Windows Forms in Visual Studio 2005: An in-depth look at key features Name: Joe Stegman Title: Lead Program Manager Session code

2 Agenda ToolStrip Controls –Creating Customized, Professional Applications Working with Data and the DataGridView –Binding to business objects BackgroundWorker –Making an application more responsive TableLayoutPanel –Simplifying Localization Configuration APIs –Storing Application and User State Questions

3 Demo: Customizing ToolStrips Extensibility Models – Custom “Renderers” “Renderers” control the look and feel of the ToolStrip and ToolStrip Items –Custom Items (ToolStripItem derivation) Extend ToolStrip item types Full designer support for custom ToolStrip items –Control Hosting Host Windows Forms Controls in ToolStrips

4 Demo: Data and the DataGridView DataGridView –Flexible, Extensible, Performant Bound, Unbound, Virtual, Mixed Text, Image, Button, Link cells/columns Cell-based not Column-based –Cell styles (Font, Color, Formatting) –Cell-level events »Mouse, Formatting, Validate, Error, Others... BindingSource –Enables design time business object binding New Binding Types –BindingList : Generic IBindingList –INotifyPropertyChanged: Simplifies the implementation of property change notification

5 Demo: BackgroundWorker BackgroundWorker –Simplify creating responsive applications Easier to perform long running tasks without “freezing” the UI –Simplify Thread use in Windows Forms applications

6 Demo: TableLayoutPanel Layout Controls –TableLayoutPanel Similar to HTML Table control Address localization scenarios Facilitate creation of resizable UI –Support data driven UI (e.g. labels from a DB) –FlowLayoutPanel Child controls “flow” like default HTML layout mode

7 Demo: Client Configuration Configuration APIs –Support reading/writing user state Example: User’s last opened file –Support reading/writing application state Example: Application specific data source connection string –Full designer support –Extensible provider model

8 Resources: Windows Forms Smart Client on MSDN: – – – Windows Forms web site: – Beta 1 Samples: – 20Beta%201http:// 20Beta%201 Online Discussion Forums: – –

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