Windows Forms controls are reusable components that not only provide many ready-to-use controls but also provide the infrastructure for developing your own controls. You can combine existing controls, extend existing controls, or author your own custom controls.
In Visual Studio 2005, many Windows Forms controls have been enhanced as well as new controls have been introduced. You will now walkthrough some of the new features of the Windows form 2.0 controls.
To begin with, the DataGridView control provides a powerful and flexible way to display data in a tabular form. It is used to show the read-only views of a small amount of data, or it can be scaled to show editable views of very large sets of data.
ToolStrip controls are toolbars that can host menus, controls, and user controls in your Windows Forms applications.
The ToolStrip and its associated classes enable you to create toolbars and other user interface elements in a style that is consistent with Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Internet Explorer, or can be customized.
The MaskedTextBox control uses a mask definition to distinguish between valid and invalid user input.
To mask the text box, the Set Mask link in the MaskedTextBox Tasks is clicked. In the Input Mask dialog box, the zip code, the short date and time format, and the phone number options are selected.
The text boxes are then masked to validate the respective inputs from the user. Now the user can enter information in the format as required by the masked text boxes.
The Windows Forms SplitContainer composite control is two panels separated by a movable bar. When the mouse pointer hovers over the bar, the cursor changes to show that the bar is movable. This control is used to create complex, resizable user interfaces that are effective for displaying and browsing information.
You can split the windows form into multiple interfaces by repeatedly applying the SplitContainer control.
The ListView control supports three features provided by Windows XP and the Windows Server 2003 family: tile view, grouping, and drag-and-drop item repositioning. The list view can be populated by adding columns and grouping them and then adding items to each of the columns.
The WebBrowser control lets you host Web pages in your Windows Forms applications.
You can use the WebBrowser control to provide integrated HTML-based Help or Internet Web browsing capabilities in your application and to convert existing Web applications to client applications that seamlessly integrate dynamic HTML (DHTML) code with the user interface capabilities of Windows Forms.
Different controls such as the ToolStrip, buttons, textbox, ComboBox and many others, can be added into the form with the WebBrowser control.
The FlowLayoutPanel control arranges its contents in a horizontal or vertical flow direction. Because a layout is performed both at design time and run time, it can change dynamically as the application environment changes.
Flow layout panel control can be applied to a form with various other controls. On applying the FlowLayoutPanel control, all the controls are arranged in the horizontal or vertical fashion.
From: Microsoft