Handling Events

Programs with graphical user interfaces are primarily event-driven. They wait until a user does something such as entering text into a text box, clicking a button, or changing a selection in a list box. When that occurs, the control, which is just an instance of a .NET Framework class, sends an event to your application. You have the option of handling an event by writing a special method in your application that will be called when the event is received.

You can use the Properties window to specify which events you want to handle in your code. Select a control in the designer and click the Events button, with the lightning bolt icon, on the Properties window toolbar to see its events. The following diagram shows the events button.