In what order are the .NET Windows events triggered?

Question

I notice that there are several different events that I can capture when I work with Windows Form in .NET (or any other control, for that matter) - when opened, there is:

• Load
• Activated
• Shown
• Visiblechanged

And at closing there is:

• Leave
• Formclosed
• Formclosing
• Disposed

Plus any others I missed. I know that I can put messages in every event, and then run my application and record the order, but I doubt that I will remember it.

Is there an online link that lists the -order- options in which these events occur for forms and other controls? I can not find it on MSDN, although maybe I missed it somewhere.

Answer 1

This is one of the relevant pages on MSDN:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/86faxx0d.aspx

Answer 2

This is also called the win-forms application lifecycle. Each .net technology has a document on them.

Winforms - http://blogs.msdn.com/jaredpar/archive/2007/01/08/windows-forms-event-lifecycle.aspx

Form launch

• Onhandlecreated
• Oncreatecontrol
• Onload
• Onactivated
• Onshown

Closing form

• Onclosing
• Onclosed
• Ondeactivate
• Onhandledestroyed

Answer 3

Form Display:

• Control.HandleCreated
• Control.BindingContextChanged
• Form.load
• Control.VisibleChanged
• Control.GotFocus
• Form.Activated
• Form.Shown

Closing the form:

• Form.Closing
• Form.FormClosing
• Form.Closed
• Form.FormClosed
• Form.Deactivate
• Control.LostFocus
• Control.HandleDestroyed
• Component.Disposed

Answer 4

I saw this behavior, maybe something related to MDI:

form.Focus(); // calls OnHandleCreated (this.Handle is x) form.Show( ); // calls OnLoad (this.Handle is still x), then OnHandleCreated (this.Handle is y)