Ironruby core - Sep 2009 - Getting initialize called for already-constructed dotnet-classes

I have a simple XAML that is compiled to
Napa.Gui.MotifSupport.SpinBoxWidget CLR class:

<UserControl x:Class="Napa.Gui.MotifSupport.SpinBoxWidget"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:m="clr-namespace:Napa.Gui.MotifSupport"
    Height="Auto" MinWidth="60">
    <Grid>
        <Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <RowDefinition/>
        </Grid.RowDefinitions>
        <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
            <ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>
            <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto"/>            
        </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
        <m:InputField x:Name="Value"/>
        <ScrollBar x:Name="Scroll" Orientation="Vertical"
Grid.Column="1"/>
    </Grid>
</UserControl>

At IR-side, I monket-patch initialize-methods for SpinBoxWidget and one
of its parts:

    include Napa::Gui::MotifSupport

    def test_initialize

        SpinBoxWidget.class_eval do
            def initialize
                puts "SpinBoxWidget.initialize"
            end
        end

        InputField.class_eval do
            def initialize
                puts "InputField.initialize"
            end
        end

        puts ''Creating InputField''
        InputField.new    # Prints "InputField.initialize"

        puts "Creating SpinBoxWidget"
        s = SpinBoxWidget.new # Prints "SpinBoxWidget.initialize" but
*not* "InputField.initialize"
	
    end


So the InputField initialize is not executed when the InputField is
created as part of the larger XAML. This is understandable, but still
problem for us.

Trying to call InputFields initialize afterwards fails as well with
"initialize is private method" error.

Our current solution is to use non-standard name "initializer" and
manually execute that for all widgets and sub-widgets after
construction. This does not feel very nice solution. Any other ideas out
there? 

Robert Brotherus
Napa Inc.