Part I of this book is a tutorial describing the fundamental concepts and classes in the Windows Forms API. It consists of the following 10 chapters: -
- Chapter 1 , .NET and Windows Forms Overview
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This chapter provides an overview of the .NET Framework (focusing on the parts that are relevant to Windows Forms developers) and the Windows Forms API. -
- Chapter 2 , Controls
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The Control class is at the heart of every Windows Forms application. Its role and usage are examined in detail in this chapter. -
- Chapter 3 , Forms, Containers, and Applications
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Forms are top-level windows, and almost all Windows Forms applications use Forms (hence the name ). We examine Forms in their role as containers for controls. The chapter also discusses how form-based applications are constructed . -
- Chapter 4 , Menus and Toolbars
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Most nontrivial applications use menus and toolbars to present their functionality in a structured way. This chapter shows the relationship between menus, forms, and controls. It also describes the techniques for dynamically modifying menus in MDI applications. -
- Chapter 5 , Building Controls
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This chapter shows the techniques for building your own reusable user interface components . It describes both user controls (collections of other controls grouped into a reusable element) and custom controls, which give developers complete control over all aspects of the control's appearance and behavior. -
- Chapter 6 , Inheritance and Reuse
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The .NET type system's support for inheritance is fundamental to the way in which controls work. Chapter 6 describes the role of inheritance in Windows Forms applications. It also highlights the many pitfalls of misuse of inheritance. -
- Chapter 7 , Redrawing and GDI+
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Although GDI+ is not strictly a part of Windows Forms, this powerful drawing API gives you the ability to control the appearance of your programs. Chapter 7 describes how to use GDI+ in your Windows Forms applications. -
- Chapter 8 , Property Grids
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The Property Grid control is important for two reasons. First, it is a very useful control for presenting and editing information. Second, it is a central part of Visual Studio .NET, and understanding its use is crucial to integrating your controls with the development environment. This chapter offers thorough coverage of the Property Grid control. -
- Chapter 9 , Controls and the IDE
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This chapter describes how to build controls that integrate into the Visual Studio .NET Forms Designer. It shows how to build custom control designers and extender property providers. -
- Chapter 10 , Data Binding
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Windows Forms has a data-binding architecture that allows any data source to be bound to any property of a control. Chapter 10 describes how to configure these bindings and how to use the specialized data source class, the DataSet . Throughout Part I, code examples are given in both C# and Visual Basic .NET. Part II of this book is the quick reference. It covers the basic Windows Forms namespace, System.Windows.Forms , and the GDI+ namespaces, System.Drawing , System.Drawing.Drawing2D , System.Drawing.Imaging , and System.Drawing.Printing . It also describes the design-time namespaces, System.ComponentModel and System.Windows.Forms.Design . Throughout Part II, C# syntax is used to document types and their members . In addition to the core namespace documentation, Chapter 11 discusses how to use the quick reference, while Chapter 12 shows VB.NET programmers how to convert the reference section's C# syntax to VB.NET syntax. |