Is it possible to implement theme of Microsoft Office in my windows application.
I mean when anyone changes theme of Microsoft Office it should also make change the theme of my windows application.
If its possible, let me know how to do that?
I do not think that what you're asking here is quite possible. Then again I may be wrong. As far as I know, the only way to use Microsoft Office-like visual styles with your application is either by using a third party application or creating the custom controls yourself (wouldn't recommend that, hours of coding and designing). In other words, you would be better off using a suite like DevExpress, but please be aware that it is not free.
Here's a result of an application implementing these controls (taken from the developer's website):
I'm sure if you make a Google search, you could possibly find free alternatives to this software.
Related
My question is really: Is there an easy way to create graphs in windows phone? (Either in-built or for free)
Could you tell me of any using statements I need to add
Links would be helpful (I couldn't find many myself)
And a basic how-to would be excellent!
The Telerik RadControls produce great graphs - http://www.telerik.com/products/windows-phone.aspx
They also have a WP App that showcases their controls - http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/telerik-examples/fd55f526-d6f7-df11-9264-00237de2db9e
The Telerik RadControls are not free but they are by far, 100%, the best tools on the market. You can get them for free though if you have a couple apps published.
Go to http://www.Dvlup.com and sign up for a free Nokia Developer Account. Link in your developer account and it will import the apps you have made. Then you can submit apps you have made to the challenges they have on there.
As you can see here you can get a Nokia Premium Account Token for 1000pts which is VERY easy to get. With that token you get a free Windows PHone Developer account ($100 value) and a slew of other things like support tokens, Buddy API calls ect. I heard on the Windows Developer Show That you also get a free set of RadControls with this token right now also.
There are lot's of libraries that provide charts for Phone 7 and 8
http://www.infragistics.com/products/windows-phone/features/sparkline/ (Paid)
https://github.com/ailon/amCharts-Quick-Charts (free)
http://www.telerik.com/products/windows-phone/overview/all-controls/chart.aspx (Paid)
Also, other than those listed above, there is a Sparrow Toolkit.
Sparrow Toolkit a set of Data Visualization controls(Chart, Gauge,BulletGraph and Sparkline) with lot of flexibility, performance, faster and more efficient.
http://sparrowtoolkit.codeplex.com/
I wonder how to create Zune-like apps (I mean Metro style). But I don't want them to be Windows Store apps (I have already installed Windows 8 platform with VS2012). Could you tell me if I should download some style pack or something like that? Maybe there are some libraries implementing Metro? If yes, plese make me know which one is the best.
Thanks in advance.
There is a Theme for WPF called Cosmopolitan that emulates the Metro style. Now it just gives you the flattened look on the controls for free. You're on your own with Layout, Animations, and Navigation.
Consider WPF UI framweork for building apps like zune
http://mahapps.com/MahApps.Metro/
Due to naming issues (read: MS didn't want to get sued and apparently couldn't properly trademark the word Metro, go figure) there is no such thing as Metro anymore.
That style was renamed to be "Windows Store". So I'm not 100% certain of what it is you are asking for.
Also, contrary to the name and potentially misleading marketing speak on their site, a Windows Store App does not have to be published and sold through the Windows Store.
You might read this for some "clarification":
http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-finally-comes-cleaner-on-post-metro-naming-plans-7000004151/
I want to know how can I build UIs like skype using standard .Net/C#. Is it possible at all?
Thanks
You can use Windows Presentation Foundation to build more stylish GUIs than Windows Forms. It's pretty difficult to move from Forms to WPF. You usually need a good design tool, like Expression Blend.
AFAIK skype was built using Qt4, it's rather easy to build custom gui widgets, check
C++ GUI Programming with Qt4, 2nd Edition and this tutorial.
P.S. check this to see how to build qt4 on windows using MSVC 2008.
It might be possible to build such an UI using Windows Forms, but only with a lot of custom control code or a really good component suite. But as Chris said, WPF should be the tool of your choice when you want to use .NET.
Qt4 is a really powerful C++ framework, also powering apps like Google Earth. The Qt SDK, inclduing everything you need to get started (Compiler, IDE, documentation), can be obtained here. It's licensed (among others) under the LGPL.
Windows Presentation Foundation will give you the most flexibility, but it can be hard to use. An alternative to this is Sliverlight - Version 3 is going to be capable of being used outside of the browser (similar to Adobe Air), and in some ways provides an easier development experience. You might want to consider using some third party controls to give you access to nice functionality that you wouldn't get out of box.
