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C# Mixing WinRT and Windows Forms

As far as I understand, I can use Windows Forms in Windows 8 Pro (non-RT) applications. However I was wondering if I can develop an app which has a nice WinRT interface for the main part as well as a WinForms part for the more complicated parts which benefit from stuff like TreeViews and which are complicated and useless to reimplement. Which development environment would I need for that?

Windows Store Applications are intentionally limited and do not include the entire .NET Framework, including Windows Forms, and WPF/Windows Presentation Foundation. You cannot mix the two components. They are executed and managed in very different ways (see here for details about how Windows Store apps are executed).
However I was wondering if I can develop an app which has a nice WinRT
interface for the main part as well as a WinForms part for the more
complicated parts which benefit from stuff like TreeViews and which
are complicated and useless to reimplement.
Even communicating from a traditional Win32 application to a Windows Store application is prohibited (for applications released via the Store -- see here for a discussion). So, building your application in two pieces really isn't very practical (and the user experience of swapping between the two applications may be unpleasant for many users).
There's an intentional design and usability model for designing a Windows App Store application that must be considered when developing a touch friendly application that does not lend itself to a typical Windows Forms application. Tree views for example might be replaced with a group/detail/detail type navigation.
I'd highly recommend you read through, if you haven't already, the UX guide for developing Windows Store apps. A transition between a modern UI application and a Windows Form application would be jarring to say the least, unless you spent an tremendous amount of effort trying to mimic the general UI principles established for a Windows Store application. While it's possible to do, and there are some 3rd parties that may provide reasonable components, it's never really going to be truly the same (and probably not worth the engineering effort to try to make it identical).
Some might suggest that you consider instead using WPF. Depending on the type of application and the current skill set of the developers, that might be a good fit for your needs. Again, there are 3rd party resources for mimicking the style of a modern Windows Store application that you could apply to your application if desired.
There can be a very steep learning curve for WPF if you have a reasonably complex data-entry/manipulation style application where you may need robust data validation, etc., typical of a line-of-business application. It's also hard to tell where Microsoft is going with technology these days -- WPF, while not deprecated, certainly isn't being enhanced like it once was. As Visual Studio 2012+ depend on it heavily, WPF isn't going away, but expect fewer new features. It's a robust platform generally speaking though, and it may meet your needs as is.
You may want to go through the exercise of modeling your application as a Windows Store application to see if the widgets and functionality you would need are present. Depending on your requirements, you may find that not everything is there yet (Windows 8.1 has some new goodies, so look at those too!).
Also, if you're familiar with JavaScript, you might also want to look at creating your application using WinJS. It's super powerful and can often use many existing JavaScript/HTML solutions, assuming they meet your UI and functional requirements.

WinRT UI components can only be used in windows store apps and Windows Forms only in desktop apps so you will not be able to mixed both.
If you are looking into making a desktop app for windows 8, maybe you should look into using WPF.
If you are looking into making a windows store app, there is plenty of third party control libraries which have a TreeView including the WinRT xaml toolkit .

What are the first steps in C#/.NET development?

Okay, I'm biting the bullet and deciding to get into the whole Microsoft/C#/.NET culture and I'm going to do this by putting together a simple (hah!) application.
It will basically be an application in which I want to store images and associate with them other optional things.
It must be able to import images from the filesystem (and hopefully camera/scanner) then allow the user to add text, audio and other information.
I plan to store the images and auxillary information into a database. What the application will do with said data isn't important (yet).
Keep in mind I know absolutely nothing about C# or .NET although, as an old codger, I know a great deal about many other things and will regale/bore you with stories and anecdotes until you quietly slip away :-)
What are the first steps to take in developing such an application? I've already set out UI layouts and likely process flows although it may be that the development environment dictates changes.
Development environment is currently XP SP3 + VS2008 (though I can upgrade if absolutely necessary).
What should I be looking at as the first step? Are there any gotchas I should be looking out for?

Have you decided for win forms or WPF? I've been doing win forms for the past 4 years and WPF was a great discovery for me, with the flexibility it affords. It might be fitted for your application and the different types of content you'll want to add and give you a flexibility that win forms can't give.
As for actually developing, I think loading images from the disk would be the first step, showing them in the UI and getting user input for them - you would get to work with the different objects and see how the framework handles things.
A tutorial about the field validation I mentioned in my comment is here - haven't done it, but something similar. You can also see the xaml code paired with the C# code there.
After looking for the differences between win forms and WPF I found that there are a few win forms controls that are missing from WPF. More on that on MSDN (compariosn chart) and a post from March with a more detailed chart.
It's also worth mentioning that you can include win forms controls in WPF applications and vice versa, but there are some limitations.

