The editor controls can be used in a Windows Forms application outside of the grid. These include the WinButton, WinCalculator, WinCalendar, WinCheckBox, WinDatePicker, WinHorizontalScrollBar, WinNumericTextBox, WinPanel, WinTextBox, and WinVerticalScrollBar controls. This topic explains how to use them using the designer.

Adding the controls to a form

Once Xceed Grid for WinForms has been installed, the editor controls can be added to a form by double-clicking on the desired control, or dragging the desired control onto the form.

Once a control has been dropped onto a form, its various properties can be set via the property grid to add to or modify the default, standard behavior. Most modifications made to the controls at design-time will automatically be reflected in the control. For example, in the image below, the PreviewDaysBackColor property of the WinCalendar control has been changed from its default value to the system's InactiveCaptionText color. 

To reduce the size of the image below, not all properties are displayed in the property grid. 

Handling events

In C#, the events provided by each control can be accessed via the property grid, and the event declarations can be added to your code by double-clicking on the event to handle. For example, in the image below, 2 labels have been added to the form below the WinCalendar control. The first label will be used to display the selected date and is named "labelSelectedDate". The second label will be used to display the current date and is named "labelCurrentDate". To update the labels when the dates change, the SelectedDateChanged (winCalendar1_SelectedDateChanged) and CurrentDateChanged (winCalendar1_CurrentDateChanged) events have been handled. 

To reduce the size of the image below, not all events are displayed in the property grid.

In Visual Basic .NET, events are not accessible via the property grid. Therefore, they must be subscribed to via code using the AddHandler/AddressOf operators. A demonstration of even handling is also available in the Demos and Tutorials topic.

VB.NET	Copy Code
' In the form's Load event AddHandler WinCalendar1.SelectedDateChanged, AddressOf Me.Calendar_SelectedDateChanged AddHandler WinCalendar1.CurrentDateChanged, AddressOf Me.Calendar_CurrentDateChanged

The following code is used in the SelectedDateChanged and CurrentDateChanged event handlers to update the labels displayed on the form.

Private Sub Calendar_SelectedDateChanged(ByVal sender As Object, _

                                         ByVal e As Xceed.Editors.SelectedDateCHangedEventArgs)

  Dim selectedDate As DateTime = CType(sender, Xceed.Editors.WinCalendar).SelectedDate

  labelSelectedDate.Text = "Selected Date : " + selectedDate.ToString("dddd, MMMM d, yyyy")

End Sub

Private Sub Calendar_CurrentDateChanged(ByVal sender As Object, _

                                        ByVal e As Xceed.Editors.CurrentDateChangedEventArgs)

  Dim currentDate As DateTime = CType(sender, Xceed.Editors.WinCalendar).CurrentDate

  labelCurrentDate.Text = "Current Date : " + currentDate.ToString("dddd, MMMM d, yyyy")

End Sub

private void winCalendar1_SelectedDateChanged(object sender,

                                              Xceed.Editors.SelectedDateChangedEventArgs e)

{

  DateTime selectedDate = ( ( WinCalendar )sender ).SelectedDate;

  labelSelectedDate.Text = "Selected Date : " + selectedDate.ToString( "dddd, MMMM d, yyyy" );

}

private void winCalendar1_CurrentDateChanged(object sender,

                                             Xceed.Editors.CurrentDateChangedEventArgs e)

{

  DateTime currentDate = ( ( WinCalendar )sender ).CurrentDate;

  labelCurrentDate.Text = "Current Date : " + currentDate.ToString( "dddd, MMMM d, yyyy" );

}

Embedding controls

The WinCalendar, WinComboBox, WinDatePicker, WinPanel, and WinTextBox controls are container controls into which any other control can be added. To add a child control to one of the container controls, the container control must be added and selected on the form. Once the container control is selected, choose the child control in the toolbox and double-click on it, or drag it to the container control. 

A control that is added to one of the container controls is added to the container's Controls collection. If a WinButton control is added to a WinComboBox, WinDatePicker, or WinTextBox control, it will be added to both the SideButtons collection and the Controls collection.