In case you didn’t see the links go live on the Visual Basic Developer Center the VB Off-Cycle team has shipped the latest edition of the Power Pack controls.  You can download them from here.

In this update we’ve added the much anticipated Line and Shape controls. 

The line and shape controls give you drag and drop ease at design time and great performance at runtime.  By simply setting a few properties you can accomplish complex gradient fills.  An improvement over the VB6 version of Line and Shape is we’ve added support for Events.  These are fully supported by Microsoft as part of your Visual Basic support agreement, and will likely be rolled into the product in future releases.  Remember if you have ideas for future Power Packs go to the Visual Basic 2005 Power Pack Suggestion Center and let us know about it.  You can log new idea or vote for ones already there.

This release also includes updates to the PrintForm component and the Printer Compatibility Library. We also include a bootstrapper package in this release, something I am especially excited about because I am also responsible for ClickOnce experience in Visual Studio, and having a bootstrapper mean you only need to check a box to redistribute the Power Packs with your application.

Have fun, and send me pictures of any cool things you do with the new controls.

  -Scott