About inheritance from IDOs, component classes, and property class extensions

In most applications, the same IDO properties are referenced many times throughout the application. For instance, a part number might be referenced on dozens or even hundreds of forms in an application. The framework employs a principal of inheritance and two mechanisms for specifying sets of behaviors so that a referenced property can be reused across many forms. These functions both save time and provide consistency during application development.

WinStudio components that are bound to an IDO property automatically inherit the attributes of the IDO property, unless they are overridden by the component. Additionally, an IDO property can inherit attributes from an IDO property class, and WinStudio components can inherit from component classes and property class extensions.

Inheritance for components bound to IDO properties

The complete inheritance hierarchy for components bound to IDO properties is as follows (each level can override or inherit the attributes of the preceding level):

IDO property class (if any)

   IDO property

      WinStudio property class extension (if any)

         WinStudio component class (if any)

            WinStudio component

Inheritance for components not bound to IDO properties

The complete inheritance hierarchy for components not bound to IDO properties is as follows (each level can override or inherit the attributes of the preceding level):

WinStudio component class (if any)

   WinStudio component

Inheritance for regional settings

The default values of attributes for numeric formatting, date and time formats, and currency formats come from the regional settings of Windows Control Panel. These default values can be overridden at any level in the inheritance hierarchy, but otherwise they are inherited from the Control Panel setting.