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WPF Always On Top
(7 answers)
How to make a window always stay on top in .Net?
(14 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
When the task manager is open, there is an option for "Always On Top" in the menu bar. I would like this to be the default behavior for my application. I am using C# in Visual Studio to write the program. It is basically an investment calculator that offers important numbers for the user.
The user will need these numbers and it is unlikely for them to be able to memorize them. Time is of the essence when using my application so stopping to write them all down is not feasible either. How was this implemented? Thanks in advance.
Response to proposed duplicate
I do not think this is a duplicate question. Other questions on SO have used third party software to handle this task. I also was under the impression that what others were seeking related to keeping one of many of their forms as top most. I am specifically asking to be higher than all applications running on the machine.
Furthermore, the question was designed to seek help on implementation of code to facilitate this. In the article offered by Mohammed, there is code for working with Windows API and I was unable to get it working. I had read this article prior to asking the question. Most people reported TopMost property to not help them, and many responses reported using Windows API.
if its winform application Form.TopMost will work
Depending on what you are using (WPF or Forms), these may help you :
WPF : WPF Always On Top
Forms : How to make a window always stay on top in .Net?
The idea is to set True to the property YourForm.TopMost or YourWindow.TopMost. You may still have troubles with full screen applications that can be on top of yours.
This question already has answers here:
Windows Forms Application C# Style
(2 answers)
Closed 9 years ago.
I'd like to add a style to the items I have in some forms, here's the link of my preview question.
This app is developed in Visual C#, a WPF app, I have an .xaml file and 65 windows forms.
I have don't have a problem with any of the styles in the .xaml file, but in the Form.cs file I can't add any styles.
I'd like to have the same button style in both files (.xaml & .cs).
How can I do it? Should I add some libraries? Do I have to add more lines of code to Form.cs? Or should I do everything using the .xaml files?
I've been looking for something like this but I have not found anything.
I apologies if I'm asking silly questions.
winforms doesn't support Styles, nor Theming. It's a really old technology that has not been improved since 2007. it's not recommended for any new projects, only to maintain legacy applications.
Your options are:
redo everything in pure WPF.
Change all winforms UI elements to ElementHosts containing WPF content. This is even worse than redoing everything.
Buy a third party such as DevExpress.
Contact a FreeLancer developer (such as myself) who is willing to re-do all your winforms into beautiful WPF UIs (for profit)
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Closed 9 years ago.
I have been programming in java for a couple of years now. Not long ago i decided that it was time to make a change and learn C#.
Now since it both visual studio and C# is new to me i have decided that since i have to learn it anyway i might learn the newest tools there is.
However i am unable to find out what GUI liberay to use. my first search indicated that WPF is the newest "lib" for creating microsoft UI many other threads gave an indication of that this might not be the case.
Therefore i am asking you guys what is the newest UI "lib" for C# and what would you advice me to use?
As pointed out by Giedrius, either Windows Forms or WPF.
Personally, i would start with Forms for a few weeks, get to know the environment, then move on to WPF and the lovely world of XAML.
WPF is the right technology if you are targeting users with good machines. It leverage the power of graphics card and supports vector graphics. You will get good development speed with the XAML system and much more
If you are looking for any third party controls you can evaluate Infrajistics or Telerik.But depends on your UI requirements.
In terms of newest technologies then WPF is certainly the one I'd recommend you learn, but there is quite a level of interoperability between WPF and WinForms, i.e. you can host WinForm controls in WPF and (I think) vice versa.
One thing to be aware of is that WPF is a completely different beast to winforms - you can still do the usual drag and drop, but for fancy stuff you need to be changing the XAML and that can take some getting your head around.
Edit - it's worth taking the effort to learn WPF though because once you have then you'll be producing rich interfaces with ease.
For anything prior to Windows 8 then the latest is WPF. As of Windows 8 you have Metro (name changed I know) but then you could still use your newly aquired XAML skills (picked up from WPF) or start getting into HTML 5 and CSS 3 which would also stand you in good stead for web-based applications.
