C# user control as a custom panel

Question

I create my own user control which only contains a panel :

When I drag a myPanel object in the designer and then try to add a button on it, the button is in fact added t

Answer 1

To be more precise, I do the following :

[Designer(typeof(myControlDesigner))] 
public class MyPanel : UserControl
{
    private TableLayoutPanel tableLayoutPanel1;
    private Panel panelMain;
    ...

    [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Content)]
    public Panel InnerPanel
    {
        get { return panelMain; }
        set { panelMain = value; }
    }

    [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Content)]
    public TableLayoutPanel InnerTableLayout
    {
        get { return tableLayoutPanel1; }
        set { tableLayoutPanel1 = value; }
    }
}

With myControlDesigner for [Designer(typeof(myControlDesigner))] to be

class myControlDesigner : ParentControlDesigner
{

    public override void Initialize(IComponent component)
    {

        base.Initialize(component);

        MyPanel myPanel = component as MyPanel;
        this.EnableDesignMode(myPanel.InnerPanel, "InnerPanel");
        this.EnableDesignMode(myPanel.InnerTableLayout, "InnerTableLayout");

    }

}

(Other source : Add Control to UserControl )

Answer 2

Have a look here

How to make a UserControl object acts as a control container design-time by using Visual C#

But if you only need extended Panel functionality its better to inherit directly from Panel.