Just a couple of pointers, it would be easy to overwhelm you as you are just starting with this tech stack. First step, use SQLServer 2008 Express, it has better ability to deal with image data (images can be saved directly to the filesystem, but they are still in a table).
Apart from that, you can design your screen with the GUI, and then hook the bits up one by one to your retreived data. Create a new Windows Forms app, or a WPF one, and start from there (i'm assuming that you know about the toolbox window and just dragging components on to the designer and setting their properties in the Properties window).

If you're looking win forms you're going to have drag-and-drop UI pretty easily.
If you want to use a database than you're probably going to find MS-SQL the easiest to cooperate with. Look up LINQ-2-SQL, it lets you access your database through an object layer by simply dragging your tables onto a pane.
Fun things to use: extension methods, partial classes, LINQ (query any collection with inline lambdas) and even class/method attributes.

My $0,02:
a) Get to know the platform a bit, types, collections, events/delegates(/lambdas), etc etc
b) Dive into WPF
c) Learn about database connectivity (LINQ2SQL or NHibernate (or ....)
d) Learn about the MVVM pattern to get to deliver solid wpf applications, doing so forces you to dive deeper into the workings of WPF (routed commands, tunneling/bubbleing etc)
e) Learn more about patterns to get a more solid grasp of OO (this: http://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Explained-Perspective-Object-Oriented/dp/0321247140/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276066663&sr=8-1 is an absolute pearl for that)
f) etc

If you aren't too desperate to get your hands dirty straight away I'd suggest this book: CLR via C#.
It is written for those with programming experience on platforms other than .Net and provides a clear and comprehensive explanation of C# and how it runs on the .NET CLR.
By reading this initially you might avoid writing some of the poorly constructed applications that many of us wrote before properly understanding the technology.

Buy a book on C# & .NET FW fundamentals!
Read! :-)

Read good books about .NET for example CLR via C#.
Read this:
Hidden Features of C#? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/380819/common-programming-mistakes-for-net-developers-to-avoid

Web developer moving to Winforms

I have been doing ASP.NET / C# development for several years now. I have recently been offered a project that will need to be a winforms application (I am assuming .net 2.0).
Specs:
Winforms applicaton
Application will
have "testing for understanding
questions"
Must support flash and camtasia
files (these are "lessons")
I have done winforms development before, although nothing that is this involved. As there is a potential need for this application to be generic enough to apply to multiple different "disciplines", I would like to make the application generic enough to be easily configurable. The caveat here is that the application will need to be run from a CD-ROM and that I cannot rely explicitly on an internet connection. I was thinking of using something like SQL-Lite to support the configuration of the application. There will not be the need for updating the application as it will not be updated (at least I don't think, I guess there is the possibility of the application calling a webservice and configuring its-self based upon returned values).
With the requirements of supporting Flash and Camtasia, along with making this application generic enough to support different "disciplines", and my self being an ASP.NET developer, does anyone have an recommendations or tips/ tricks to look out for? Has anyone done something like this before?
Thanks in advance.

I'd start by writing a user control that can be used to either display a video file (presumably the output from Camtasia) or a Shockwave app. Once you have that user control, I'd then move on to look at the overall app.
If you're using Winforms, and the software is supposed to run from the CD (instead of merely be installed from CD) you'll need to have the DotNet framework already on the computer I think - but then I'm not an expert in deployment.
I find the application model in Winforms to be a lot easier than WebForms, but then I was "raised" in thick clients, so I suppose I would.
I would also, whilst agreeing to WinForms if needs really must, encourage the client to give consideration to using WPF instead - which opens up the idea that you could also provide access over the web using a simlar interface using Silverlight...
Just a few thoughts anyway - good luck with it...

Should I use WPF or Windows Forms Application for my project in C#?

I am developing a Client-Server based application in which client application will access server database to store billing information. It will also have report generation facility. Windows Forms is good in document printing & I don't see such facility or controls in WPF. If I am wrong then please correct me.
I want database security, which DB should I use, SQL Server, MySQL or Oracle. I would like to use free DB but security is my priority.
Please suggest how I can implement a Client-Server architecture with multiple clients in C#?
Thank you Geeks!!!

