Hour 23. Control Class Libraries

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It's been estimated that the market for custom controls and components will be in the billions of dollars in the coming years. Beginning with the emergence of COM and ActiveX, companies are realizing the full potential of code reuse through component-based architectures. Through the use of custom controls and components, you can save precious development time and money that is better spent on the more important aspects of your project. Just as Henry Ford revolutionized the manufacturing process with the application of assembly lines, component-based architectures have done the same for software development.

Creating custom controls with the previous version of Visual Studio meant using COM and, more specifically, ActiveX controls. Visual Studio .NET has since changed this method to better align with the design goals of the .NET Framework. Although creating ActiveX controls is still possible and necessary in some instances, .NET controls free you from learning the intricacies of COM interfaces and automation compatibility as well as other difficult issues that arise from using ActiveX controls.

In this hour you will learn:

• How to create a custom control with Visual C++ .NET

• How to utilize that control within a managed application using Windows Forms

• How to place your control onto the Visual Studio .NET Toolbox

• How to create control properties and integrate them into the Property Browser window within the IDE

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