Win Forms is older than WPF but still well loved / established and can be useful in places. Like most things, choose the right tool for the job.
There are two main flavors of GUI (not counting web): WPF and Windows Forms. WPF is much more recent and if you have no experience on Windows Forms, WPF may be recommended GUI alternative.
Now WPF may have several "flavours" - it is kind of different in abilities in desktop applications, silverlight applications and windows store applications, desktop applications having most of the features, other two has limited set, mostly because of performance and security reasons (for example you can't render UI to image in windows store applications, but in desktop applications you can).
WPF has better hardware acceleration support, has better binding and async/threading support, is much more flexible, many elements look may be changed very easily - which can't be done so easy in Windows Forms, like combo box - you can change color in Windows Forms very easily, but if you will need rounded edges, that will be hard one.
Also WPF can be used in MVVM pattern easily, which is quite a challenge in Windows Forms.
Windows Forms on the other hand is little bit easier to learn + plus it has very good third party components - like Telerik, Devexpress. Both vendors have components for WPF also, but they ain't as good as Windows Forms ones, mostly because they were designed using Windows Forms knowledge, which doesn't fit WPF.
I recommend you to learn html, css and js. As I know you can build Microsoft Windows 8 .net applications using these languages. Check here and also it would be useful if you'll decide to make web application, where all these languages are using also.
If you don't want to limit your self with Windows 8, than try WPF. Applications on WPF will be able to run on any machine with .net framework version you used for application.
GL
As others have pointed out, WPF is the way to go.
One thing that has not been mentioned is that, (since you have java experience) you can think of WPF versus other technologies (such as winforms) the same way you can think of JavaFX versus previous java UI technologies (such as Swing).
Actually, JavaFX seems like a really poor copy of WPF. the language used to define the UI is XML-based (like XAML is), it has (much poorer) support for DataBinding, and many other similarities.
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Closed 7 years ago.
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How do I create an attractive GUI - similar to the one used for Microsoft Office - in C#?
I will be using Winforms and C#.
WPF is a good place to start. Also you may checkout this blog post which illustrates how to create an Office like Ribbon in WPF.
Do you want to emulate the Office 2007/2010 ribbon?
Codeplex has a WinForms ribbon control you might like at http://ribbon.codeplex.com/.
See also Ribbon UI Control for WinForms
There are many rich controls collections, some free, some that need payment (devexpress.com for example).
You want it for WinForms, for Silverlight, for WPF, for ASP.NET? (devexpress has all of them).
If you want something "free", there are toolkits for WPF and Silverlight on codeplex.
Take a look at Krypton - It is a Free Winforms Skinner (Themer) that gives a cool look without too much effort. All you need to do is use their controls (which are extended from the basic Winforms Controls and have the same properties / methods events.
The visual part of Office that I see most people emulating is the ribbon control. Here's info on an example like it.
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WPF/ribboncontrol.aspx
This question already has answers here:
Closed 12 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
Obfuscator which supports WPF properly
I am looking for a free WPF obfuscator to protect the code inside my application, which includes my API key.
I have seen Dotfuscator but as I understand the free version does not include obfuscating WPF applications.
How should I go about protecting my application from reverse engineering?
Thanks
The question has been asked around here several times before.
Have a look: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/805549/free-obfuscation-tools-for-net
Anyhow, seems Eazfuscator : http://www.gapotchenko.com/eazfuscator.net is a really good choice.
Update: Eazfuscator.NET will not obfuscate WPF XAML, to my knowledge, however I don't know a free tool that does. A paid version can though; see this http://www.preemptive.com/products/dotfuscator/compare-editions
A quick search of Google makes it look like it is not possible to entirely obfuscate a WPF application. You can obfuscate the code behind, but not the XAML.
http://windowsclient.net/blogs/rob_relyea/archive/2009/10/27/obfuscation-of-wpf-applications-status-update.aspx