as if it was a component or a form if this file contains a definition of one.

This means that it always opens the designer by default. I think this behavior is very annoying, because a file containing a class that derives from form or control does not have to be an actual form or control and I want to edit the source by default.

Answer 1

I'll just repeat the solution I found at http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/da/winformsdesigner/thread/cdfd7e6f-3ffc-4969-9ce1-c1ca0f08ae67

Add the DesignerCategory attribute to your class like this:

[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategory("")]
public class Foo : FormDerivedClass

Answer 2

A class that derives from Form will always be a Form ; this is a fundamental concept of object orientation. That said, you can alter the default behavior:

• Right-click the file in question, select "Open with..." in the context menu
• In the dialog, select "Source code (Text) editor..."
• Click the "Set as default" button
• Click OK

Answer 3

Right click on the file, Open With, select preferred editor from the list, Set as Default. Although this works for all files of that type, not for a single file.