Abstract UserControl inheritance in Visual Studio designer

What we want

First, let’s define the final class and the base abstract class.

public class MyControl : AbstractControl
...
public abstract class AbstractControl : UserControl // Also works for Form
...

Now all we need is a Description provider.

public class AbstractControlDescriptionProvider<TAbstract, TBase> : TypeDescriptionProvider
{
    public AbstractControlDescriptionProvider()
        : base(TypeDescriptor.GetProvider(typeof(TAbstract)))
    {
    }

    public override Type GetReflectionType(Type objectType, object instance)
    {
        if (objectType == typeof(TAbstract))
            return typeof(TBase);

        return base.GetReflectionType(objectType, instance);
    }

    public override object CreateInstance(IServiceProvider provider, Type objectType, Type[] argTypes, object[] args)
    {
        if (objectType == typeof(TAbstract))
            objectType = typeof(TBase);

        return base.CreateInstance(provider, objectType, argTypes, args);
    }
}

Finally we just apply a TypeDescriptionProvider attribute to the Abstract control.

[TypeDescriptionProvider(typeof(AbstractControlDescriptionProvider<AbstractControl, UserControl>))]
public abstract class AbstractControl : UserControl
...

And that’s it. No middle control required.

And the provider class can be applied to as many Abstract bases as we want in the same solution.