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Dissecting the Initial Form

Before we build our menu system, let’s examine exactly what Visual Studio 2008 has created by

default. First, right-click the MainWindow.cs icon from the Solution Explorer window and select

View Code. Notice that the form has been defined as a partial type, which as you may recall from

Chapter 5 allows a single type to be defined within multiple code files. Also note the form’s con-

structor is making a call to a method named InitializeComponent() and the fact that your type

“is-a” Form.

namespace SimpleVSWinFormsApp

{

public partial class MainWindow : Form

{

public MainWindow()

{

InitializeComponent();

}

}

}

As you may be expecting, InitializeComponent() is defined in a separate file that completes

the partial class definition. As a naming convention, this file always ends in .Designer.cs, preceded

by the name of the related C# file containing the Form-derived type. Using the Solution Explorer

window, open your MainWindow.Designer.cs file. Now, ponder the following code (stripped of the

code comments for simplicity):

partial class MainWindow

{

private System.ComponentModel.IContainer components = null;

protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)

{

if (disposing && (components != null))

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