Chapter 2. Controls

The System.Windows.Forms namespace defines a class called Control. This class is at the heart of all Windows Forms applications. Any visual element of an application—whether it is a window, a button, a toolbar, or a custom user-defined control—is represented by an object of some class deriving from Control.

This chapter describes the role played by the Control class within the Windows Forms framework, and examines the basic behavior that all controls inherit from Control. It also introduces the classes that represent the traditional Windows controls.