I would like to develop a UI for creating/displaying single elimination brackets in C#. The only problem is, I am not a UI developer and I don't really know if there is a particular SDK/Toolkit/App/etc. that is the most supported for use. The application will not be web based to start. I am however an experienced developer so the back-end programming will not be an issue nor should it be the focus of this post.
I have looked into Adobe Air, Flex, WPF, and Silverlight as those are just a few different tools that came to mind that could be of use. Are there any particular toolkits or SDKs that are preferred for drawing out the necessary labels and brackets?
Thanks in advance.
The first question is whether there will be any input through this surface, for example if the team/player names will be editable/clickable. In that case you probably want to use controls as well as some custom drawing of the brackets.
If you only want to draw a representation that is not editable, then I would recommend drawing the whole thing yourself on a panel.
Related
I have a requirement to present in my c# windows application a "map" of a building, with different rooms coloured in various ways to indicate various things. This needs to be renderable at different sizes and from different perspectives, and needs not to be a one off exercise, but a repeatable process for different establishments.
I am thinking of it in terms of an old school level editor (think old ID stuff), the product of which can be rendered top down; it sounds like an awful lot of work to get into designing my own editing tool, so am looking for a way to hook an existing tool into c#.
I have got the .NET drawing code down (if need be), and I have got the Adobe Illustrator design down (again, if need be) - what I am looking for is a way to link the two, or (if appropriate) a suggestion to use something different in those two roles entirely. Any and all suggestions very gratefully received, thank you!
I'd look at Microsoft Visio - it seems more appropriate for architectural/schematic diagrams than Illustrator and there should be already .NET libraries to use Visio-generated drawings.
My goal is to gain a better understanding of the characteristics of C#, and become more comfortable creating simple apps. I am fairly competent with Flash (Actionscript 3), and found an old Tic-Tac-Toe game I'd written. I started wondering about porting this code into a C# application. Not knowing much about C#, I'm wondering how difficult the migration would be.
On the one hand, the underlying game logic is syntactically similar, and therefore would be easy to port.
However, as far as the graphics are concerned, I don't even know where to begin. So far, I've only exposed myself to Windows Forms and Console apps in C#.
I'm wondering if these Flash concepts have similar analogs in C#, or if the procedures and syntax are radically different:
Placing graphic elements on a stage
Rendering lines from start/end coordinates
Event listeners on movie clips
Swapping the image inside a graphic element (or, in my Flash version, nextFrame() in a movie clip)
You may want to try developping your little game using Silverlight. Silverlight applications, coded using C# and Xaml, are pretty similar in form with flash applications, and you should find everything you need without trouble.
So I suggest you download the Silverlight SDK (free) and give it a try.
Firstly, Flash is to WPF (close enough) as ActionScript is to C#.
The WPF/Silverlight model is much more similar to Flex that it is to Flash. Everything is added to the UI tree as a object, even lines.
Likewise, adding event handlers to controls (like a button click) can be done in the "code behind" (the code that lives with the view), but the recommendation is to use the MVVM pattern. If you are new to the concepts of separation of concerns and unit testing, feel free to start with the simpler "code behind" method.
While WPF and Silverlight are very similar, I'd recommend starting with Silverlight as the SDK and available samples are richer. You can easily move onto WPF later on (though porting an application from Silverlight to WPF is not automatic).
Swapping images, as you mentioned, would be done via "Visual States" in Silverlight (or possibly changing the image reference, which is more "hacky").
Have a look at the following links to get started:
Learn # Silverlight.net
Silverlight on MSDN
Shapes and Drawing (Silverlight)
If you're looking specifically to do games and the like, you may wish to look into the free XNA framework. However, there will be differences as Flash gives you far more ability to "set up" things beforehand and modify them.
Placing graphic elements on a stage
If you go the XNA route, you will be drawing sprites using the spritebatch, you tell them where and how to draw and that's where they will go
Rendering lines from start/end coordinates
In windows forms you can do this via a simple System.Drawing call, however if you wish to do this in XNA, you will either have to make a 1 pixel square and stretch/rotate it to what you want, or use 3d primitives (Though this will limit you to a 1 pixel line)
Event listeners on movie clips
Look into delegates, but there isn't really an equivalent for movie clips to my knowledge
Swapping the image inside a graphic element (or, in my Flash version, nextFrame() in a movie clip)
This is fairly simple, depending on what you mean. If you want to, say, animate a sprite. You can do this by moving the source rectangle or changing the texture of the spritesheet. If you mean the screen as a whole, this is mostly handled for you provided you use the spritebatch. In windows forms you'll have to do more of it yourself, but the base concepts are the same.
Overall it's not that bad, but if that doesn't sound appealing check out Silverlight. It's basically C# styled flash so you may find the transition easier.
Good luck and hope this helps.
I'm currently working at a application that helps people understand how to do there job. You can see it as a personal coach that guides them trough all the steps they need to do that no normal person could keep remembering.
In my previous application we had the ability to show the user up to 4 pictures (what proves to be more then enough). The application would load the data and see how many pictures where in every instruction and then sort out the picture in the best fitting way without messing up the scale and resolution of the pictures. This all was done with GDI+ and worked very well.
Ofc, change is something that always happens, my bosses came up with some great ideas. So they want to be able to see movies on the screen, animated gif's, 3D models that can rotate or animate. So I think we had pushed GDI+ to it's limits and it's time to look for something different.
