Adding custom nodes

My application allows the user's to customize most all of the parts of the object that you are currently reading from the attributes. Is there a way to set these attributes in code? For example, I want to set the Category, Description and the Caption\HumanName from code.

The caption can be set when you add the custom node: grid.AddNode("My Caption", 123);.

Category and Description are not available for custom nodes, but you can simulate them using custom grouping and data binding.

For categories, rather than using the built-in NodeToCategoryConverter or PropertyGrouping.ByCategory (which is just a wrapper around the NodeToCategoryConverter), create your own GroupDescription:

public class CustomGroupingConverter : IValueConverter {
  public object Convert(object value, ...) {
    Node node = (Node)value;
    // Figure out the group from the node by whatever means is appropriate, e.g.
    // from a dictionary which you would populate over the course of adding the
    // custom nodes.
    return _groupIds[node];
  }
}

grid.Grouping = new PropertyGroupDescription("Node", new CustomGroupingConverter());

For descriptions, you would use a similar technique.  E.g. assume you have a TextBlock where you want to show descriptive info about the selected row.  You would use a binding like this:

<TextBlock Text="{Binding SelectedGridItem, Converter={StaticResource CustomDescriptionConverter}}" />

where CustomDescriptionConverter is an IValueConverter whose Convert method is something like:

public object Convert(object value, ...) {
  Node node = ((PropertyGridRow)value).Node;
  // Figure out the description from the node by whatever means is appropriate, e.g.
  // from a dictionary which you would populate over the course of adding the
  // custom nodes.
  return _descriptions[node];
}

Note that AddNode returns the newly added node which is what you would use to populate the dictionaries (if you took that approach):

foreach (UserDefinedThing t in allUserDefinedThings)
{
  Node node = grid.AddNode(t.Caption, t.Value);
  _groupIds[node] = t.Category;
  _descriptions[node] = t.Description;
}

Obviously the exact structure will depend on how your application models the custom metadata.