Display items in PropertyGrid in the sequence they are declared

Question

Is it possible to display PropertyGrid items in the UI in the way they are declared? I found that they are sorted first by CategoryAttribute and then by DisplayName attribute in ascending order.

I'm using .NET version 3.5 using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate.

EDIT

The application is a WPF application.

possible duplicate of [How can I customize category sorting on a PropertyGrid?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/823327/how-can-i-customize-category-sorting-on-a-propertygrid) — Oliver, Aug 07 '12 at 08:10
Note that *strictly speaking* there is no mechanism of guaranteeing declaration order; see [MSDN](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aky14axb.aspx) "The GetProperties method does not return properties in a particular order, such as alphabetical or declaration order. Your code must not depend on the order in which properties are returned, because that order varies." - and note that `TypeDescriptor` (which is used by `PropertyGrid`) can only provide what is available to it. If order isn't guaranteed, then *order isn't guaranteed*. — Marc Gravell, Aug 07 '12 at 08:19

score 8 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 04 '19 at 20:45

8

From this doc: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-US/dotnet/api/system.windows.forms.propertysort

if you set the property PropertySort to PropertySort.NoSort the sorting order of properties should follow this criterium: Properties are displayed in the order in which they are retrieved from the TypeDescriptor.

edited Sep 04 '19 at 20:45

antiduh

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answered Aug 07 '12 at 08:10

Max Lambertini

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sorry, i should've mentioned that i'm working on a WPF application. i can't access System.Windows.Forms.PropertySort! – Donotalo Aug 07 '12 at 08:29
Then I guess you'd have to roll your own, as per this link: http://www.mindscapehq.com/blog/index.php/2008/01/27/sorting-and-grouping-in-the-wpf-property-grid/ – Max Lambertini Aug 07 '12 at 09:06
2

I found that this also works rather than NoSort. propGrid.PropertySort = PropertySort.Categorized; – thewikus May 11 '17 at 08:39
User .NoSort result in losing category, use categorized instead. – Ray Jul 06 '21 at 02:59

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 14 '19 at 11:06

You can set quite a few properties using annotations, one of them is the "order of display" using the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.Display Attribute would look like this:

[DisplayName("Error"),Display(Order = 5)]
public string Error { get; internal set; }

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 04 '20 at 13:00

You can try this code.

private void propertyGrid1_PropertySortChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (propertyGrid1.PropertySort == PropertySort.CategorizedAlphabetical)
    {
        propertyGrid1.PropertySort = PropertySort.Categorized;
    }
}

Display items in PropertyGrid in the sequence they are declared

3 Answers3