Hi Simon,

Welcome to the wonderful world of .NET! <g>

Yes, you can do similar things in .NET and your "container class" would be the UserControl. UserControls *can* be visually designed.

Also, I recommend, just as you did in VFP, that you first sub-class all your UI controls (TextBox, ComboBox, etc.) and use your sub-classed controls on Forms and UserControls. These types of controls cannot be visually designed, but it's not that big a deal ... what do you really need to see to create a button sub-class anyway? These sub-classed controls can all be put in one class library (IOW, one .cs or .vb file, which will be one .DLL).

I hope this helps you get started on the right foot!! =)

~~Bonnie


>Hi
>
>I have finally gotten a chance to begin learning .NET. So I will probably have some basic newbie questions for awhile.
>
>In VFP all my interface classes are based on VFP Containers which are added to forms dynamically at runtime. This allowed for faster startup of the application because the container was not added to the form until it was activated. So if the user chose a menu item that opened several forms only the active form loaded the container with the controls. The other forms were created but no container was added until the form was activated.
>
>In .NET is such a technique required? If such a technique would be useful what class would be the equivalent of the VFP container and can this class be visually designed?
>
>Thanks
>Simon White