Hello experts.

I have a class called VisualAspect. This class stores information about
how to draw things (backcolor, forecolor, font, ...). This class is
complete with a TypeConverter (which returns a constructor based
InstanceDescriptor), DefaultValue attributes on every public property,
and ShouldSerializeXXX and ResetXXX methods on properties that cannot
provide constant/integral properties.

This class is used by my user control, which simplistically is laid out
as such:

public class Grid : System.Windows.Forms.UserControl
{
  // ctor/ other stuff

  VisualAspect normal_aspect = new VisualAspect();
  VisualAspect hottrack_aspect = new VisualAspect();

  [DesignerSerializationVisibility(Content)]  <- shortened, by u get it
  public VisualAspect AspectNormal
  { get... set... }

  [DesignerSerializationVisibility(Content)]
  public VisualAspect AspectHotTrack
  { get... set... }
}

Now, the problem is, the Forms designer won't serialize any modified
properties properly.

Here is a snippet from a form's code that contains my user control.

void InitializeComponent()
{
  VisualAspect visualAspect1 = new VisualAspect(); // not necessary-
already constructed !

  visualAspect1.BackColor = Color.Red; // ok- I set this in the
property grid

  Grid grid1 = new Grid(); // ok
  grid1.Location = ... // ok
  grid1.Size = ... // ok

  // No meaningful assignment is ever made in the code above, because
visualAspect1 goes out of scope.
}

Any thoughts or pointers to a good ComponentModel tutorial would be
appreciated since MSDN docs on this topic are cryptic and incomplete.

Dan I