To my acknowledge Skype is build with Delphi an a set of third party tools, so it for sure can be done without WPF.
Take a look at the components from DevExpress or TMS.
I'm using WINFORMS not WPF.
I just know basic c# .net gui programming. I donot want the traditional windows look. I want to have my own custom look (eg. gtalk, antivirus softwares, media players, google chrome).
Actually I'm inspired by google's PICASA software. Its awesome. I want to do something like that.How can I do that? If there is something I should learn please point me.
Also I may have to write my own custom controls (like modified tree view etc..) I guess. Please give some good learning resources.
This article describes how to draw custom windows. The author also shows how to draw non-rectangular windows.
If you could use WPF instead of Windows Forms, this is a good article about customizing window drawing:
http://www.codeguru.com/csharp/.net/net_wpf/article.php/c16379/
There is also a question with some good answers here on SO:
Creating custom forms in WPF?
Update:
I think that skinning and custom drawing is fun to do from a programmers perspective, but I also think that there is almost no benefit for the user.
The creators of the platform you are developing for might have put a lot of effort into the design of their windowing toolkits.
If you just want to change some visual aspects of your application you also should take into account that you might miss some important other aspects of UI design:
consistency
accessibility
aesthetics (if you are overdoing
effects, gradients, ...)
internationalization
...
As you are developing for Windows, you also lose the skinning ability of the OS itself. And I think that some of the skins that come with newer versions of Windows are pretty good.
You can try any of the following:
telerik
Syncfusion
(source: componentsource.co.jp)
Or other components.
They do make your UI pretty.
Edit: if you want to study how they do it, you can buy the source code-- along with documentation and understand from there.
There are some commercial control libraries available.
I can recommend the Krypton Suite. It consists of the free Krypton Toolkit (which contains a lot of skinnable controls) and other non-free controls (Navigator, Ribbon, Docking, Workspace). It has some built-in palettes and renderers that allow you to make your UI look like Office 2010, Office 2007, Office 2003, ...
You want to look for +winforms +skinning. I haven't tried these, but the first hits don't look bad. Most decent skinning tools will be paid for.
From what you said, you want to develop your own custom controls. You have some frameworks for this like Qt which can use Direct3D for hardware accelerated graphics. It also have a Visual Studio plugin. There is a free LGPL version and a commercial version of it.
I remembered about Qt because you mentioned Picasa and as far as I remember, I heard the Picasa UI has been written through Qt.
You can try using "SetWindowRgn(..)" to set an arbitrary region for your window. This may range from giving a rounded rectangle shape to giving a weird looking shape to the form!
Check this out: Link.
There is another option if you are working in Vista(aero enabled), ie you can check out DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea(..) function here: link text
You can set the form's border style to 'none' and go on to create your custom form! You then might have to create custom buttons to carry out tasks like close, minimise, maximise etc. You might even need to write code for drag and drop events..
For the background, you might need to have a look at the gradient fills to give a great effect, otherwise you can use great looking pictures as Background..! But the latter option isnt good unless you have really good pic.
Background: I've decided to teach myself C# through WPF, and I'm writing a small application that needs to get a list of Start Menu shortcuts and their targets and store them. Basically, I'm trying to take all the shortcuts and put their target applications' paths into memory. However, I've run into a problem trying to read Windows Installer shortcuts (the ones that point to something like C:\Windows\Installer\{90120000-0030-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE}\wordicon.exe -- Microsoft Office is a good example of this). I did some research and it seems that Windows uses some behind-the-scenes magic involving the Registry to find the actual location of the file.
Question: How can I get the actual target of these Windows Installer shortcuts in C#? A lot of sources I've found point me to the IShellLink interface, but I don't know how to use it with C#. I'd prefer to use Windows API calls (or, even better, a .NET library) instead of manually looking through the Registry, but I'll take any guidance on the issue.
After doing more research, I found an easy answer here. It's basically using a combination of the MsiGetShortcutTarget and MsiGetComponentPath functions of msi.dll.
I'm afraid IShellLink IS the Windows API for using shell links! The Shell API is heavily COM-based.
But the good news is that COM interop works very well in .NET. This site is usually a very good resource:
http://www.pinvoke.net/default.aspx/Interfaces/IShellLinkA.html