.Net Developer

Windows Forms and Custom Controls

By: Matthew MacDonald

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Paperback | 17 September 2004

At a Glance

Paperback
630 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.86 x 18.42 x 3.18

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Published: 1st November 2011

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IN THE PAST FEW MONTHS, a deluge of .NET books has hit store shelves, each one eager to explain the new programming philosophy of the .NET world. In the excitement, many of these books have left out the tricks and insights you need to really master .NET programming. Part of the problem is that no single work can cover the entire .NET platform-a sprawling, ambitious framework that revolu- tionizes everything from Internet applications to data access technology. Many .NET books provide a good overview of essential concepts, but they can't deal with the subtleties needed for all types of development. This book represents the start of the second wave of .NET books: closely focused works that give you the insight of experienced developers about a single aspect of .NET programming. User Interfaces in C#: Windows Forms and Custom Controls takes a close look at all the ingredients you can use to design state-of-the- art application interfaces. It also delves into entirely new topics like custom control design and GDI+, the next-generation painting framework for Windows. You don't just learn about anchoring and docking, you work with examples that show document-view architecture, custom control layout engines, dockable windows, and hit testing with owner-drawn controls. You also learn how to design irregularly shaped forms, unshackle data binding, and build an integrated help system.

Industry Reviews

From the reviews:

"This book goes beyond simply covering the Windows Forms namespaces - it also provides a careful treatment of the API and a discussion of good user interface design principles. ... After reading this book, you will know how to design state-of-the-art application interfaces ... and more. ... the book does contain detailed discussions about every well-known user interface element. ... tips are very useful to novice C# or .Net users. I recommend this book to anyone serious about building interfaces using the .Net framework." (Adrian Rossi, Computer Bulletin, November, 2003)

"This book contains the following: An overview of how to design elegant user interfaces the average user can understand. A comprehensive examination of the user interface controls and classes in .NET. Best practices and design tips for coding user interfaces and integrating help." (Programmers Heaven, November, 2002)

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Computing & I.T.Computer Hardware Personal Computers Computer Programming & Software Development Object-Oriented Programming or OOP Programming & Scripting Languages Operating Systems Microsoft (Windows) Operating Systems Digital Lifestyle & Online World: Consumer & User Guides Internet Guides & Online Services Microsoft Programming

