Chapter 10: Advanced Windows Forms Applications

Overview

In the previous chapter you got all the basics squared away. It is now time to look at some of the more exciting controls and features provided by the .NET Framework. Even though this chapter covers more advanced Win Form applications, this does not mean they are more complex or difficult to develop. The main reason is that the .NET Framework uses encapsulation quite extensively in its classes and hides much of the complexities of Win Forms from you. On the other hand, you can still access these complexities if you really want to.

In this chapter I continue using the approach of covering both manual development and development using the GUI design tool. As I pointed out in the previous chapter, I feel the intimate knowledge of Win Form components, attained by building Win Forms manually, will allow you to build better GUI interfaces to your Windows application.

This chapter covers some of the more powerful GUI controls provided by the .NET Framework. It also looks at three other Win Form development areas: menus, dialog boxes, and the MDI interface.

In Chapter 9, I covered most of the more commonly used data entry controls. There is nothing stopping you from using these controls in a simple form every time you need data from the user. However, doing so is not always the best way to interact with or present information to the user.

Let's now start a whirlwind tour of some of the remaining controls provided by the .NET Framework class library.