Design-Time Integration—Components

Microsoft .NET Framework, ASP.NET, Visual C# (CSharp, C Sharp, C-Sharp) Developer Training, Visual Studio

Components

Controls that controls gain integration into VS.NET merely by deriving from the Control base class in the System.Windows.Forms namespace. That's not the whole story. What makes a control special is that it's one kind of component: a .NET class that integrates with a design-time environment such as VS.NET. A component can show up on the Toolbox along with controls and can be dropped onto any design surface. Dropping a component onto a design surface makes it available to set the property or handle the events in the Designer, just as a control is. Figure 9.1 shows the difference between a hosted control and a hosted component.

Figure 9.1. Locations of Components and Controls Hosted on a Form