Software Engineering

Preface	p. xvii
About the Author	p. xix
About the Technical Reviewer	p. xx
Acknowledgments	p. xxi
Introduction	p. xxiii
Creating Usable Interfaces	p. 1
Why Worry About the Interface?	p. 2
A Brief History of User Interfaces	p. 3
The Command-Line Era	p. 3
The Question-Answer Model	p. 5
The Menu-Driven Model	p. 7
The GUI Era	p. 8
Creativity vs. Convention	p. 10
Consistency in .NET	p. 11
The ""Act-Like-Microsoft"" Principle	p. 11
Administrative Utilities	p. 12
Know Your Application Type	p. 13
Know Your User	p. 14
Handling Complexity	p. 15
Segmenting Information	p. 16
Inductive User Interface	p. 17
Helpful Restrictions	p. 17
Restricting the User's Ability to Make a Mistake	p. 17
Restricting the User's Choices	p. 18
Restricting the User's Imagination	p. 19
Programming User Interface for the Web	p. 20
The Last Word	p. 21
Designing with Classes and Tiers	p. 23
Classes and Objects	p. 24
The Roles of Classes	p. 24
Classes and Types	p. 25
More About Objects	p. 28
User Interface Classes in .NET	p. 29
Controls Are Classes	p. 29
Controls Contain Other Controls	p. 30
Controls Derive from Other Controls	p. 33
Inheritance and the Form Class	p. 35
The Controls Collection	p. 36
Generating Code with Visual Studio .NET	p. 37
Interacting with a Control	p. 39
The View-Mediator Pattern	p. 40
Smart Controls	p. 42
Smart Forms	p. 43
Encapsulation	p. 44
Use Enumerations and Resource Classes	p. 44
Use Collections	p. 45
Restrain from Sharing Control References	p. 45
Define a Data Transfer Plan	p. 45
Use a Central Switchboard	p. 45
Create Data-Driven User Interfaces	p. 46
Developing in Tiers	p. 47
Problems with Three-Tier Design	p. 48
Three-Tier Design Consistency	p. 50
Fixing Three-Tier Design	p. 51
Using the DataSet	p. 52
Other Types of Application	p. 54
The Last Word	p. 54
Control Class Basics	p. 57
The Windows Forms Package	p. 57
The .NET Solution	p. 58
The Control Class	p. 60
Position and Size	p. 64
Color	p. 66
Fonts and Text	p. 69
Access Keys	p. 71
Control Relations	p. 71
Focus and the Tab Sequence	p. 72
Responding to the Mouse and Keyboard	p. 75
A Mouse/Keyboard Example	p. 78
Mouse Cursors	p. 79
Graphics and Painting	p. 79
Low-Level Members	p. 81
The Last Word	p. 82
Classic Controls	p. 83
Types of Controls	p. 83
Invisible Controls	p. 83
Provider Controls	p. 85
ActiveX Controls	p. 86
Should You Import ActiveX Controls?	p. 89
The Classic Control Gallery	p. 90
Labels	p. 90
LinkLabel	p. 91
Button	p. 94
TextBox	p. 94
CheckBox and RadioButton	p. 96
PictureBox	p. 97
List Controls	p. 97
Other Domain Controls	p. 102
Organizational Controls	p. 104
The Date Controls	p. 105
The DateTimePicker	p. 106
MonthCalendar	p. 108
Menus	p. 111
The Menu Class	p. 112
The MainMenu and ContextMenu Classes	p. 114
The Menultem Class	p. 115
The Visual Studio .NET Menu Designer	p. 118
Attaching a Menu	p. 118
Menu Events	p. 119
Copying and Cloning a Menu	p. 121
Merging a Menu	p. 121
Owner-Drawn Menus	p. 122
An Owner-Drawn Menu Control	p. 125
Drag-and-Drop	p. 130
""Fake"" Drag-and-Drop	p. 130
Authentic Drag-and-Drop	p. 132
Validation	p. 135
A Validation Example	p. 136
Validating with the ErrorProvider	p. 138
Validating with Regular Expressions	p. 140
The Last Word	p. 142
Forms	p. 143
The Form Class	p. 143
Form Size and Position	p. 148
Scrollable Forms	p. 152
Showing a Form	p. 154
Custom Dialog Windows	p. 155
Form Interaction	p. 158
Form Ownership	p. 161
Windows XP Styles	p. 163
Prebuilt Dialogs	p. 165
Resizable Forms	p. 171
The Problem of Size	p. 171
Minimum and Maximum Size	p. 172
Anchoring	p. 173
Docking	p. 177
Splitting Windows	p. 180
Docking with Panels	p. 181
Other Split Windows	p. 183
Irregularly Shaped Forms	p. 186
Shaped Form Content	p. 188
Moving Shaped Forms	p. 190
Forms with Holes	p. 192
Visual Inheritance	p. 193
Making an Ancestor Control Available	p. 195
Adding an Ancestor Property	p. 196
Overriding an Event Handler	p. 197
The Last Word	p. 199
Modern Controls	p. 201
The ImageList	p. 201
Dealing with the ImageList in Code	p. 203
ListView and TreeView	p. 205
Basic ListView	p. 206
Advanced ListView Tricks	p. 211
Label Editing	p. 215
Adding Information to a ListView	p. 216
Basic TreeView	p. 217
TreeView Structure	p. 218
TreeView Navigation	p. 219
Manipulating Nodes	p. 223
Selecting Nodes	p. 226
Advanced TreeView Tricks	p. 228
Node Pictures	p. 229
Expanding and Collapsing Levels	p. 230
TreeView Drag-and-Drop	p. 231
Taming the TreeView	p. 235
A Project Tree	p. 235
A Data-Aware TreeView	p. 238
Unusual Trees	p. 240
Design-Time Support for the Custom TreeView	p. 241
The ToolBar	p. 242
Synchronizing the ToolBar	p. 246
The StatusBar	p. 249
Basic StatusBar	p. 250
Synchronizing the StatusBar to a Menu	p. 252
The TabControl	p. 254
The NotifyIcon	p. 257
The Last Word	p. 258
Custom Controls	p. 259
Types of Custom Controls	p. 260
