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c# - changing the appearance of my windows form

I am developing a windows form. I want to change the physical appearance of the form and its controls. I was able to use the Skincrafter demo, however this is making the application substantially heavier. I am not satisfied with how "heavy" it feels when navigating through tabs, moving the window, etc. It's fairly simple program and I do not have this issue when not using skincrafter. When not using it, the GUI is very responsive and I want to keep it that way.
I've tried many different skins and the results are very similar in every case.
So I will not be using skincrafter unless someone points me out to possible reasons for this slower GUI. I followed their tutorial and didn't do anything else. Simple process. Before: fast GUI - after: slow GUI.
Can anyone recommend me another way to change the appearance of my controls/form? Is there way to programatically change the appearance of controls and form, without relying on a third party skinning software?
Note that I do not want my users to change skins. I want to apply one and that's it.
thank you
Steve
Edit:
The project is far from done so I am going to give WPF some real good thoughts so I don't end up doing this when I have a 4x times as large as it is right now.
I've already start converting and it shouldn't be much of problem. Found timer and serialport cannot be front from the toolbox and timer are replaced by dispatchtimer. No big deal so far.
One another thing that makes me want to work with WPF is that I may have the need to make graphs (plotting) to show temperature over time. I use serialport to communicate with an external USB controller (virtual COM port) that reads a bunch of temperature sensors and fan speeds. I suspect graphing to be better with WPF.
One last thing: it's just about colors/fonts but more about looks of the buttons, looks of the actual window (border shapes). What I wanted to do was something similar that is done with html and css. I do want to have custom labels to give them the look of a "digital display" for real time temperatures and fan speed measurements.
again thanks all for the help provided!

In the distant past, I added lightweight skinning to WinForms projects by subclassing the out-of-the-box controls (Label, TextBox, etc), and having that subclass read in appearance configuration (e.g. color, font) from an XML file (one could also use app.config).
That approach was easy to implement, and I saw no visible performance degradation.
If you just want a consistent, new look and don't need to enable the end user to pick from a variety of skins, the subclassing approach is very straightforward. For example, to modify the look of a Label:
public MyLabel : Label
{
MyLabel()
{
this.ForeColor = Colors.Blue;
}
}
Then, everywhere you currently have a Label in your code, use a MyLabel instead.
If you are starting a new project, I would highly recommend using WPF instead. It provides a much more flexible UI framework. One key feature is that it separates the look from the UI implementation.

Create an editable table using WPF controls

Maybe this is not the right forum for my question, but I'll try anyway.
I am creating an application where I want the user to be able to fill in values in a table/matrix. The values are then going to be saved to a database I have set up. I want to build this application using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). I watched the following video on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i4mYXSaD4w and it shows very well what features I want my own application to have. The problem is, the example in the video is made in Winforms...
So, my question, which can be split into three parts, is:
Is there a way to build something equal, similar or better, in WPF?
What/which control(s) should I use? Grid? DataGrid?
How do I use this control?
I am new to WPF, and do not have a good picture of what controls to use. I have read many questions about WPF's DataGrid on StackOverflow as well as other QnA's, but I couldn't understand how to do what I wanted, or even if it was possible. Therefore, I'm very thankful to anyone who can explain and lead me onto the right track.

I suggest you to read this article: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/30905/WPF-DataGrid-Practical-Examples

Transitioning from Windows Forms to WPF

For a long time now, I have been stuck with Windows Forms development (started with VB6, and has continued through to C# .NET 4.5), and I have pretty much hit the limit of what Windows Forms can do, both using pure .NET, and special effects with Native Code.
I have tried to learn WPF and XAML, but I get stuck right at WPF's new designer. It really seems very difficult to use in comparison to the Windows Forms designer.
I want to know if there are any alternatives to .NET's WPF designer, that are more suited to Windows Forms developers?

I like to blog about beginner articles for WPF, and there are a few in particular that may help you out:
Understanding the change in mindset when switching from WinForms to WPF
What is this "DataContext" you speak of?
A Simple MVVM Example
To summarize, the biggest difference between Winforms and WPF is that in WPF your data layer (the DataContext) is your application, while in Winforms your UI layer is your application.
To look at it another way, with WPF your application consists of the objects you create, and you use Templates and other UI objects to tell WPF how to draw your application components.
That's the opposite of WinForms where you build your application out of UI objects, and then supply them with the data needed.
Because of this, the designer isn't actually used that much since your application components are designed in code, and the designer is only needed to draw a user-friendly interface that reflects your data classes (typically Models and ViewModels)
And personally, I prefer to type all my XAML out by hand since it's faster and doesn't make as much of a mess as the drag/drop WPF designer does, although I do use the Designer on occasion to preview what my UI will look like.
So to your answer your question about if there's other WPF designers suited for WinForms developers, I would suggest that instead of looking for another designer, instead look to learn how to use WPF in the way it's meant to be used. Using WPF like it's WinForms means you miss out on much of what makes it so great :)

Well although, some people don't agree, I would also recomment to not use the VS designer. At least not to create an interface. If you may want to get a first impression of your implementation without starting the application, it's a good viewer at least as long no sophisticated things like Styles and Templates are used. But, IMHO, its drag and drop result should only be used as prototype and therefore be discarded after it's no longer needed.
Here are some reasons which are important for me not to use it.
The VS designer is working with fix margins and alignments (which is usually not necessary, if you're using the layout controls), means you have to touch many controls, if the requirements are changed. If you're deep in XAML and the WPF mechanics you can create an applications which can be modified with small effort, regarding the look and feel.
Since the designer is generating the xaml, the composition is not optimal and the UI may perform badly. I didn't measure it, it's just a feeling.
A much better alternative is MS Blend, although the start is everything else but easy. Its drag and drop result is much better that the result of the VS designer.
But it's a pretty powerful tool, which helps you to use pretty powerful elements to create a state of the art UI. I recommend to visit at least a short workshop to get an idea of its opportunities.
Back to your question, IMHO, and I think many people agree, get yourself a good book e.g. WPF Unleashed and later, if you want to know more about the details, WPF Pro. There are a lot of features which are different to Winforms. You won't get to know them by using any designer. I think that's the best approach.
Please also consider that there are many frameworks and libraries (e.g. MVVM light, WPFToolkit) out there, which are already solving some common problems. So it's not necessary to reinvent the wheel.

