I'm used to the GUI frameworks in Java as well as the QT GUI framework, and I'm used to the various layout managers. It doesn't seem that C# has any layout managers built in, or am I missing something?
2 Year Later Edit
I just want to point out to any readers of this question that in hind-sight, my question was misplaced. With proper anchoring and docking of child controls, having a need for the layout managers of Java and QT4 is nearly non-existent.
WPF does have layout managers, see:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms745058.aspx
If you're coming from a Java background, then the section "Panel Elements and Custom Layout Behaviors" will be of particular interest.
Both WPF and Windows Forms provide layout capabilities (WPF is just much better at it).
You can achieve moderately complex layouts in Windows Forms too by utilizing the Dock and Anchor properties of controls. Personally I learned what can be achieved and how through Petzold's book on WinForms. If you don't have access to that book, read this short article.
chibacity is right, WPF is loaded with layout managers, all of them are very good.
However if you're going down the WinForms route, you're stuck with TableLayoutPanel, FlowLayoutPanel and SplitContainer. As well as the usual manual Panel and GroupBox controls.
No, you are not missing anything.
.NET does not have built in layout managers for Winforms/Webforms/Console development.
Probably because Visual Studio has good designers, obviating the need.
WPF and Silverlight (both using XAML) do have them, though they are not exactly the same as the Java ones.
WPF and Silverlight have different "Panels" that work similar to the layout managers in other languages.
Related
Ive been working on a C# project for a while now and I fell it needs change its look.
I have found a UI kit that I really like, which can be seen below:
http://medialoot.com/item/transparent-ui-kit/
Does anyone know how to do this?
Thanks
EDIT: Im using WinForms
EDIT2: Maybe I should convert over to WPF? Is this doable?
You can subclass most common controls and draw their appearance yourself. However, unless for novelty applications I doubt your users will thank you for doing so.
Your example is a library of controls. For you to have an appearance such as that you'll have to create or acquire a similar library of controls and replace all your controls in your project to get that appearance.
If you want to update colors (background, foreground, etc.) and such you can make a class that recurses through controls and sets the settings using reflection and a switch statement to process each control. Then just run this on each form before you show it. One word of caution about this, some controls don't respect your changes and get overridden with themes from the OS (datetimerpicker being the biggest culprit). You'll also need to consider whether your users will appreciate the extra work put in for color/appearance changes.
If you don't have very good design skill and have a good know how about creating such templates, its better to buy them.
And C# is just a language. You're looking to create templates and skins for either for ASP.NET website/application or for windows forms.
Have a look at DevExpress Skins
If you can afford it.
I want to create a UI for my application.
What really confuses me is how to actually do it. I know that Microsoft has introduced WPF.
I have also seen some examples, but what I am not getting is whether or not WPF a seperate language? How can I use C# with WPF?
Lets say I want the user to click on a browse button, select a file and display it's content on the UI. I want to do it using C# while WPF providing the UI, is this possible?
Any good resources for a newbie like me?
EDIT
What i didnt understand, will i use WPF for my UI or windows form for my UI while my actual code is in C# ?
I think i am being lost here ? WPF seems something else that supports c#. is that true ? i thought WPF was only for UI while the actual code would be in C# or VB.
I have taken wpf unleashed but it explains wPF and not how to use C# with it. Atleast in the starting chapters ?
I know i am being dumb here but i am really confused
Yes it is definitely possible. Take a look at this article about Mode-View-ViewModel (MVVM) from Microsoft, which is a good introduction to using Xaml (the markup language for WPF) with C#.
Since you are familar with WinForms I will explain it like this.
WinForms provides the GUI and it is similar to what WPF does.
WPF however mainly uses XAML, a markup language based on xml to design the visual elements. It is a presentation foundation on its own that could be used without XAML but it is certainly a big part of it.
When creating an application it will be either WPF or WinForms you can't combine the two (well easily anyway I know there are a few ways to get around it)
You can interact with WPF the same way you interact with WinForms elements.
You can create a Window. On there you can place a grid, where you can then place controls such as a button or textbox. Then in the code behind it is exactly the same as referencing a control in winforms. for example in the page_load function doing
txtInput.Text = "A String";
So what should you choose? (Please note I am about to give you a few things to compare I realize this hardly describes both technologies to its fullest)
WPF
Pros
- Great for visually appealing designs
- You have XAML based control over your visual elements. Meaning you can change the way your form looks by writing xaml instead of doing all through the visual studio IDE pressing buttons.
Cons
- Bit of a performance hog. It has come along way with .net 3.5 sp1 but still chews up quite a few resources
- Not as many controls built for it as WinForms, mainly because its a newer technology.
- Can become complex as syntax for binding information to controls doesn't include intellisense.
