Graphical User Interface (GUI) A GUI allows user to interact with a program visually. GUIs are built from GUI components. A GUI component is an object with which the user interacts via the mouse and keyboard.

Some basic components Label - An area in which icons or text can be displayed TextBox – An area in which user inputs data Button – An area that triggers an event when clicked CheckBox –A GUI control that is either selected or not selected ComboBox – A drop-down list of items from which the user can make a selection ListBox – An area in which a list of items is displayed Panel – A container in which components can be placed HScrollBar – A horizontal scroll bar. VScrollBar – A vertical scroll bar.

Window form A form is a graphical element that appears on the desktop. A form can be a dialog, an SDI window (single document interface window) or an MDI window (multiple document interface window)

Form property and events Common properties  AcceptButton – specifies which button will be clicked when user press enter  AutoScroll – specifies whether scrollbars appear when needed  CancelButton – specifies which button is clicked when user presses Esc  FormBorderStyle – specifies the border of the form  Font -specifies the font of text displayed in the form as well as the default font of controls added to the form  Text – specifies the text in the form’s title bar

Form properties and events Common methods  Close – closes form.  Hide – hides form  Show – display a hidden form Common events  Load – occurs before a form is shown

Basic event handling Double-click the click event in the property window to create an empty event handler in the program code private: System::void formName_Click(System::Object *sender, System::EventArgs *e) { MessageBox::Show(S”Form was pressed”); };

Register event-handler with delegate After creating the event-handler, we must register it with the delegate, which contains a list of event handlers to call. Controls have a delegate for each of their events The delegate has the same name as the event If we are handling event EventName for object myControl, then the delegate pointer is myControl->EventName.NET registers events for us this->Click += new System::EventHandler(this, Form1_Click); The first argument to the EventHandler constructor is a pointer to the object that contains the method specified as the second argument. Form1_click is a method of class Form1. The first argument will be 0 if the method is static method

Control properties BackColor: background color of the control Text: text associated with the control TextAlign: The alignment of the text on the control. Font:Font used to display control’s text ForeColor: Foreground color of the control. Usually color of the text Focused: specifies whether the control has focus Visible: specifies whether the control is visible

Common methods Focus: Transfer the focus to the control Hide: Hides the control( equivalent to setting Visible to false) Show: shows the control(equivalent to setting Visible to true)

Control layout Anchor: anchoring allows control to stay a fixed distance from the sides of the container, even when the control is resized Dock: docking allows control to extend themselves along the sides of their containers Fill dock option effectively docks the control to all sides of its parent Dockpadding sets the distance from docked controls to the edge of the form.

Create window form project From File->new -> project Select window form application(.Net) Click view->toolbox if toolbox is not open Drag and drop the controls to design GUI