Summary The .NET Framework
3.12 Summary
The .NET Framework is a broad and deep new foundation for application development. At its core is a runtime that provides services that were previously found in compiler libraries. This runtime eliminates the applications need to possess knowledge of the underlying operating system and hardware, while providing performance on par with natively compiled code. 132 133Chapter 4. Windows Forms I: Developing Desktop Applications
Windows Forms is a set of classes that encapsulates the creation of the graphical user interface GUI portion of a typical desktop application. Previously, each programming language had its own way of creating windows, text boxes, buttons, etc. This functionality has all been moved into the .NET Framework class library—into the types located in the System.Windows.Forms namespace. Closely related is the System.Drawing namespace, which contains several types used in the creation of GUI applications. The capabilities provided by the types in the System.Drawing namespace are commonly referred to as GDI+ discussed more fully later in this chapter. In this chapter, well examine the form or window as the central component in a classic desktop application. Well look at how forms are programmatically created and how theyre hooked to events. Well also examine how multiple forms in a single application relate to one another and how you handle forms in an application that has one or more child forms. Finally, well discuss two topics, printing and 2-D graphics, that are relevant to desktop application development.4.1 Creating a Form
The easiest way to design a form is to use the Windows Forms Designer in Visual Studio .NET. The developer can use visual tools to lay out the form, with the designer translating the layout into Visual Basic .NET source code. If you dont have Visual Studio .NET, you can write the Visual Basic .NET code directly and not use the designer at all. This section will demonstrate both methods. Programmatically, a form is defined by deriving a class from the Form class defined in System.Windows.Forms. The Form class contains the know-how for displaying an empty form, including its title bar and other amenities that we expect from a Windows form. Adding members to the new class and overriding members inherited from the Form class add visual elements and behavior to the new form.4.1.1 Creating a Form Using Visual Studio .NET
To create a GUI application in Visual Studio .NET: 1. Select File New Project. The New Project dialog box appears, as shown in Figur e 4- 1 . Figure 4-1. The New Project dialog boxParts
» VB.NET - (O'Reilly) Programming Visual Basic NET
» What Is the Microsoft .NET Framework?
» hello, world An Example Visual Basic .NET Program
» Hello, Windows An Example Visual Basic .NET Program
» Hello, Browser An Example Visual Basic .NET Program
» Source Files Identifiers The Visual Basic .NET Language
» Numeric Literals String Literals Character Literals
» Date Literals Boolean Literals Nothing Summary of Literal Formats
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» Symbolic Constants Scope The Visual Basic .NET Language
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» Variable-length parameter lists Main method
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» Interfaces The Visual Basic .NET Language
» Enumerations The Visual Basic .NET Language
» Exceptions The Visual Basic .NET Language
» Delegates The Visual Basic .NET Language
» Using Events and Delegates Together
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» Summary The Visual Basic .NET Language
» Common Language Infrastructure CLI and Common Language Runtime CLR
» Global Assembly Cache GAC Comparison of Assemblies, Modules, and Namespaces
» Application Domains Common Language Specification CLS
» Intermediate Language IL and Just-In-Time JIT Compilation Metadata
» Finalize Memory Management and Garbage Collection
» Dispose Memory Management and Garbage Collection
» A Brief Tour of the .NET Framework Namespaces
» Configuration File Format Configuration
» Configuration Section Groups The appSettings Section
» Adding event handlers Creating a Form in Code
» Handling Form Events Windows Forms I: Developing Desktop Applications
» Relationships Between Forms Windows Forms I: Developing Desktop Applications
» Merging Menus MDI Applications
» Detecting MDI Child Window Activation
