Windows Forms 2.0 Programming (Microsoft .NET Development Series)

12. Design-Time Integration: Designers and Smart Tags

The properties window is part of a broad set of design-time services that includes component designers and smart tags and which allow you to enhance the behavior of your components in many ways. Designers allow you to completely separate design-time behavior from a component, thereby simplifying the implementation of design-time-only functionality.

Designers are also the design-time entry point for smart tags, a feature that enhances Properties window integration by making key configurations available for a design-time component right on the design surface, visual or nonvisual. This chapter concludes our journey through the immense landscape of the design time by showing how to use custom designers and smart tags to add polish to your components.