Every class contained within Xceed Grid for WinForms can be derived from to extend its functionality and then used by Xceed Grid for WinForms as a replacement for the original object. Before you get started, it would be a good idea to familiarize yourself with the class hierarchy of Xceed Grid for WinForms as represented in the following diagram:  

The GridElement class implements the IComponent interface which derives from the IDisposable interface. This allows each grid element to be a component in the Grid Designer and thus individually selectable. It is not necessary however to call the Dispose method on the GridElement class nor on any class that derives from the GridElement class. 

When creating a class that derives from GridElement (or any of its derived classes), code should not be placed within the IDisposable.Dispose method since Dispose will not be called. 

Although it is possible to derive from every class illustrated above, the following topics provides information on the classes that are most commonly derived from. These topics include: