>You have to do it in code???? UGH!

Well, it depends on what you're sub-classing and what you want to do with it. If you have a UserControl class that you want to sub-class, you can do a lot of it visually if you need to. So, say you have this UserControl:

public class MyBaseControl : System.Windows.Forms.UserControl
{
   // code in here
}

Now, to sub-class it, you start out by doing it in code: Add a new class to your project, make it of type UserControl, then go into the code and change it from this:

public class MySubControl : System.Windows.Forms.UserControl

to this:

public class MySubControl : MyBaseControl

At this point you can open your new sub-class up in the designer.

~~Bonnie