Control Projects	p. 261
The Class Library Project	p. 261
Referencing a Custom Control	p. 263
The GAC	p. 265
Creating User Controls	p. 269
The Progress User Control	p. 271
The Bitmap Thumbnail Viewer	p. 276
Testing the BitmapViewer	p. 283
Bit map Viewer Events	p. 284
Bit map Viewer Enhancements and Threading	p. 286
Inherited Controls	p. 289
Inherited Controls or User Controls?	p. 290
The DirectoryTree Control	p. 291
Testing the DirectoryTree	p. 293
A Masked TextBox Control	p. 294
Custom Extender Providers	p. 298
The Menu Text Provider	p. 298
The Help Icon Provider	p. 303
The Last Word	p. 307
Design-Time Support for Custom Controls	p. 309
Control Designer Basics	p. 310
Attributes	p. 310
Basic Serialization	p. 314
The Toolbox Bitmap	p. 316
Resource Files	p. 318
Testing Custom Controls	p. 321
Debugging Design-Time Support	p. 322
Testing for Design Mode	p. 323
The PropertyGrid Control	p. 325
Custom Designers	p. 326
Filtering Properties and Events	p. 327
Designer Verbs	p. 329
Control Designer Notifications	p. 334
Data Types and UITypeEditors	p. 335
Using Prebuilt UITypeEditors	p. 337
Custom UITypeEditors	p. 339
Licensing Custom Controls	p. 341
Simple LIC File Licensing	p. 341
Custom LIC File Licensing	p. 342
Advanced License Providers	p. 343
The Last Word	p. 346
Data Controls	p. 349
Introducing Data Binding	p. 349
Basic Data Binding	p. 350
Simple List Binding	p. 352
Binding Lists to Complex Objects	p. 353
Single-Value Binding	p. 357
ADO.NET Data Binding	p. 360
Multiple Control Binding	p. 363
Updating with Data Binding	p. 365
Formatting Data Before Binding	p. 367
Advanced Conversions	p. 370
Row Validation and Changes	p. 372
Data Binding Exposed	p. 373
Navigation with Data Binding	p. 374
Reacting to Record Navigation	p. 376
Creating Master-Detail Forms	p. 377
Creating a New Binding Context	p. 379
The DataGrid Control	p. 380
DataGrid Relations	p. 381
DataGrid Column Mapping	p. 382
Creating Custom DataGrid Column Styles	p. 383
Encapsulation with Data Controls	p. 387
Validating Bound Data	p. 388
Data-Aware Controls	p. 391
A Decoupled TreeView with Just-in-Time Nodes	p. 393
Can There Be a Data-Bound ListView Control?	p. 397
The Last Word	p. 398
MDI Interfaces and Workspaces	p. 399
The Story of MDI	p. 399
Types of MDI Applications	p. 400
MDI Essentials	p. 400
Finding Your Relatives	p. 402
Synchronizing MDI Children	p. 403
MDI Layout	p. 405
Merging Menus	p. 407
Managing Interface State	p. 408
Document-View Architecture	p. 410
A Document-View Ordering Program	p. 411
Floating Windows and Docking	p. 425
Floating Toolbars	p. 425
Dockable Windows	p. 429
The Last Word	p. 434
Dynamic User Interface	p. 435
The Case for Dynamic User Interface	p. 435
Creating Controls at Runtime	p. 436
A System Tray Application	p. 438
Using Controls in a Drawing Program	p. 443
Dynamic Content	p. 449
Localization	p. 450
A Dynamic Menu Example	p. 453
Data-Driven Programming	p. 457
A Data-Driven Pricing Application	p. 458
Control Layout Engines	p. 459
The SingleLineFlow Layout Manager	p. 460
Control Layout Engines As Extender Providers	p. 463
The Last Word	p. 464
GDI+ Basics	p. 465
Paint Sessions with GDI+	p. 466
Accessing the Graphics Object	p. 466
Painting and Refreshing	p. 467
Optimizing GDI+ Painting	p. 470
Painting and Resizing	p. 470
Painting Portions of a Window	p. 472
Rendering Mode and Antialiasing	p. 475
Double Buffering	p. 477
Painting and Debugging	p. 480
The Graphics Class	p. 481
Coordinate Systems and Transformations	p. 485
Pens	p. 488
Brushes	p. 490
Hit Testing	p. 494
Hit Testing Nonrectangular Shapes	p. 496
The ControlPaint Class	p. 498
The Last Word	p. 500
GDI+ Controls	p. 501
Simple GDI+ Controls	p. 501
A Gradient Label	p. 502
Improving the GradientLabel's Design-Time Support	p. 505
A Marquee Label	p. 509
Creating Button Controls	p. 512
A Hot Tracking Button	p. 512
Reconsidering the Vector Drawing Program	p. 519
Solving the Bounding Problem	p. 520
A Simple Graphing Control	p. 525
The Last Word	p. 530
Help and Application-Embedded Support	p. 531
The Case for Help	p. 531
Types of Help	p. 532
WinHelp	p. 532
WinHelp 95	p. 533
HTML Help	p. 534
MS Help 2	p. 535
Some Help Authoring Tools	p. 536
Classic Bad Help	p. 537
Basic Help with the HelpProvider	p. 539
Control-Based and Form-Based Help	p. 542
Invoking Help Programmatically	p. 543
Help Without the HelpProvider	p. 544
Using Database-Based Help	p. 545
Using Task-Based Help	p. 546
Creating Your Own Help	p. 548
Application-Embedded Support	p. 550
Affordances	p. 551
Agents	p. 553
The Last Word	p. 559
Index	p. 561
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

.Net Developer

Windows Forms and Custom Controls

At a Glance

New Edition

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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