Windows Forms Programming in Visual Basic .NET

Components

Recall from Chapter 8: Controls that controls gain integration into VS.NET merely by deriving from the Control base class in the System.Windows.Forms namespace. That's not the whole story. What makes a control special is that it's one kind of component: a .NET class that integrates with a design-time environment such as VS.NET. A component can show up on the Toolbox along with controls and can be dropped onto any design surface. Dropping a component onto a design surface makes it available to set the property or handle the events in the Designer, just as a control is. Figure 9.1 shows the difference between a hosted control and a hosted component.

Figure 9.1. Locations of Components and Controls Hosted on a Form

Standard Components ...