In component-based programming (Visual Basic, .NET WinForms, and Delphi), a form is an easy way to create a GUI window. A form contains components and controls, which are a high-level representation of standard GUI widgets; it's easier to manipulate the high-level wrappers than to deal with the underlying API.

At design time, you place visual controls (buttons, text boxes, and the like) and non-visual components (timers, database connections, and so on) on the form. You move and size these controls and components with a mouse, and set their properties and event handlers with a special grid.

At runtime, automatically generated code creates instances of these controls and components, and sets their properties for you.

[edit] See also

• Form (document)
• XForms
• Form (web)
• Oracle Forms
• Windows Forms
• Master-detail

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