Chapter 13: User Input and Feedback

• Working with the Mouse
• Accepting Keyboard Input
• Using a Main Menu with Forms
• Implementing Shortcut Menus
• Providing Feedback with Status Bars

The Microsoft Windows Forms platform offers a rich environment for interaction with the user and provides two principle methods of input: the keyboard and the mouse. The keyboard is used primarily for text and navigation, and the mouse is typically used to manipulate menus and controls. Although much of the input in an application is provided through controls, it’s important to understand how to accept input directly from the keyboard and the mouse. This chapter addresses this issue and also examines how feedback can be provided to a user who’s navigating using a mouse—by altering the default mouse pointer, you can provide direct feedback to the user.

In this chapter, we’ll also look at the menu classes that are part of the Microsoft .NET Framework, and you’ll learn how to use the Microsoft Visual C# .NET Forms Designer to easily create menus for your applications. You’ll also create shortcut menus that are dynamically updated to provide relevant menu options to the user. The chapter closes with a section on status bars, describing how you can use them to provide helpful feedback.