Hour 7. Working with the Traditional Controls

The previous two hours described in considerable detail how to work with forms. Forms are the foundation of a user interface but are rather useless by themselves . To create a usable interface, you'll need to use controls. Controls are the various widgets and doodads on a form with which a user interacts . Dozens of different types of controls exist, from the simple Label control used to display static text to the rather complicated Tree View control used to present trees of data like that found in Explorer. In this hour, I'll introduce you to the most common (and most simple) controls, which I call traditional controls. In the next hour, you'll learn about the more advanced controls that you can use to create professional-looking applications.

The highlights of this hour include the following:

Displaying static text with the Label control
Allowing users to enter text using a text box
Creating password fields
Working with buttons
Using panels, group boxes, check boxes, and option buttons
Displaying lists with list boxes and combo boxes

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