I've already searched on SO to see if there has been a similar question but I haven't found anything so far.
I'm looking to add a help window to my application, similar to the ones found in many other applications (Example below):
As you can see the help window allows you to give plenty of instructions for particular functions of an application, as well as the ability to print it off for future reference.
How would I go about adding this to my application?
The screenshot you posted is based on Windows Help. There is an SDK available from Microsoft to generate this.
In addition, there are many commercial products that dramatically simplify help creation, such as Adobe's Robohelp.
You can also look for a CHM editors / builders.
Look into the HelpProvider class.
You're looking for MDI Forms. Printing, menu bars, etc, are done the same as any basic winforms application.
Related
IHello,
I want to make an adjacent to the preview pane Custom panes in C#. After searching i found A post were someone want the same thinks. They end up with Hook. I have post this topic on MSDN (social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/607f9d9c-8f10-4eb7-8597-0a75e0179734/custom-task-panel-in-reading-pane-and-active-inline-response-22-with-adjacent-windows-in-c?forum=vsto). I have seen so many post about this problem bu no answer.
Thanks in advance.
See Creating Adjacent Windows In Outlook sample project. You are free to use any programming languages since you can use Windows API functions.
I want to change the appearance of the the form and the buttons, boxes etc which are laid on it. In java we can do that using Numbuzz look and feel or swing apperance. But i dont want to use the same traditional look of XP or any other OS which im gonna install my application, any one has an idea??
you could give Telerik a try and see if it's what you are looking for.
I'm using this library myself for application's design and i found it pretty cool. It has a lot of already made themes(like outlook controls...).
hope this helps
you could try to use WPF, WPF has been designed to make look and feel easily customizable.
or use vendor products like Infragistics WinForms (which allows you to specify Stylesheet kind of behaviour (search for infragisticsc stylesheet "ISL" ))
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.
My employer has asked me to create some web pages with various charts - one of the requirements is to have a click through ability for further detials. I am looking for sugestions on chart libraries that I could use.
c#, .net 2.0
UPDATE:
I used zedgraph with a imagemap
drilldown Sample
Check out ZedGraph.
Seems to be a bit stale in terms of active development, but it may give you what you want.
You can check out: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/11/24/new-asp-net-charting-control-lt-asp-chart-runat-quot-server-quot-gt.aspx :-)
The free ASP.NET Charting controls support clickable regions. You can set a URL for individual data items.
As long as you don't mind wiring all this up, you'll be fine. If you want the drill-down to happen automatically, you'll want something more powerful.
Examples could be Infragistics or DevExpress.
But I'm also looking for your opinions on other frameworks. It could even be WPF if that is your favorite.
Infragistics is very good. I think they have a better product for windows than the web. However, I get very upset using their products sometimes. I just want to find some hidden property, and it is impossible to find. They have way to many properties. Sure, you can do anything with their grid, but it should be easier. All of these vendors are leap frogging each other. You really have to compare all of them every year or two. I am currently using Infragistics on most web and windows project. If I could switch today, I would go to DevExpress for Web and Windows. Everything that Mark Miller and the guys at DevExpress produce is beautiful, and thoughtful. On a side point, you should check out CodeRush and Refacter. I may sound like a salesman, but I am not. I just could no longer code without CodeRush. It would feel like coding with one hand. If you are going to spend $1000 or more on a framework, you should also get CodeRush.
I've used Telerik RAD Controls for Asp.Net and it is a very comprehensive suite of controls that are easily converted to AJAX. The support is top notch, with the forum as a first place to go to for research before contacting the staff.
The client side API is fairly easy to understand, and they have good examples of mixed implementations with client and server side code.
I would say Infragistics
Haven't used it before, but I've heard good things about Telerik. My experience with the Infragistics Web components has been less than stellar. I found there were a lot of hidden features that I required, which were undocumented and had to go hunt around in the sample code for examples.
These toolkits can make sense for intranet applications but when you start providing it out on the web, the functionality can come at the cost of a bigger download for users. Just something to keep in mind.
What frameworks are you looking for? I currently use Janus Grids for grids on the winform side, but DevExpress has an awesome web grid that is amazing.
For current Winforms development my favorite is Infragistics. DevExpress seems to have more Silverlight controls in the works, but Infragistics may deliver.
I don't do much non-web development, but if I do I like to use gtk# for Mono (screenshots). It's much more fun and very easy to program then winforms. WPF looks good to, but I only tried an Hello World.
Infragistics has got good controls for Applications. WinGrid is one of the most important ones which would help you displaying information professionally and is quick.
the only drawback is the time consuming process of contacting their helpdesk or searching for the hidden properties. But they do work after you get to know them !
I would say go for DevExpress seems to be the most elegant, intuitive and well document suite out there.
To see their product offering in action demos.devexpress.com
Do the same for any component suite check out their demos and see which best suit you needs.