» Component Attributes Windows Forms I: Developing Desktop Applications
» The Graphics Class 2-D Graphics Programming with GDI+
» The Pen Class 2-D Graphics Programming with GDI+
» The Brush Class 2-D Graphics Programming with GDI+
» System colors The Color Structure
» Alpha Blending 2-D Graphics Programming with GDI+
» Antialiasing 2-D Graphics Programming with GDI+
» The PrintPageEventArgs Class Printing
» The OnBeginPrint and OnEndPrint Methods Choosing a Printer
» The PageSettings Class Printing
» The PrinterSettings Class Printing
» Page Setup Dialog Box Print Preview
» Summary Windows Forms I: Developing Desktop Applications
» The Button Class The CheckBox Class The ComboBox Class
» The DateTimePicker Class The GroupBox Class The ImageList Class
» The Label Class The LinkLabel Class
» The ListBox Class Common Controls and Components
» The ListBox.ObjectCollection Class
» The ListView Class Common Controls and Components
» The MonthCalendar Class Common Controls and Components
» The Panel Class The PictureBox Class
» The RadioButton Class Common Controls and Components
» The TextBox Class The Timer Class
» Other Controls and Components
» Control Events Windows Forms II: Controls, Common Dialog Boxes, and Menus
» The Anchor Property Form and Control Layout
» Controlling dock order The Dock Property
» The Splitter control The Dock Property
» ColorDialog FontDialog OpenFileDialog Common Dialog Boxes
» PageSetupDialog PrintDialog PrintPreviewDialog SaveFileDialog
» Adding Menus in the Visual Studio .NET Windows Forms Designer
» Programmatically Creating Menus Menus
» Building Controls from Other Controls
» Building Controls That Draw Themselves Building Nonrectangular Controls
» Summary Windows Forms II: Controls, Common Dialog Boxes, and Menus
» Setting control properties using attributes Adding event handlers
» AutoEventWireup Handling Page Events
» The Button control Web Controls
» The CheckBox control The DropDownList control
» The Image control The Label control
» The ListBox control Web Controls
» The RadioButton control Web Controls
» The Table control Web Controls
» The TextBox control Web Controls
» Other web controls Web Controls
» HTML Controls Handling Control Events
» Programmatically Instantiating Controls More About Server Controls
» More About Validation-Control Tag Attributes
» Using Validation-Control Properties Providing a Summary View of Validation Failures
» Performing Custom Validation Adding Validation
» Using Directives to Modify Web Page Compilation
» The Server Object ASP.NET Objects: Interacting with the Framework
» The Application Object The Session Object The Cache Object The Request Object
» The Response Object ASP.NET Objects: Interacting with the Framework
» Discovering Browser Capabilities ASP.NET and Web Forms: Developing Browser-Based Applications
» The Session Object Maintaining State
» The Application Object Maintaining State
» Session and Application Startup and Shutdown global.asax Compiles to a Class
» Adding Global Objects Application-Level Code and global.asax
» ASP.NET authorization Authorization
» Windows NTFS authorization Code-access authorization
» IUSR_ComputerName Impersonation Accessing Network Resources
» User Controls Designing Custom Controls
» Creating a custom server control using Visual Studio .NET
» Creating a custom server control in code Using a custom server control in Visual Studio .NET
» Summary ASP.NET and Web Forms: Developing Browser-Based Applications
» The WebService Attribute The WebMethod Attribute
» Testing a Web Service with a Browser
» Consuming a Web Service in Visual Studio .NET
» Consuming a Web Service in Notepad
» Synchronous Versus Asynchronous Calls
» Web-Service Descriptions Web-Service Discovery
» Limitations of Web Services Summary
» A Brief History of Universal Data Access Managed Providers
» Connecting to a SQL Server Database
» Connecting to an OLE DB Data Source
» The DataSet Class Finding Tables
» Finding Column Values Finding Column Definitions Changing, Adding, and Deleting Rows
» Writing Updates Back to the Data Source
» Relations Between DataTables in a DataSet
» The DataSets XML Capabilities
» Binding a DataSet to a Windows Forms DataGrid
» Binding a DataSet to a Web Forms DataGrid
» Typed DataSets ADO.NET: Developing Database Applications
» Reading Data Using a DataReader
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