"Bind" properties of components to a constant to enable global change

Question

I am experiencing with different layouts for my application.

The application consists of many buttons, panel etc., which are all created and visible at design time in Visual Studio.

In one layout the BackColors of all controls are e.g. gray, in a different approach I will change the BackColors to e.g. dark gray to see if this looks better.

Until now I'm doing the color property change by:

• selecting all buttons and then change the property in the properties window of Visual Studio
• after that
• selecting all panels and then change the property in the properties window of Visual Studio
• ... and so on for all controls.

Is it in some way possible to e.g. "bind" specific properties of controls to e.g. a constant defined in a separate class, so when changing this property the properties of all associated controls will change accordantly (at design-time)?

Any help is appreciated!

Answer 1

An option is to create an Application Setting (double-click 'Settings.settings' file) of type System.Drawing.Color named (for example) ControlBackColor:

Then in the designer, set the (ApplicationSettings) binding for the controls you wish:

Now by just changing the Settings.settings location - the control settings will be modified.