Chapter 7: Windows Applications

 

Chapter 7 - Windows Applications
bySimon Robinsonet al.
Wrox Press 2002

  

Overview

While many business applications developed today are designed for the World Wide Web, the classic rich client still exists and will always be required. Whether it is an intranet application used within the organization, or a piece of shrink-wrapped software installed on enduser's desktops, the rich functionality and user experience such an environment provides will always be required for certain types of applications. Web applications are wonderful for ease of deployment and maintenance, but they cannot compare to the user experience possible through a good rich client.

Fortunately, .NET provides the ability to create rich clients that execute within the Common Language Runtime. These applications utilize a new Windows forms processing engine, called Windows Forms. Any .NET language can use Windows Forms to build Windows applications. These applications have access to the complete .NET Framework of namespaces and objects, and have all of the advantages we have discussed so far.

In this chapter we will discuss how to build Windows applications in .NET. We will cover the following topics:

• How to build Windows Forms applications using the .NET Framework

• How to use Visual Studio .NET to build Windows Forms applications quickly

• Adding menu support to an application, including dynamic and context-sensitive menus

• Utilizing custom and common dialog resources in a project

• How to use visual inheritance to build powerful and dynamic Windows Forms applications

• How to use Windows Forms controls in an application

• How to create and extend existing controls for specialized functionality

• Exposing and consuming custom events from a custom control