[AdamSpeight2008]

Inheritance is when a class inherit properties and methods of a base class.
A lot of you should be already using inheritance in your projects.

But have any of used inheritance, in situations not often considered.

For example;- Form Inheritance

Public Class UI_StandardUser
  Inherits System.Windows.Form

End Class

Public Class UI_AdminUser
  Inherits UI_StandardUser

End Class

The form UI_AdminUser, has all of the buttons and controls of the UI_StandardUser form, but now can extended to have controls specific to the role of Admin.



What are thoughts about using Inheritance in this way? Have you use it in your code?
What are the Pros? What are the Cons?

[lordofduct]

I have.

But in VisualStudio not w/ controls in the parent Form class because the Visual Studio designer doesn't know how to deal with it (or if it does, I don't know how to make it deal with it... aside from templates).

I have used it in other frameworks. Like Flex w/ Actionscript. I have created generic components that could be extended and expanded upon. Very useful for templating through inheritance there as well.

[AdamSpeight2008]

An Example

Public Class Form1

    Private Sub But_Bell_Click(sender As System.Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles But_Bell.Click
        MessageBox.Show("Ding a ling")
    End Sub
End Class

Public Class BellsAndWhistles
    Inherits Form1
 
End Class

You'll need to (re)build the project so the inheritance correctly propergates.

I've added a button and changed the form's title.

[lordofduct]

Never tried it in VS2010, VS2008 bugs out randomly and crashes if you do that.

This post has been edited by lordofduct: 20 April 2011 - 01:12 PM

[AdamSpeight2008]

Ran into a small issue with Form Inheritance. See my StackOverflow Question for issue and solution.