Lost the Winform graphic form editor

Question

Hi Not for the first time I made a slight mistake and lost my Winform graphic editor (like Form1.cs[Design]). I get instead a blank new Form1. I can run my program and get the form with all its controls running but I can not display the original form designer screen. The problem seem to have started when I mistakenly defined a new form Form1. I have tried to rebuild the controls with the new form but naturally it won't let me use the same names while new names serve no purpose. The fact that I can run the program indicates that the form information is somewhere in the project (probably in the  but I can not edit it. Is there a way to rebuild the graphic form designer ? Is there a way to avoid such errors in the future? (I always wondered why MS did not enable the saving of all versions while editing and before closing a project??)

Sam Hobbs · Answer

I am not sure what the problem is. There is one possible cause that often happens. That cause is when we put a class in the same .cs file that a form class is in and the other class is at the beginning of the file. The designer won't work if there is some other class before the form class. You can put classes at the bottom of a cs file after the form class but not before the form class. So is that the problem? If not then we need more information. Please provide any and all error messages you see in the designer/editer.

Sam · Answer

Hi Sam Hobbs Thanks for your help. It encouraged me to check and recheck and after I made some changes in the code the problem was solved. I am not yet sure what I did but I'll keep experimenting to make sure I understand the reason. I'll post the solution here once I'll have it. Thanks again.