Active controls and selected controls

All controls have an active state and a selected state. When a control is active, it means you are working with the contents of the control; when a control is selected, it means you are working with the control itself.

Most controls are automatically selected when you put them on the form. In design mode, sizing handles appear around a control's border when the control is selected. If you deselect the control, you can select it again by clicking once on the control.

Clicking a control that is selected puts the control in the active state. In this state, you can directly edit the control's caption.

In both the selected state and the active state, you can use DEL, CTRL+X, and CTRL+C as shortcut keys for the Delete, Cut, and Copy commands respectively. In the selected state, these commands are available on the shortcut menu and will affect the control itself. In the active state, these commands will affect whatever text is selected inside the control; if no text is selected, these commands have no effect. These commands are not available on the shortcut menu for active controls.