Using WPF will allow you to deliver a more innovative User Experience. There's a decent high level overview of Working with Documents in WPF on MSDN.
Any database should be able to provide decent security. If you're using C#, I would recommend one of the versions of SQL Server (If SQL Server Express works for you...go for it).
Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).

Regarding 1.
WPF has a handy PrintDialog control with a PrintVisual method on it. This can be used to print any visual elements from a WPF controls hierarchy and may be able to satisfy your printing requirements.
I have developed many applications in WinForms and only a few in WPF, but I would lean very heavily in the WPF direction for any new development. It is very flexible and powerful.

1- WPF is awesome when you want to implement a windows application, and consider the freedom it gives and the separation of concern you can eventually get, I would say 100% go with WPF. There are many ways to control your printing procedure that some have been already explained in above.
2- For database, depending on your load and concurrency, you can choose a different database. Oracle is an awesome one, but probably the most expensive one. So, at the end you need to compare MySQL which is a fantastic db and at the same time free, and SQL server express edition which is a free version of the enterprise/professional version of Microsoft SQL server. Express edition is basically the limited edition of the same database, and if you need o expand your network and support, you might not be able to afford the fees of an enterprise solution. So one idea can be to stick to the best free database from the beginning if you foresee such a demand in the future. The security of these both databases are somehow in the same level, but you need to work on your network/server securities as well, because I found them harder to break.
3-Using Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is very simple and easy especially when you want to use something like WPF. You basically create some data contracts and publish them, and that would be your communication end points. You basically call them, and deal with them as they are your local methods. Highly recommended. So what do you mean exactly by multiple clients? Does it mean different types of client (like web-based, mobile apps, etc.)? I also suggest taking a look at RESTful web services as it has the same kind of communication concepts. I just mentioned some names, so you can start reading something about each of them.

1 - Actually, WPF provides better/easier document/control printing that winforms does. Additionally, WPF still provides support for RDLC and other reporting solutions for printing & reporting. Asking if you should use WPF or WinForms is like asking if you should eat lemons or limes for vitamin C. Regardless of which one you use, you'll get where you're trying to go, but the flavor and experience will be wildly different.
2 - The database is not your security. The DB you choose will have little to no impact on your security. Personally, I would look at Active Directory and Domain security, and basically allowing the system to use the user's domain account and domain groups to control authentication and authorization.
3 -There are many possible solutions to a client-server framework, and each one has its own strengths and drawback, and then there's also the possibility of using webforms which you've not even touched upon.

Silverlight, Wpf Web App (xbap) or Click Once? Pros and Cons

We are starting a new project and I'm trying to decide which of the Wpf-esque develop/deploy strategies we should go with. In our case we are looking at quite a complex business app that will be used by 100s (not 1000s) of people, So I'm leaning towards a click-once app. My boss likes the idea of a Silverlight app as it means easier deployment. So which way should we jump?
The answer is, of course, "it depends".
So what are the pros and cons of each?
I'll start the ball rolling (Edit Added in some answers from artur carvalho):
Silverlight
Pros
Cross browser
Doesn't require full framework.
Better control of users. If your users login, you dont have to worry with activation keys or similar stuff.
It works on Windows and Mac.
You can update all your users apps easily.
Cons
Can't interact with client's file system etc
Has less functionality compared with full Wpf (anyone got a good resource that documents differences?)
Single window
Single version
Wpf Web App (xbap)
Pros
Full Wpf.
Cons
Single browser
Requires full framework
Can't interact with client's file system etc
Single window
Single version
Wpf Click once
Pros
Full Wpf
Can work offline
Multiple windows
Multiple versions (con?)
Better access to low level parts of the computer
No downtime for maintenance
Cons
Single browser
Requires full framework
Slightly(?) harder to install.

First, I would evaluate whether a web client (ideally MVC+jQuery) can't do the job...
Assuming a full client is warranted:
If it is a business app that demands a client, I would tend to go with the full framework and ClickOnce; the main difference here (re deployment) is that the client must have the framework installed - but past that, ClickOnce deployment is very pain free. Actually, building a ClickOnce manifest is much easier than Silverlight etc, since the IDE will do almost all of it for you; you just have to host the files somewhere (could be a web URL; could be a network UNC).
This gives you much more control (and power) at the client, as well as a far greater range of existing resources to use (for example, if you need, you can use some legacy winform code on the WPF surface). The "requires full framework" is also one of the largest benefits: "has full framework".
You should also perhaps consider the 3.5 "client profile" setup; not sure how wide-spread this is in reality... but worth knowing about.

