In Brief

• Windows Forms (or WinForms) provide the ease of use and simplicity for GUI application development to .NET, traditionally available to Visual Basic developers only.

• Windows Forms applications can be developed using any .NET-supported programming language; out-of-the-box languages include Visual Basic .NET, C#, Managed C++, and Visual J#.

• Visual Studio .NET provides an integrated, common environment for visual design and development of Windows Forms applications for C#, Visual Basic .NET, Visual J#, and Managed C++.

• Windows Forms applications require zero installation; that means no registering of controls. A simple copy of the application executable and its associated control libraries is all that is required to install a Windows Forms application into an end- user desktop.

• Windows Forms applications provide a separation of the graphical user interface and the application business logic by using a rich Event Handler model.

• Windows Forms class library provides a rich set of prebuilt controls for user interface development. This includes buttons , list boxes, scroll bars, tab controls, tree views, dialog boxes, splitters, and so on.

• Windows Forms Controls can be anchored and docked to support resizable forms.

• User controls enable developers to create their own custom controls by extending and/or aggregating base controls.

• Visual inheritance allows Windows Forms prebuilt controls to be subclassed and extended for any custom requirements.

• Windows Forms controls can be data bound. In particular, the DataGrid control provides a simple, yet rich, programming model for database- intensive GUI applications.

• Data binding provides Windows Forms the flexibility to connect with external Web services for connecting with nonrelational data sources.

• Multiple Document Interface (MDI) applications can be developed easily using Windows Forms.