I am work with Sharpdx/C# - i'm wondering how Unity/UnrealEngine/CryEngine create their GUI for the Editor.
After some research i find "D3Dsurface" to work with WPF. But the Performance/FPS should be bad.
I cant believe all the engines (http://xenko.com - SharpDX engine) do their own GUI from scratch.
I tried to create a second Winform, it works but not the right approach for me.
best regards alex!
Xenko use this and so do I, it looks really good
Telerik windows forms are really good as they can be themed and tweaked to how you like.
Xenko like my self use the dark Visual Studio theme.
They have a free trial so u can get you feet wet before you go and drop cash on it, they also have a forum so you can ask for help and a few times I have seen them go out of there way to help.
Once you get your hands on the Dev pack you can modify the source and all sorts of cool stuff.
I have tried a few other windows forms controls but I settled on Telerik a few years ago and haven't looked back.
All in all I give them a 10/10 and they have some really nice CPU\RAM profiling tools.
Related
I am currently learning WPF framework; I have some past (not much though) experience with Winforms. One problem I've had in both is that the menubar does not look native. I've found a workaround in Winforms, but I haven't been able to find anything for WPF. I've not had this problem in other frameworks I've used, particularly Qt.
In many pics I've seen, it looks native enough in Windows 7, but not Windows 10. I included some pics.
How it currently looks:
How it should look:
Thanks in advance!
Edit
While I have not seen the possible duplicate link, I am aware of setting the foreground/background on WPF controls. That link doesn't really answer my question. I don't want to come up with my own style at this point; all I want to do is make controls look native.
If custom styling is the only way, that's fine, but if there is another way, that would be preferable.
Thanks!
I don't think there's a quick fix to get what you want. WPF renders using DirectX, allowing for much more flexibility in styling applications. A WPF app should render exactly the same way on any version of Windows - it will not automatically adopt a native look and feel (that was actually one of the main selling points of the technology in its early days).
While MS made the default styling somewhat close to Windows at the time of release (Vista, I think?), if you want WPF controls to have a particular look you're going to have to style them yourself.
So I've been looking around and I can't find a Tilebrush or similar feature in Silverlight 4. Chatter on the internet seems to indicate that there is nothing built in. I am hoping that someone is going to show me the hidden camera, or let me know that it is some kind of sick joke. Is there really no Tilebrush or similar feature?!
It's not a sick joke. There really isn't a tilebrush. From what I've heard it's not yet in the new WinRT either.
Apparently it's a bit difficult to do with the way the silverlight internals are setup.
There are third party controls that let you do a tiled background. Here's one of them: http://nokola.com/blog/post/2009/12/22/Fast-Tile-Brush-in-Silverlight-And-Easiest-Way-to-Shader-Effects.aspx
If you have this silverilght template (JetPack) installed, create a new project based on this temlate and you will see there is a TiledBackground built-in with it. Pretty handy. :)
No hidden camera... :(
A solution using a pixelshader
Discussion
There are some projects that could use WPF at work, for the sake of adopting new technologies.
But the problem is, I can't jump start WPF easily. I recognize the learning curve is steeper than Winforms. Though even with Winforms one can start doing UIs and programmatically customize them in a day.
So the problem is:
I don't have any resource to quickly learn the fundamentals of WPF at work. I can't read a book from cover to cover before I do the simplest of things.
Most tutorials on the net, just does things that excludes the fundamentals. i.e. they post partial xaml code I can't even put into my xaml code correctly (VS highlights them in red).
I can't justify using WPF over Winforms where there is no significant gain for prety much all projects I can think of. And the learning curve just makes things worse.
So I can't suggest my manager to use this tech over the traditional Winforms, but I want to.
Is there a guide or a tutorial on the net, or a video that explains the fundamentals of WPF so I can explore everything else on my own, except the more complicated tasks?
Fundamental of WPF video from Mix07.
Windows Client .NET get started section has lots of WPF Videos.
Channel 9 WPF content.
Windows Presentation Unleashed is a very good book.
MSDN content for WPF.
MSDN magazine articles on WPF.
Well, the basics are there. You can drag and drop controls onto a XAML surface in VS.NET 2008 just about as easily as you can with Windows Forms. Sure, there's the binding syntax stuff, but getting started isn't too bad.
But you DEFINITELY need to buy a good book on it. You don't need to have read it from cover to cover in order to get started. A decent book will have you up and running in a chapter or two, and you can take it from there. Just make sure that whatever book you buy, it was published after .NET 3.5 (and SP1 preferably) came out.
Also, understand WHY you want to use WPF. Is it just because it's new? Then you're right, that's not a good enough answer. WPF does have some big benefits though:
A powerful binding expression syntax that actually works
No need to repaint your own windows in response to WM_PAINT messages
_ (corrollary to the previous point) It's much easier to owner-draw and make your own controls
MS is spending a LOT of effort to actually develop it
MS is spending minimal effort on developing WinForms
If you need 2d/3d data visualisation WPF will pay by itself quickly and it's very evolving...
Personally I've got in that boat because all 3d hardware acceleration (opengl) wrapper in c# are dying so the solution for a maintened 3d looks like wpf or xna...
I'd suggest you get either expression blend or vs2010 beta ... vs2008 just don't speak wpf enough to help someone who doesn't know exactly what he's trying to do.
I would like to find what people got the most out of using WPF, in particular:
The best and stunning UI examples out there
Dark corners that no other UI can implement with ease and style (say MFC or GTK)
Professional examples with code
Suggestions?
Probably the best book on the subject is WPF in Action with Visual Studio 2008
Here's some of my favorites:
Family.Show - An genealogy application (with code)
(source: blogcasts.de)
PhotoSuru - A photo browser (with code)
(source: photosuru.com)
Eikos Partners Products - Just screenshots, but looks really nice
EP Trading http://72.32.149.120/screens/EP9.jpg
see: http://windowsclient.net/
especially: HealtCare demo
I'd recommend checking WPF samples that come with Microsoft Expression Blend.
thirteen23.com
THey have quite a lot of stunning interface work, but they actively let people download 2 or 3 of their projects at any one time... they kill the dl links for one's they're not currently working on whici is a shame
I would love to brainstorm with you guys on how to program this game (originally a flash game) in C#. I'm studying C# right now and my knowledge is pretty limited: I know the pretty much the basics of C# but I need your help with the concept.
Here's the game:
http://www.composica.com/product/samples/AstroHops/content/scaler.html
alt text http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/5735/frogim3.jpg
I thought about using imagebutton for each lilypad that would trigger a modal window with question.
I also thought about placing a picture of a frog on each lilypad, set to visible = false. When the a certain lilypad is selected the frog's visibility will be set to true.
Any thoughts, ideas, suggestion on how to this better?
Maybe links to a similar game coded with c#?
Thanks!
ASP.NET (and HTML generally) isn't directly suited to compete with flash - they simply work differently. Perhaps look at Silverlight; that is the MS offering that is closest to flash, and you can use C#.
Marc solution seems like best one, but if you really need it in C# (in ASP.NET Right?)
then you might consider AJAX but yea it is sort of bad approach.
If it is winforms you are talking about, then i would consider using some 2d graphics engine for that. otherwise your idea CAN work with the default .net forms, it just wont look very nice....
you might take a look at this, seems like a nice start point for working with directX and c#
http://www.csharp-home.com/index/tiki-print_article.php?articleId=146
Good luck with your project!