.NET Windows Forms in a Nutshell

Name

Component

Synopsis

This is the base for classes that can be hosted in a container such as those provided by the design-time environment. Note that it is a marshal-by-reference object. If you need marshal-by-value semantics, use MarshalByValueComponent.

You can obtain the Container that hosts the component and the Site that binds the component to the container. Derived classes also can use the protected DesignMode property to determine whether the class is hosted in a designer.

Note that the class implements the IDisposable interface. The Container ensures that the object is disposed correctly (if you have a Container, but you should ensure that your resource release code is added to the Dispose() method.

There are actually two dispose methods, and you would normally override the protected member that takes a Boolean. This is to support different cleanup behavior when Dispose() is called by the Container, and when it is called by the Component object’s finalizer.

Typically, Component-derived classes are those non-windowed classes that you wish to present in the designer environment. They can use the GetService() method of the Site to make use of facilities provided by the designer host.

Classes that display a window should derive instead from System.Windows.Forms.Control, which itself derives from Component.

public class Component : MarshalByRefObject : IComponent, IDisposable {

// Public Constructors

   public Component();

// Public Instance Properties

   public IContainer Container{get; ...