The nice thing about BlinkIfDifferentError (the default) is that the blinking continues for only a few seconds before stopping automatically- enough to catch the user's attention without becoming an eyesore.Ī object that's shown for the error icon. You can choose to never blink (Never Blink), always blink (AlwaysBlink), or blink only the first time an error is set and when a new error message is set (BlinkIfDifferentError). The default is 250 milliseconds, which means the error icon blinks to get attention once every 250 milliseconds (or four times a second).ĭetermines when the error icon blinks, using one of the values from the ErrorBlinkStyle enumeration. ErrorProvider Appearance-Related Propertiesĭetermines the rate, in milliseconds, at which the error icon should flash (assuming the BlinkStyle is set to allow flashing). These properties allow you to control how the error icon blinks, and even to replace the familiar red exclamation mark with something more customized (see Table 18-3). In addition to the extended properties, the ErrorProvider has a few useful properties of its own. That way you can set up everything properly ahead of time without resorting to code. However, it makes good sense to set the IconAlignment and IconPadding properties at design time if you need to use them. It doesn't make sense to set the Error property at design time, because as soon as the Error string is set, the error icon appears. When you set it, Visual Studio adds the required statement that invokes the SetError() method to your form initialization code. The Error property doesn't really exist-instead, it's just provided as a design-time convenience.

For example, instead of calling the SetError() method to show an error message in a TextBox, you can select the TextBox at design time and modify the Error property in the Properties window. By default this is 0, which still leaves a few pixels between the control and the icon.Īs you probably remember from Chapter 4, there are always two ways to interact with an extender provider: you can call its methods explicitly in your code, or you can configure the corresponding extended property at design time for the extended control. You can easily flip the icon to any other side.ĭetermines the amount of space, in pixels, that will be left between the icon and the aligned edge of a specific control. The default is MiddleRight, which means the icon appears on the right side of the control, centered between the top and bottom edge. ErrorProvider Appearance-Related Methodsĭetermines where the error icon will appear for a specific control, using one of the values from the ErrorIconAlignment enumeration. The ErrorProvider control provides two methods that let you specify how an error icon should be aligned with a control, and how much spacing there should be between the icon and the control (see Table 18-2). However, enterprising developers will be happy to find out that they can tweak the error icon's appearance to better fit in with their applications. By default, every warning icon appears to the immediate right of the input control. The ErrorProvider control can serve any number of input controls on the same form, and display as many simultaneous error icons and warning messages as needed.

Errorprovider set icon spacing