You didn't say if this is a company only application or a public facing one. That alone will decide it for you.
If company only, I would go with full WPF click once. This will give you everything.
Full framework should not be an issue. It's a one time install running in the background so it's not something that your decision should depend on. Cons: it runs in Windows only but if your company is Windows only, this should not be an issue.
However WPF apps could be resource hungry so you need to know if all your client machines are capable of running WPF apps smoothly.
If it's an Internet app, go for Silverlight: it runs under different operating systems.

PROs vs. ASP.NET Web Forms
No ViewState or "surprise crap"
o This applies to Silverlight as well. Silverlight brings the "desktop" experience to the end user and there is no ViewState that is used in Silverlight.
Faster server-side & client-side
o Silverlight is faster on the client/server side depending on how you look at it. Silverlight is compiled in a .NET subsystem of Silverlight. You have access to multithreading, LINQ, complex data structures, etc. The performance vs. an ASP.NET or AJAX/JavaScript application is it magnitudes times better because of the client execution and some of the items that normally are handled in a server BLL can be brought down to the client
Simplified model for multiple related views
o Silverlight supports the complete seperation of the data and the UI. Taking this further by just creating seperate views for say another consumer of Silverlight is pretty powerful. You can apply the same MVC/MVP pattern inside Silverlight and attain this level of abstraction. Jason mentions an example of being able to create a seperate view for an iPhone and only the View component has to change. This applies to Silverlight as well for different things. For example, I have large sized Silverlight app I want to port to SharePoint. I can create a "Smaller View" for SharePoint so it fits nicer into the UI. Furthermore, Silverlight Mobile is being private tested now. I would assume that same very powerful level of abstraction applies as well to create a "Mobile view" for your Silverlight application.
Unit Testable
o Silverlight includes a Unit Test framework as well. It can be downloaded here: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/silverlightut/
Challenges if you are not running IIS 7
o Silverlight does NOT care if you are not running on IIS 6 or IIS 7 or Apache for that matter. This is one feature where Silverlight has an advantage over ASP.NET MVC.
Client Caching
o In ASP.NET Web Forms or MVC, you are caching on the server. Silverlight allows you to cache on the client via Isolated Storage (which can be increased to hundreds of megs if necessary). This allows applications to perform ultra fast without bogging down the hosting server.
CONs vs. ASP.NET Web Forms
Difficult to convert existing code
o Silverlight is a completely different programming platform than either ASP.NET WebForms or MVC. Not only will a lot of the code not convert, you also have to think about the client layer and in most cases a complete re-architecture is needed if you are replacing large modules inside your existing ASP.NET site.
NOT the best SEO out of the box
o Google several months ago started spidering SWF files and adding them to the search engine. I think Silverlight is probably still a ways away here. What you can do for Silverlight SEO is the basic tricks to describe the meta data tags really well around the plug in.
Data access
o Data access in Silverlight is limited to Web Services/WCF/ADO.NET Data Services. You cannot make direct calls via ADO.NET or stored procedures to a database.
Security
o Silverlight runs on the client. A lot of your bits are then roaming in the wild on the internet. Furthermore, some of the data access techniques do not support full WS* standard security. Therefore, beyond certificate based transport security, you are either writing a lot of your own plumbing code or waiting for the next rev. The XAML code is pretty much insecure; not many applications have their Intellectual Property in their UI. In Silverlight, that can be very easily reverse engineered using Silverlight Spy for example. Silverlight, just by nature, is a little less secure than an ASP.NET MVC application. Obviously, you would want to encrypt/obfuscate your Silverlight assemblies before letting them off in the wild.

1. Silverlight can access the DOM from the hosting page and
2. the hosting page can access the Silverlight part.
That's a big + for Silverlight
But all other limitations cry for WPF/Windows-Forms with Clickonce
file access, right mouse click, ease of db access