I know this is an old question but for the benefit of anyone else looking at this, I think I should redress the balance a bit - reading some of the other answers, I get the feeling that some of the 'don't use the designer' sentiment comes from not using it properly.
This tutorial is quite good to get you going and answers some of the criticisms in the other posts.
For instance, you can switch from the Winforms-like margin-based layout that is the default when you drop a control, to a more WPF-ish style by right-clicking and selecting 'Reset Layout'
This video covers similar ground.
I still prefer the VS2010 designer on balance - VS2013 seems to be a bit buggy when dragging and dropping onto TabItems **, (which my current project uses a lot) - but the VS2013 Document Outline view lets you move things around in that view too, which can be a real plus.
Really, though, to get the most out of WPF and xaml you need to be reasonably fluent in both the designer view and the xaml view and switching between them; if you shy away from the designer, you are missing out on something that can help you a lot.
** Edit - although this seems to have been improved in Update 3 for VS 2013, and in previews of VS14, to date I still get odd behaviour at times.

First of all, in WPF (XAML) in Visual Studio deisgner, you should always use the xaml code to build you UI and do not drag and drop you control! You need to keep your code clean. You can use Expression Blend to help you, it's more graphic oriented with drag and drop, but it's not free.
It's not a big learning curve, but I think you should learn how to do your xaml by hand instead of searching for alternative.

I've been through this process as you did. Afterwards I was teaching everyone in my company WPF. There are a couple of important lessons I have learned and everybody I know who works with WPF.
If you are working with UI controls in the code behind, .... Then you are doing it wrong. There is absolutely no need for you to deal with UI controls in the code behind.
You do not need the visual developer for clicking on it. You are much more productive by only dealing with XAML.
Use Copy/Paste. Do not trust in your typing capabilities. It will save a lot of headaches.
Think of the XAML just as a window that loks over the data. In the code behind you are changing the data. In XAML you are defining how the UI will interpret the data.
Converters are amazing. As soon as you get a key amount of Converters, your productivity will rocket Sky high. They will take over the role of the crazy amount of control eventhandlers that hide or resize, or what ever about UI,
It makes UI development fun. Especially once you find out how it likes to play along with Asyc processes. It really takes away a lot of the headaches that were caused by Winforms.

expanding a C# console app to a WPF app

What's the best way to convert a simple console application to a WPF? and I am a COMPLETE newb so be gentle!!
The console app displays information according to user choices.. real simple stuff, but I'd like to create a GUI for it in WPF.. and am looking for initial steps on how to go about it.

This, and this (video) might be worth checking out. They will get you started with building a WPF app, you'll need to figure out how to port your existing interface to WPF though, which might not be very straight forward because there is a large shift in building a console app (Console.WriteLine/Console.Read) and a GUI app with GUI objects with events and display properties.
I recommend jumping in with the links above and positing additional questions here when you get stuck.

First you need to think how the new interface will behave. A gui is different from console interaction.
Draw on paper the gui you want, buttons, text areas, etc.
Think about the logic and it should behave, i.e. wizard like, button interaction, etc.
Only then approach the implementation in WPF, for that look for some beginner tutorial, like ths

C# + Custom graphics on controls?

I was just wondering if there are ways of creating my own custom winforms controls?
I've been plundering with Visual Studio 2008 now trying to do some c# apps. And the GUI end up looking terrible because of the standard winforms limitations.
And I noticed that I can add images to buttons for example, but ther's no hover effect. Or, the hover effect makes the whole button area gray. I don't want any of that, I just want to either create my own graphics for the controls or find some free (opensource perhaps) controls that already exist.
Any light on any of this, anyone? :)

You can write complete Winforms controls from scratch, doing all the painting and input processing yourself - you just create a class derived from 'Control' and get on with it.
There's a fair bit to making a first-class control which integrates nicely with the VS designer, so people tend to derive their custom control from an existing control which has most of the behaviour they want.
Here would be a good place to start: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6hws6h2t.aspx

I'm puzzled, you are doing WinForms development, yet in comments say you have done many months of WPF development, but WPF is not good enough because it is not cross platform.
How is WinForm more cross platform, and have you seen how ugly WinForms looks under mono on a Mac as it's draw via X11.
If you want style and cross platform, go for Flex or Silverlight, as your already know WPF I'd go the Silverlight route.
It's cross platform, and has all the beauty of WPF, but at the cost of reduced functionality out of the box.

First - may be more pragmatic to look at WPF, or hosting some WPF elements inside winforms (which is supported - like so). Other than that - you can do all your own painting if you want; but it is a lot of work.

Any reason why you don't use WPF? You have much more more UI control if you went down the route.
If you must go with WinForms then there are many commercial solutions like DevExpress. If you really want you own look and feel it'll be alot of work.

Yes. You can create your own controls. It is called a User Control. Just select Add->and User Control.
WPF is a good alternative if you want your windows form to look fancy.