windowsforms-401381-controls-and-libraries-editors-and-simple-controls-included-controls-and-components.md
Jan 22, 2025
10 minutes to read
Editors (include related RepositoryItems and can be embedded in data-aware controls)
Controls (contain no RepositoryItems and can be used in stand-alone mode only)
Components (non-visual utility components)
Editors in this section can be embedded into data-aware controls (Data Grid, Tree List, Vertical Grid, and other EditorContainer class descendants). See the Cell Values, Editors, and Validation Data Grid help article for an example.
Tip
You can also use the RepositoryItemAnyControl item to embed non-editor controls (for example, Charts).
Date and time editors support Masks that change the date\time format. To access mask settings, use the RepositoryItemTextEdit.MaskSettings property.
Editors in this group allow users to select multiple items from a list. Each item has its own unique value. The editor’s EditValue property returns comma-separated values of all the selected items.
Most item selectors operate manually populated item lists and cannot retrieve values from a data source. If you need a data-aware editor, use one of Lookup Editors instead. To display items that show captions different from their internally stored values, use ImageComboBoxEdit.
Lookups are data-bound editors that display data source records in their drop-down panels, but users can select only one item at a time. If you need a data-bound editor that allows multiple selection, use the CheckedComboBoxEdit, or create a PopupContainerEdit that stores a Data Grid.
Neither lookup editor allows users to edit data records in a drop-down panel. See this GitHub repository for an example on how to emulate an editable GridLookUpEdit.
All lookups have DisplayMember and ValueMember properties that allow you to process values of one data source field, but display values from another data field. For instance, if a record has ID and Name fields, the editor can process IDs while users see Names.
See the Which Lookup to Use in Your Next WinForms Project blog post for more information about different DevExpress lookup editors.
Many DevExpress controls provide an Images collection. Assign a DevExpress image collection to this property and use the ImageIndex property of the control’s child element to choose an image for this element. For instance, in the code below the “button1” BarButtonItem receives a third image from the “svgImageCollection1” storage.
//assign an image collection to a control with items
ribbonControl1.Images = svgImageCollection1;
//use the ImageIndex property to choose item images
button1.ImageOptions.ImageIndex = 2;
'assign an image collection to a control with items
ribbonControl1.Images = svgImageCollection1
'use the ImageIndex property to choose item images
button1.ImageOptions.ImageIndex = 2
The collection of Image objects to be used within DevExpress controls. The ImageCollection is also used as a part of the SharedImageCollection component.