Collection editor causes mis-prioritization of F1/dynamic help top

[drohacek]

In VS.NET 2003, if you drop a Tab control, use the collection editor to add a tab page, close the collection editor, drop a Button control, and then hit F1, the help for the TabPage.Text property comes up. I would expect the help for Button to come up.

Looking at the Active Context debug information in the dynamic help window, it looks to me like the items from the collection editor are given higher priority (resolve to 600) than other items in the Windows Forms designer (resolve to 500). So, when the collection editor is dismissed, the topics it provided to the dynamic help window have higher priorities than new topics.

Why do I care? We implement controls that make fairly heavy use of collection editors. Our editors derive from System.ComponentModel.Design.CollectionEditor, so our controls display this behavior. This behavior can be annoying because the help context does not clear, so once you've added an item to a collection, F1 help in the designer seems broken.

Is this a bug somewhere in the implementation of the Windows Forms designer or CollectionEditor? Is there a way we can/should work around it?

[Roger Haight [MSFT]]

I think you've found a bug. There's not much I can add to your description.
But I even tried deleting the tab page and the TabControl from the design
surface, and still the Help topic was listed at the top of the Dynamic Help
list. So something is amiss. That Active Context debug information for the
TabControl is too sticky -- it should be flushed when the control is
deleted, and it should be downgraded when the control does not have focus. I
suspect that the fact that it is ranked as 600 rather than 500 is the root
of the problem.
I'll work on having the bug fixed for a future version of the control.

The only workaround I can suggest is to keep the Dynamic Help window open
and use the other links that appear in the list, rather than pressing F1.

--Roger
_______________________________
Roger Haight
Developer Division User Assistance
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Post by drohacek
In VS.NET 2003, if you drop a Tab control, use the collection editor to

add a tab page, close the collection editor, drop a Button control, and then
hit F1, the help for the TabPage.Text property comes up. I would expect the
help for Button to come up.

Post by drohacek
Looking at the Active Context debug information in the dynamic help

window, it looks to me like the items from the collection editor are given
higher priority (resolve to 600) than other items in the Windows Forms
designer (resolve to 500). So, when the collection editor is dismissed, the
topics it provided to the dynamic help window have higher priorities than
new topics.

Post by drohacek
Why do I care? We implement controls that make fairly heavy use of

collection editors. Our editors derive from
System.ComponentModel.Design.CollectionEditor, so our controls display this
behavior. This behavior can be annoying because the help context does not
clear, so once you've added an item to a collection, F1 help in the designer
seems broken.

Post by drohacek
Is this a bug somewhere in the implementation of the Windows Forms

designer or CollectionEditor? Is there a way we can/should work around it?

[CPresson]

I'm having a similar problem. I would like to get F1/dynamic help to work for
properties in collection editors for our product, but it seems like the only
topic that ever comes up if you hit F1 for any property in any collection
editor (in our product or in Visual Studio) is Visual Studio's Collection
Editors topic.

Everything works fine if it's a property in the Property grid, but if it is
one of our properties in a collection editor dialog, I only get the default
collection editors topic when I hit F1.

Is there a way around this so that I can have our help topics show for our
control's properties inside of the collection editor dialog when a user hits
F1?

Thanks for your help!