Design the user interface to mimic the look and feel of Microsoft Office XP, which will allow users of Office XP to immediately feel comfortable with the new application. Integration of the corporate logo and other visual elements associated with the company will aid in identification of the program with the company.
 

Create a single form that incorporates the common controls, and use visual inheritance to create derived forms.
 

Write an event handler for the Activated event that implements the relevant functionality.

You can set the tab order in Visual Studio by choosing Tab Index from  the View menu and clicking each control in the order you desire. Alternatively, you can set the TabIndex property either in code or in the Properties window.
 

Extender providers are components that provide additional properties to controls on a form. Examples include the ErrorProvider, HelpProvider, and ToolTip components. They can be used to provide additional information about particular controls to the user in the user interface.
 

If every possible option is exposed on a main menu, the menu can become busy and hard to use. Shortcut menus allow less frequently used options to be exposed only in situations where they are likely to be used.
 

Field-level validation is the process of validating each individual field as it is entered into a form. Form-level validation describes the process of validating all of the data on a form before submitting the form.
 

Keystrokes can be intercepted by handling the KeyPress and KeyDown events. Both of these events relay information to their handling methods in the form of their EventArgs. The KeyPressEventArgs, relayed by the Key-Press event, exposes the ASCII value of the key pressed in the KeyPressEventArgs. KeyChar property. The KeyEventArgs, relayed by the KeyDown event, exposes properties that indicate whether non-ASCII keys such as ALT, CTRL, or Shift have been pressed. To retrieve the ASCII key code from a keystroke, you would handle the KeyPress event and get that information from the KeyPressEventArgs.KeyChar property. To retrieve non-ASCII information, you would handle the KeyDown event and use the properties exposed by the KeyEventArgs instance.
 

You must first declare and instantiate a new instance of the control. Then, you must add the control to the form's Controls collection. Once the control has been added to the Controls collection, you must manually set properties that govern the control's position and appearance.
 

Controls that can host other controls. Examples include Forms, Panels, and TabPages.
 

In Windows Forms, attaching a control to the edge of the form. You can dock a control by setting the Dock property.
 

Shortcut keys enable instant access to menu commands, thus providing a keyboard shortcut for frequently used menu commands. Shortcut key assignments can be single keys, such as Delete, F1, or Insert, or they can be key combinations, such as Ctrl+A, Ctrl+F1, or Ctrl+Shift+X. When a shortcut key is designated for a menu item, it is shown to the right of the menu item.
 

Context menus are menus that appear when an item is right-clicked. Context menus are created with the ContextMenu component.
 

The three types of user-developed controls are inherited controls, user controls, and custom controls. An inherited control derives from a standard Windows Forms control and inherits the look, feel, and functionality of that control. User controls allow you to combine standard Windows Forms controls and bind them together with common functionality. Custom controls inherit from Control and are the most development-intensive kind of control. Custom controls must implement all their own code for painting and inherit only generic control functionality. All specific functionality must be implemented by the developer.
 

The Graphics object represents a drawing surface and encapsulates methods that allow graphics to be rendered to that surface. A Brush is an object that is used to fill solid shapes, and a Pen is used to render lines. A GraphicsPath object represents a complex shape that can be rendered by a Graphics object.
 

You must first obtain a reference to a Graphics object. Next, create an instance of a GraphicsPath object. Use the GraphicsPath.AddString method to add text to the GraphicsPath. Then, call the Graphics.DrawPath or Graphics.FillPath to render the text.
 

The LicenseProvider controls license validation and grants run-time licenses to validly licensed components. The LicenseManager.Validate method checks for an available license file and checks against the validation logic provided by the specific implementation of LicenseProvider. You specify which LicenseProvider to use by applying the LicenseProviderAttribute.
 

Set the Region property of the form or control to a Region object that contains the irregular shape. You can create a Region object from a GraphicsPath object.