B.12 SYSTEM.WEB

This namespace defines types and additional namespaces for interacting with Web browsers and servers over the Internet. It contains the System.Web.Services namespace used when building Web services, and the System.Web.UI namespace for building user interfaces in Web applications.

As this book is all about building Windows-based applications, it does not discuss these namespaces. See the references listed in appendix D and the bibliography for more information on building Web applications and services.

B.13 SYSTEM.WINDOWS.FORMS

The System.Windows.Forms namespace defines types for building Windowsbased applications. The Control class in this namespace is the basis for the user interface objects defined here.

The related System.Windows.Forms.Design namespace is used to provide design-time support for Windows Forms controls, most notably for integrating custom controls into Visual Studio .NET. The design namespace permits custom controls to define their behavior in the Toolbox and Properties windows, and manage their appearance when displayed in the Windows Forms Designer window.

The Windows Forms namespace is, of course, the topic of this book. While some basic custom controls are built in the book by defining a new class from an existing control, a discussion of design-time integration of such controls is beyond the scope of the book.

B.14 SYSTEM.XML

This namespace defines types in support of various Extensible Markup Language, or XML, standards, including XML 1.0 and XSD schemas. The XML standards were based on an older Standards Generalized Markup Language, or SGML, originally developed as a generalized solution for formatting documentation. Pure SGML proved a bit problematic for communication over networks, most notably the Internet, so XML was designed as a restricted form of SGML to overcome these difficulties.

XML is a great way to specify data in a generalized manner for use with the DataSet class in the System.Data namespace, and for interacting with remote applications and databases. For a detailed discussion of XML, see Complete .NET XML by Peter Waldschmidt, available from Manning Publications.

A P P E N D I X C

Visual index

This appendix presents a visual index of the Windows Forms classes covered in this book, as well as other .NET classes discussed in the text. These are organized as a set of class hierarchies in order to fit neatly on these pages. The following figure shows a diagram of the sections in this appendix.

680

The figures and tables on subsequent pages have the following features:

•Classes in the Windows Forms namespace are gray.

•Classes from other namespaces are white.

•Classes presented or discussed in the book provide the corresponding table or section and page number.

The complete set of all Windows Forms classes derived from the

Object, Component, and Control classes are provided. For more information on other classes and namespaces in the .NET Framework, consult the online documentation.

681

C.1 OBJECTS

Figure C.1 The Object class is the base class of all types in the .NET Framework. This figure shows the classes derived from the System.Object class that appear in the book.