Developing Components
This section defines what a component is and provides an overview of .NET Framework programming concepts that are especially relevant to component programming. While the term component has many meanings, in the .NET Framework a component is a class that implements the System.ComponentModel.IComponent interface or one that derives directly or indirectly from a class that implements this interface.
If you want your components and controls to be usable from other programming languages, you must author them in a Common Language Specification (CLS)-compliant language and ensure that all public and protected members are CLS-compliant. The .NET Framework SDK provides compilers for four CLS-compliant languages — Visual Basic .NET, C#, the Managed Extensions for C++, and JScript .NET. For more information about the CLS, see What is the Common Language Specification?.
In This Section
- Class vs. Component vs. Control
- Provides definitions for the terms component and control.
- Properties Overview
- Provides an overview of properties in the .NET Framework.
- Raising Events from a Component
- Provides links to topics that describe how to raise events.
- Design-Time Attributes for Components
- Describes design-time metadata attributes for components.
- Licensing Components and Controls
- Describes how to implement licensing for components.
Related Sections
- Developing Windows Forms Controls
- Describes how to author custom controls for Windows Forms.
- Developing ASP.NET Server Controls
- Describes how to author custom ASP.NET server controls.
- Enhancing Design-Time Support
- Describes how to implement design-time support for controls and components.
- Building XML Web Services Using ASP.NET
- Describes how to implement and use ASP.NET components in XML Web services.
