Hi, "what do I want to do" is build a control whose visuals will change when I use put it on another control/form and set properties (at design time), as in ...

Class X has been created, a subclass of control, it has a property Y with assign method (y_assign) that sets, say, a label caption to the Y property value.

When I put an instance of X on another control, Z, (that I'm designing) and set the .Y property I DON'T see the caption change in X. [As opposed to putting a std label on Z, setting it's caption property and seeing it change, or deriving X from the container class and directly setting the label it contains.

In otherwords, I get no visual feedback (at design time) that the property has been set. I've been avoiding builders, but can now see that this is what they might fix?

Dave