I'd like to know if is there a way to "skin" a Form and every widget used inside it. Images should be on background and other elements shall be setup accordingly.
In short, a way to implement a way to display the same Form in different flavors (i.e.: theme and eyecandy UI).
DevExpress makes a WinForms control suite with an excellent selection of skins.
Telerik also provides WinForms components with theme support. I've used their library and it works fine.
Related
Is it possible to remove the border of a standard C# Button ? I know that I could set the FlatStyle property to Flat and customize the FlatAppearance property to hide the border but I would prefer to use the Standard property to ensure that the control appears under all operating systems like a default Button. Did you have any suggestions how I can solve this issue? I am working with a Windows Forms Application.
You could use an image and make it clickable, that is one way to avoid the borders, but there are several options. Good luck!
If you are using windows forms and trying to implement Flat UI, Material UI, Metro-Looking controls, you're in hell. It is has limited properties for customizations unless you know how to work with Graphics and Animation. You'll have to use imagebox or picture box and dynamically change its image on different events.
I'll suggest WPF or Windows Presentation Foundation for a more customizable User Interface.
so far I have been using a standard winforms TabControl to host my different modules of my application statically, for example different GridViews. But this way the whole form becomes too big as it contains too many controls.
I would like to separate all the different "pages" each as a UserControl (from what I've heard, that's better than using Forms). Is that ok? And how is that best implemented with Telerik controls?
I thought about using a RadDock control and add my UserControls as tabbedDocuments to it.
DocumentWindow docWindow = new DocumentWindow();
MyUserControls.FirstGrid ctrl = new MyUserControls.FirstGrid();
docWindow.Controls.Add(ctrl);
radDock1.AddDocument(docWindow);
Is that ok to do? Is there a better way?
Forms are very different compared to UserControls. I don't know exactly how you would like to separate the different pages of your application, but a UserControl always requires something to 'host' or display the UserControl in. A Form is a 'standalone window', basically.
Using the RadDock and tabbed documents is a valid way of doing it, but there a plenty of ways to separate different pages in your application, so I can't say which one fits best your requirements.
I have two propositions for you:
If you decide to go with UserControls, you can use RadPageView (or RadDock) and on each RadPageViewPage (or DocumentWindow in RadDock) to add the UserControl in the Controls collection and show it.
You can use the Auto MDI functionality of RadDock and show your forms as MDI windows in it. More information is available here.
Create own TextBox, Button etc control as own control using User control in C# Windows application, is this good idea?
I wanted make consistency for through out the application. Suppose if I want to change the Textbox border color then all forms textbox updated with this changes. It's just an example.
Please suggest me.
I don't recommend using UserControl just for consistency. If application skinning is what you are after, look into WPF. It makes it relatively simple to skin an application (or even a window, or smaller groups)
Here is an article on skinning with WPF: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/19782/Creating-a-Skinned-User-Interface-in-WPF
Another alternative, staying within Windows Forms, is creating a class that inherits from TextBox, and using that class throughout the application. The Factory pattern would work well here. You could even adapt it to multiple skins.
It's not a bad idea to provide custom controls that match your "User Experience" (UX). It really just depends on what you are trying to accomplish with your program.
I'm making C# windows application ("Windows Forms Application") with default components, but I need to change default look of the form and all items on it (buttons, etc.) from classic windows style, to custom. How can I achieve it?
For example make buttons round, add transparency to some objects, make other objects with different shape, and so on.
It doesn't have to be customizable, but I just need to change it from default to something else. Maybe there's some components or something else that I can use? Or maybe there's additional GUI library that I can download and add to the project?
You didn't provide us with many details on how you want to customize the form.
You can change colors used on the form by setting the BackColor and ForeColor properties.
You can also apply background image to the form and use the TransparencyKey property in order to create a form with an irregular shape. More information about this method can be found here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6k15y9et.aspx
Doing this manually and trying to have something looking nice takes waaay too much time. For start, look at this thread:
Best Free Controls for .NET
Is it possible to use the WebBrowser control as a UI interface in C#?
I like to write a string of HTML directly into the control and get an event and read the value of the hyperlinks when such a link is clicked. HTML is a great rendering language and it seems to be a waste if we could not use this technology in applications.
If this is not possible are there any good alternatives, as the WPF controls are not 'fluid' enough. I require a very flexible rendering environment but prefer not to reinvent the wheel.
I like to clarify that of course I can include such a control and get and send data using HPPT or other protocols but in my case I want to directly assign a string of HTML and capture the click on hyperlink events.
You can host any Windows Forms control in a WindowsFormHost (you'll probably find it in the toolbox.
However, FlowDocument maybe more suitable for such things, as it's truly WPF, so it can be the content of any control.
You could use the WebBrowser control to render your application's UI. I would advise against it. Versions of the controls could influence the way your application renders and it's going to be a hasle to mantain all the resources used in the UI (html, pics, javascript?)
Read a bit more on WPF, Expression Blend 3 was just released and you can make an awesome UI with it. To keep it fluid don't go crazy on things like transparency, it slows down loading times. WPF is a far more future proof technique.