The pros
The Silverlight plug-in means developers can target a single, consistent runtime for browser-based applications, rather than dealing with the complexity of multiple browsers in different versions. You also get video and multimedia effects that are hard or impossible with pure HTML and JavaScript, though Adobe Systems' Flash has the same advantages.
Execute .NET code without deploying the .NET runtime. The Silverlight plug-in does include a cut-down .NET runtime, but instead of dealing with a large download and the complexities of the Windows installer, the user has a small download of about 4MB, all handled within the browser. In my experience so far, installation is smooth and easy.
Performance is promising. Silverlight comes out well in this prime number calculator, thanks no doubt to JIT compilation to native code, though it may not compare so well for rendering graphics.
Support for Moonlight means there will be an official open source implementation of Silverlight, mitigating the proprietary aspect.
Silverlight interprets XAML directly, whereas Adobe’s XML GUI language, MXML, gets converted to SWF at compiling time. In fact, XAML pages are included as resources in the compiled .XAP binary used for deploying Silverlight applications. A .XAP file is just a ZIP with a different extension. This also means that search engines can potentially index text within a Silverlight application, just as they can with Flash.
Third-party component vendors are already well on with Silverlight add-ons. For example, Infragistics, ComponentOne and DevExpress.
Take your .NET code cross-platform. With Macs popping up everywhere, the ability to migrate Visual Basic or C# code to a cross-platform, browser-based Silverlight client will be increasingly useful. Clearly this only applies to existing .NET developers - I guess this is the main market for Silverlight, but it is a large one. The same applies to the next point:
Uses Visual Studio. Microsoft’s IDE is a mature and well-liked development environment, and since it is also the tool for ASP.NET you can use it for server-side code, as well as for the Silverlight client. For those who don’t get on with Visual Studio, the Silverlight SDK also supports command-line compilation.
Choose your language. Support for multiple languages has been part of .NET since its beginning, and having the .NET runtime in Silverlight 2.0 means you can code your client-side logic in C#, Visual Basic, or thanks to the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) Iron Ruby or Iron Python.
Isolated storage gives Silverlight applications local file access, but only in a protected location specific to the application, providing a relatively secure way to get this benefit.
The cons
If Apple won’t even allow Flash on the iPhone, what chance is there for Silverlight?
Silverlight is late to the game. Flash is mature, well trusted and ubiquitous. Silverlight 2 only comes out of beta in the Autumn (we hope). It is the version we care about - the one that includes the .NET runtime - and will still lack support on mobile devices, even Windows Mobile, though this is promised at some unspecified later date.
The design tools are Expression Blend and Expression Design - but who uses them? The design world uses Adobe PhotoShop.
While having solution compatibility between Expression Blend and Visual Studio sounds good, it’s actually a hassle having to use two separate tools, especially when there are niggling incompatibilities, as in the current beta.
No support for the popular H.264 video codec. Instead hi-def video for Silverlight must be in VC-1, which is less common.
It’s another effort to promote proprietary technology rather than open standards.
Yes Linux will be supported via Moonlight, but when? It seems likely that the Linux implementation will always lag behind the Windows and Mac releases.
Silverlight supports SOAP web services, or REST provided you don’t use PUT or DELETE, but doesn’t have an optimized binary protocol like Adobe’s ActionScript Message Format (AMF), which likely means slower performance in some scenarios.
Silverlight is a browser-only solution, whereas Flash can be deployed for the desktop using Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR). Having said that, yes I have seen this.
You have to develop on Windows. This is particularly a problem for the Expression design tools, since designers have a disproportionately high number of Macs.

You can add to the pros and cons of the usual stuff of the online vs offline debate. Some items:
Pros
wpf(offline):
better access to low level parts of the computer.
cpu usage is local, so you rarely have cpu load issues.
not dependent of the net.
no downtime for maintenance.
silverlight(online):
Better control of users. If your users login, you dont have to worry with activation keys or similar stuff.
It works on Windows and Mac.
You can update all your users apps easily.
I simplified it a bit, there are gray areas in the list. I only tinkered with XBAP, so that one I'll leave out. The Cons are not hard to figure out after looking to the pros.
HTH

I would consider WPF ClickOnce with sync framework support (www.msdn.com/sync). This would allow you to support limited functionality when the user is not connected to the corporate network (which will eliminate any browser-based deployment scenarios, such as Silverlight and XBAP).

If you don't need all WPF I would try do it in Silvelight first Then you can switch to WPF more easily if you need it later.
Here I think it applies the “less is more” principle: it’s true that with WPF you have much more options and can access to the user computer, but that can finally be more a problem than a help as the times go. Think for example in how many changes you can need to change from Windows XP to Vista in an application that uses a lot of the “user computer” resources!

Mark, what do you mean when saying 'single browser' for XBAP? XBAP does work with Firefox for example. It indeed requires .NET Framework and it is unlikely that we will have WPF in Mono anywhere soon (if ever) so you are stuck with Windows, that's right.

Isn't click once available on firefox these days, via this addon: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1608