regarding winform and wpf app on smart phones or tablets - c#

Is there any future of winform and wpf app in smart phone or tablet market. will we be able to develop applications for window store on winform or wpf. Or are they a dead technology
Thanks

I don't think they will be dead so soon. may be yes for Winforms. but still there are tons of applications that are running on Winforms and even on consoles.
you can use XAML for smart phones as well as tables. even WinRT supports XAML. also there are new libraries out there you can write programs targeting multiple platforms such as Portable Class Library

The new standard for building desktop applications is WPF. This is currently not deprecated and will not be for the foreseeable future. When developing for Windows phones and tablets there is an API very similar to WPF in structure/feel (using XAML).

Related

can .net windows forms project and .net UWP project be merged?

I have a GUI windows form app written in .NET .
And I have a new .NET UWP app that has UWP camera and UWP sockets.
Can I port the UWP camera and UWP sockets code into the .NET Windows form app project?
(If I went the other way, it probably will take much longer to port the Windows forms GUI into a UWP GUI.)
WinForm project can use most new Windows 10 API designed for UWP. Check this post.
If went the other way, you need to port bit by bit of the existing GUI, so it all depends how complex your WinForm GUI is.
The first challenge is you are using XAML, another language instead of C# to write UWP UI.
Some WinForm controls you are using just do not have a UWP counterpart, you need to turn to the community to check if there are alternatives that are freely available l, or purchase proprietary product, or write your own control.
No. WinForm and UWP projects are very different. UWP are compiled to native code and WinForm are compiled to IL that are then run by the CLR. Microsoft is currently working on the ability to put a UWP control inside a WinForm application. You can check it out here.

Silverlight to WINRT or Silverlight to Universal

I have a Windows Phone 8.1 Silverlight application which is in the store now. Since i see that Microsoft is moving all the attention towards WINRT and Universal Apps, i suspect that there will be limited or no support for Silverlight Apps in Windows 10.
There might be a tablet project that i might roll out for the same project in the future. So i am in the dilemma to convert the Silveright projects in my solution to WINRT or convert them into Universal Apps.Also, i hear that converting to Universal projects are pretty hard as well.And I understand that the bulk of the work will be in porting the UI to Hub Style UI.
Any ideas? Comments on the best approach to take here.
A WinRT app is a Windows only app (not for Phone). Other than that, WinRT and Universal apps are quite similar. They have the same namespaces, classes, controls... almost everything. You can use many WinRT libraries in Universal apps without any problem. And so, porting to them is generally the same, too.
Windows Store and Windows Phone apps generally need different UI anyway, so you would have to work on that, no matter what you do.
One difference is that a WinRT app would work on Windows 8.0 and up, and a Universal app would require Windows 8.1 (or WP 8.1 for phones). Actually, a Windows 8.1 app IS a Universal app. Just like a Windows Phone 8.1 app (not the Silverlight variation) is a Universal app.
I'd recommend porting to a Universal app as you would get used to working with these apps, and they work on both platforms (Windows and Phone). For any future project, that's the way to go.
In the company I work for, we switched to Universal apps a few months ago. Figuring out what UI we would use on both platforms and how to do it properly, as well as porting our existing libraries did take some time (not too much), but now making a new app and supporting both platforms is very easy. So, for me, that's the way to go.
It is quite unlikely that Microsoft will stop supporting Silverlight Apps in the Windows 10 version for phones. Even WP8.1 still supports XNA Games from the WP7.0 era.
Depending on the APIs you are using in your libraries the majority of changes when converting from Silverlight to WinRT will be on the UI side, e.g. if your Silverlight App already uses the LocalStorage-APIs instead of the IsolatedStorage-APIs that won't even have to be changed.
My advice would be the following:
evaluate wether all functionality you need is supported in Universal Apps (some functionality is currently only available in Silverlight Apps)
evaluate wether the actual APIs you are using are supported in Universal Apps or need to be replaced (IsolatedStorage => LocalStorage, etc.)
Armed with that knowledge I'd guess you will be able to better plan on when to port your App to the new APIs. If a tablet version is likely in the future and all required APIs are supported in the Universal App Model porting sooner will likely require less effort than porting later.

Can I easily convert windows store desktop app to universal or phone app?

As we know there is posibility to create three types of windows 8.1 applications: desktop, phone, and universal. So, I have a win 8.1 application which was obviusly built for desktop, but I wanna change its type to phone or universal, how can I do it?
Sounds like you are moving towards cross platform development. I recommend using a java base library like libgdx. My app runs on Windows,Macs,Android phones/tablets, and Iphones/Ipads. Its all one code base but for many different platforms. I've very happy with the results. I'm mainly a c# dev so there was a small learning curve moving to java. I dont know if there is something similar that will run on windows phone. Good luck.

Multitargetting to metro and non metro target platform in Windows 8

I am creating a simple metro app. I am also creating non metro version of the same app.
The problem I am facing is that VS is not allowing me to reference normal class libraries into the metro app, and metro class libraries into a normal app.
The differences between Metro and non-metro apps relate to UI, and to some features which are incompatible (eg, FilePicker in metro, and OpenFileDialog in non metro).
How this can be achieved?
The differences are more drastic than you might expect. They are using WinRT as a chance to clean house and remove APIs they don't want to maintain anymore for various reasons. Research "portable class library" which will let you create a dll based on the small intersection of APIs available in the platforms you tell VS to target
Essentially, WinRT is completely separate from the Win32 libraries as Robert Levy mentioned.
In fact, when Windows 8 is being used on ARM devices the Win32 libraries are practically non-existent. Internet Explorer 10 has limited access to them (an Internet browser powered only by WinRT is impractical), but all other metro apps do not.
Metro apps on x86 and x64 also do not have access to Win32, because it is assumed that the same application needs to be compatible with ARM. To reduce complexity Microsoft has essentially said that all metro apps only have access to WinRT. Internet Explorer is an exception to that rule.
What I'm trying to say is this: You'll have to develop both applications separately. Desktop-focused applications reside entirely on the desktop. And metro applications reside only in the metro interface.
Metro UI is not the problem : look "Under the Hood", and you'll discover that the namespaces and the libraries and NOT the same => METRO in NOT another layer above Windows 7 applications.
If you really want to target the 2 environments, create a single class Library with all your business objects, all your databases access, and write two differrents applications call this Library.

Windows Mobile 6.5 modern GUI development

How to approach a modern GUI development in Windows Mobile 6.5. I can see in .NET CF 2.0/3.5 only legacy common controls, no alpha blended controls, no fading etc. Comparing to Android or Symbian, Windows Mobile 6.5 look-a-like of applications is very elderly.
Is there support for WPF in Windows Mobile 6.5?
Thanks and Regards
Dominik
WPF is not supported. Silverlight is not supported in current phones but will be supported with Windows Phone 7. XNA will be supported on Windows Phone 7.
For the current phones on the market you really have to abandon the idea that you're going to get a decent UI by simply dragging controls out of the toolbox. That simply is not going to happen. You can still create compelling UI, but you have to do custom/manual drawing of your controls.
Never heard of WPF development for WM.
But there is Silverlight 4 and (theoretically) Windows Phone 7... So if you want to develop for Windows platform you'd probably target Silverlight technology, not WPF. And Windows Phone 7, not WM 6.5

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