I have heard and readed about WPF but have no experience with it. Is it even possible to do all what I ask in WPF? And what about the old picture-merging thing I wrote, can we also get it done in wpf? I tried to make some things working but I didn't went as smooth as I hoped.
I'm also concerned about the fact that the interface needs to be dynamic, the one moment it should be showing picture with some text above it, the other moment it should be showing another text with a video under it.
I would love to hear some opinions here and if you got some other suggestions I should look into pls tell me. Thnx in advance
PS: If WPF is the choice, should I convince my boss to change to .net 4.0?
Although my answer can be termed subjective, I find WPF better than GDI+ anyday. You can do everything you can in WPF which you have done/could do in GDI+ (apart from pure games/game engines). If you can afford the steep learning curve of WPF, I think it will be better investment as this technology is not going anywhere soon.
As for .Net 4.0, WPF 4.0 does introduces some important functions in 4.0 (specially easing functions for animations) but there is nothing you cannot do without if you are using 3.5. I won't recommend 3.0 though mainly because of performance in animations.
WPF is up to the task, but you could also check other options.
You could go web based, and have either an XBAP (WPF in the browser), or Silverlight/Flash app.
Silverlight/Flash doesn't require that much from the client (to install), and is easily updatable, and both can do the job.
i am trying to research some gui technology for c# where i can display a tree view (opposed to the standard one provided.)
Essentially i want to have the gui draw a tree of data (as if you were going to draw a binary tree on a piece of paper or something) Then making each of the nodes clickable.
If this isnt available does anyone know of something where i could have a mindmap type GUI which shows links between elements and those are clickable?
I can guess people will say make one yourself, in which case i give up already ;) thats too advanced for me and as i am on a work placement i dont think i would be granted the time to make it as there are more pressing issues to get working first, like actually making the programme work!
Thank you
You can take a look at the controls in Kevin's WPF Bag-o-Tricks which has a WPF mind map style layout. Here is a nice example. If you want to use more professional components take a look at the product from Nevron Software, they have some great controls. There is also an opensource WPF graphing library - graphsharp (which I have no experience with, but I found a nice article by Sacha Barber). Since it's used in nDepend it must be pretty mature.
I hope you get some inspiration from those links :)
I also found XMind API for C#
https://xmindapi.codeplex.com/
It's free and looks easy to use.
NOTE: I am not exactly sure how to title or tag this question, so if you have any ideas, PLEASE help!
I'm currently envisioning a few possible projects that involve dynamically rendering something (whether it is a point, a line, text, or music notes on a staff, for hypothetical example), but, if I were to undertake these projects, I'm not really sure how to approach this design. What I'm curious about is sort of how programs like Word, or Geometer's Sketchpad, or Finale, create a blank "canvas" and render text, geometry, or music on it, respectively - how can this be done in C#, or in .NET, in general?
First of all, what is the best framework/platform to use: WinForms, WPF, something else? I'm open to many options, as I'm just trying to understand the different ways this can be done.
Next, how can I create such a "canvas" (if we go back to that metaphor) using the different frameworks you answered for part 1? And also, how can I render stuff onto it?
I hope my question isn't too confusing or n00bie. I just don't know how to approach such a prospect. Thanks!
UPDATE: I have now posted a follow-up question which is less broad. I have provided an hypothetical example of what I would like to accomplish. However, I will still accept an answer here, even though my question isn't fully answered.
WPF would probably suit your project well. I like the book Pro WPF in C# 2008: Windows Presentation Foundation with .NET 3.5, it covers most of the topics you're asking about.
You'll probably get better answers with a more focused question. The scope of your question is too large to be answered easily or concisely.
WPF makes it easier to refactor designs for such a project by easily moving shape drawing code between just drawing simple shapes and contents of controls. If you need the richness of custom controls, WPF allows a fairly smooth transition.
Most of the graphics can be defined in XAML which means you can export them from programs like Illustrator or anything that generates the standard SVG vector graphics, via an SVG-XAML converter.
I like WPF Unleashed and it has a nice discussion of 2D graphics and how to use the DrawingContext class for such a visual editor.
Do you know that there's an event called Paint? Everytime Windows OS needs to displays or repaint something on your form, this event is triggered. So, you create a Paint event handler, and everything is possible in that. For eg:
Word: you have a WordDocument data structure with the formatted tags and stuffs, you paint each character/ each word or each block of words one-by-one using a desired brush/paint and font. You might also wanna paint your background and stuff... If, for example the user change the font of 1 particular block, your WordDocument must change something to reflect that font change. And then you do an myForm.Invalidate() to repaint your form (and thus update your font). => Dynamically update your GUI.
Sketchpad: you need datastructures such as Line, Point, Triangle, etc. And then, each time OnPaint is triggered, you paint it dynamically. E.g: myGraphics.DrawLine(..), myGraphics.DrawCircle(..)
Similarly to Finale.
One thing you should do is to handle your data structure and drawing classes carefully, and instead of drawing everything in your OnPaint() method, you create several DrawMe(..) methods in your entity classes, and ask them to draw themselves. E.g: myCircle.DrawMe(..), myScore.DrawMe(..)
Hope that'll help,
Ben
There is no universal answer to your question - it is too generic.
Are you talking about dynamicly created controls, standard UI components (dropdowns, buttons)?
Is it vector graphics - like in drawings, or may be it is 2D image processing - or is it 3D?