ReadOnlyController: Working with the ReadOnly property on controls

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Introduction

Many times when working with a WindowForms application I have needed to set the ReadOnly property on many controls to the same values at different times. For example, if user doesnt have the right to edit an object, then the controls should all be readonly. Or perhaps if the form is in a specific state, then some controls should be readonly while others shouldn't. You could write code to set the property on all of the controls, or make a helper method like this:

public void SetReadOnly(bool readOnly)
{

    textBox1.ReadOnly = readOnly;
    textBox2.ReadOnly = readOnly;
    button1.readOnly = readOnly;
    toolStripButton1.ReadOnly = readOnly;
}

However this can be tedious to manage and it woudl be nice to do this from the designer directly. The ReadOnlyController is a simple component that can be dropped on a form and can help manage the ReadOnly properties on these controls.

Background

The ReadOnlyController is a Component so that can be dropped on a form in design mode and implements IExtenderProvider so that it can extend the properties on controls on the form. Controls that have either a Readonly or Enabled property can be extended to enable control from the ReadOnly Controller. See the screenshot below for how this might look in the designer:

Using the code

Simply drop the ReadOnlyController on your form and since it is an IExtenderProvider all controls on the form that have either a Readonly or Enabled property will be extended with the ability to control this property from the ReadOnlyController. Then all you do is just set the ReadOnly property on the ReadOnlyController to the desired value, and all the controls that were set to EnableReadOnly on ReadOnlyController = true will have this property set.

// Set readOnlyController to ReadOnly to set all extended controls to ReadOnly as well
readOnlyController1.ReadOnly = true;