WinForms
Pros
- Familiar and well used technology so your development will be faster
- Better performance
- More controls built for it
Cons
- More effort to build a visually appealing design
- Its not new and exciting so to speak. I know we all like to learn new things :)
It is not a seperate language. WPF employs XAML, a derivative of XML, to define and link various UI elements. As in web development, both layouts and specific themes are well suited to markup, but XAML is not required for either. Indeed, all elements of WPF may be coded in a .NET language (C#, VB.NET). The XAML code can ultimately be compiled into a managed assembly in the same way all .NET languages are.
You can implement your requirement in easily WPF.
To get a hands-on in WPF start with this article, http://10rem.net/blog/2010/02/09/getting-started-with-wpf--hello-world-in-multiple-flavors
Happy coding..
WPF is part of .NET framework, so it's not related with specific programming language. Please read MSDN's "Introduction to WPF" - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa970268.aspx
I use a free dockcontainer control in my projects.
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/toolbars/VS_IDE_Dock_Container.aspx
After a while I realized it has several bugs, so I should switch to a new one.
Would you be so kind to recommend me a dock container system (like VS 2010 UI)? Does anyone know a really good, stable free component or an opensource project?
(WinForms/VS2010/C#/.Net 4)
Even if the library is a little aged I was very happy with WeifenLuo DockPanel. It is well documented and really easy to use. Not so intrusive in your code - even if you have to derive from a class to became a dockable panel, you can stick your existing user controls upon a panel you will create. In plus it is reliable: I had a GUI with this in prod and I never had problem about docking even in a day by day usage.
A perfect solution for this would be AvalonDock, were it not that it's written in WPF. You can use WindowsFormsHost controls to overcome this if your requirement is using Windows Forms.
I was wondering is there any option of using Stylesheets for .NET Windows controls ?
If not, which is the best way to make the UI look consistent.I need to use VS 2005 to make
the changes in the UI.
Regards
We derive usercontrols from all controls in our system -- all the derived classes do is set the style from a central list of constants defining colours and fonts. Then we use these controls on our WinForms for a consistent look and feel.
If we want to change the style, we just change the list of constants.
This also allows is to perform UI tricks like setting the background colour of controls to a different colour when they are being edited.
If you want to make your UI consistent and pretty, why don't you give WPF a try? You will be able to organize your styles in resource dictionary, then reference to it in all the other projects.
Well guess he's talking about WinForms. Then you cant use Stylesheets. Havnt coded that much of WinForms. But guess you could have an "Settings/sheet" class that have properties of different style you are using and then set them when creating your controls.
you can use Stylesheets in web pages only not in Windows controls.
Even ASP.NET controls, which ultimately render HTML, are notoriously CSS-unfriendly. The reason is that they use tables extensively for layout, and they set a lot of inline style tags which of course do not honor the style sheet. Some work has been done to create wrappers for these controls, but it was incomplete the last I looked.
It's a shame, but our team will not use the out-of-the box controls most of the time. We've rolled our own and packaged them into an internal library. While the Microsoft controls would have been very useful, they simply don't meet our criteria for clean, accessible, styleable HTML.
Microsoft seems, finally, after something like 10 years, to have realized that this is important to a modern development team. The control output of ASP.NET MVC is far cleaner and behaves itself quite well with respect to CSS. Whether they'll eventually revisit the core ASP.NET controls is anyone's guess.
I'm working on moving a client/server application created with C# and WinForms into the SOA/WPF/Silverlight world. One of the big hurdles is the design of the UI. My current UI is MDI driven and users rely heavily on child windows, having many open at the same time and toggling back and forth between them.
What might be the best way to recreate the UI functionality in an MDI-less environment? (I've no desire to create MDI functionality on my own in WPF). Tabs? A list panel that toggles different controls?
Look at 37signals and how nice their web UIs are (mostly HTML + AJAX). It's a good example of web applications that work. One of the things to remember are to make sure you don't break the web paradigm. If users want to see two things side by side, they should be able to duplicate the window and let the web browser do the windowing.
For WPF, there are a lot of new visualization paradigms. You can find some examples on the sites for various control toolkit providers: Xceed, Telerik, Infragistics. They have demo programs for the different ways they help you organize screens in an application.
When developing complex composite applications in WPF, you could also start at the Patterns and Practices Prism site. It's an InProgress set of practices for planning and developing complex composite (smart client style) applications in WPF.
I think the answer is really going to be up to your users -- I'd set up some prototypes with multiple paradigms and let them provide some input. The last thing you want to do is introduce a new UI paradigm without having any end-user input.
Tabs are really popular now, but don't allow side-by-side viewing, so if that is a requirement you may want to go with more of an outlook-style setup, with multiple panels that can be activated, hidden and resized.
One thing that you might want to do is to code your app as a composite UI, where each view is built independently from its container (be it a child window, tab or accordion, etc.), and is just "dropped in" in the designer. That will protect you from when the users change their minds about the navigation paradigm in the future.
multiple top level windows are easy to implement and have all the advantages of MDI - that's what MS selected for the newer versions of Office
Did you try GOA WinForms?