Chapter 20: Introducing Windows Forms

Chapter 20

Introducing Windows Forms

After completing this chapter, you will be able to:

• Create Windows Forms applications.

• Use common Windows Forms controls such as labels, text boxes, and buttons.

• Change the properties of Windows Forms and controls at design time and programmatically at run time.

• Subscribe to and process events exposed by Windows Forms and controls.

Now that you have completed the exercises and examined the examples in the first three parts of this book, you should be well-versed in the Microsoft Visual C# language. You have learned how to write programs and create components by using C#, and you should understand many of the finer points of the language, such as the differences between value types and reference types. Because you now have the essential language skills, Part IV will show you how to expand upon them and use C# to take advantage of the graphical user interface (GUI) libraries provided as part of the Microsoft .NET Framework. In particular, you will see how to use the objects in the System.Windows.Forms namespace to create Windows Forms applications.

In this chapter, you will learn how to build a basic Windows Forms application using the common components that are a feature of most GUI applications. You will see how to set the properties of Windows Forms and components by using the Visual Designer and the Properties windows. You'll also learn how to change or examine the values of these properties dynamically by using C# code. Finally, you will learn how to intercept and handle some of the common events that Windows Forms and components expose.