The "What do you think of how my app looks" thread

[chris128]

So yeah, I figured seen as one of the main benefits of using WPF is being able to make better looking applications, it might be a good idea to have a thread in this forum for people to post screen shots of their apps and just ask for other people opinions/suggestions on the look and feel.

Obviously people developing in teams/businesses have got many people to talk to about the look of an application but for us people that are just developing on our own, there often isnt really anyone to ask for advice on application design and layout. Hence the idea for this thread.

I dont know, maybe no one will post here and it will slowly drop to the bottom of the list but I just thought it might be a good idea to help people get feedback on their apps

EDIT: Plus, it will be nice to see some of the great things that are possible with WPF

[chris128]

Well I guess its only right that I post the current status of my main project at the moment, so here's what the main job logging screen looks like in it at the moment (still a work in progress):



As you can probably tell, the 3rd item up from the bottom is the currently selected item.

and here is the 'dashboard' window that appears when the user first logs in and is meant to just provide them with a way to view some quick summary reports and the menu items at the bottom allow them to get into the various sections of the program (a text title for each menu item appears when the mouse goes over each one). With this screen I think I need to change the way the reports are displayed at the top as they dont look very good to me at the mo:

[Pac_741]

the layout, is great, i like it, there's something i don't like though, i don't know what is, maybe the colors.

[Pac_741]

Ok, this the contact mannager, i'm working on, Chris128 you know about it, the background and the Upper Bar, have different colors to chose from.
Please give tell me if you like this Graphic User Interface.

[chris128]

I like it, looks good. You might already be planning on changing this but the text that shows the name of the currently selected contact needs to be a colour other than black because its too hard to see (on that screenshot anyway).

Have you started working on the screens that let you create/edit the contacts?

[Pac_741]

Yes, i've made all the necessary windows, i made the dialogs to have full transparency if you are using Windows Vista, i'll post a screen shot later.

[chris128]

cool, yeah a screenshot would be good

[Pac_741]

This is a screenshot showing different color scheme, while adding a new contact.

[chris128]

Only a very minor thing but the label that says "Group:" in that New Contact window is too small so the p in Group doesnt get the bottom half of it rendered. You see what I mean?
Also, I dont know why but I think it might look better if the New Contact window was a little wider. Probably just me though.

[DeanMc]

What are you using for the semi transparent information window? is it just a form?

[chris128]

It looks to me like he has just used the standard windows Vista Aero glass. You can use windows APIs (there may be an easier way that im not aware of though) to make it cover the entire window in 'glass' instead of just the title bar and borders.
However, Microsoft do have a guide on application styling in Vista and they do say that you should not over use 'glass' or something along those lines. I'll see if I can find a link

[Pac_741]

Chris128, i know what you mean of the group label, i fixed that already, thanks for pointing it out, and i don't know about making the dialog wider, it's seems fine to me, but thanks for your opinion i might do it.

And to extend the Aero transparency to all the window, i got a little help from thirtheen23, those guys are awesome!.

[Pac_741]

Come on, people post screenshots of your applications!

[chris128]

they are obviously all too ashamed of their hideous apps after seeing our beautiful creations :P

[Pac_741]

, i bet there's people here with awesome looking applications.

[DeanMc]

Actually Im too busy writing applications to colour your mistakes so they are easier to resolve. That and Im looking into a blogging engine for silverlight.

[RobDog888]

The first shots are a bit dark colored but looks great. The other ones with the green are a bit too green but also look great. Good looking shots guys.

[Pac_741]

Thanks, RobDog888, the background color and the toolbar color of my app can be set to be different colors, so i leave that to the user.

[chris128]

The first shots are a bit dark colored but looks great. The other ones with the green are a bit too green but also look great. Good looking shots guys.

Yeah I am finding that it does look a bit dark on some monitors, so I might make it a slightly lighter blue gradient

[RobDog888]

Thanks, RobDog888, the background color and the toolbar color of my app can be set to be different colors, so i leave that to the user.

Ok cool, in that case you have it set.

[RobDog888]

Yeah I am finding that it does look a bit dark on some monitors, so I might make it a slightly lighter blue gradient

Usually bsuiness software is more on the lighter side of color schemes too. Not saying anything bad, just an observation. Is yours going to be commercial?

[chris128]

Its supposed to be used in businesses yes, but its going to be free so I dont know if that means it is still classed as 'commercial' or not?

[RobDog888]

If its targetted for business then no matter free or paid, its a business app and thus commercial.

[chris128]

Tut, no one else has any nice looking WPF apps they want to show off??
This thread has been up for 2 months now and so far only has 2 apps in it :P

[DeanMc]

Well, my starting off with C# led me off wpf and onto XNA which I am having barrels of fun with!

[chris128]

your off WPF??
Is XNA the thing you make games with?

I thought you gave up on C# in favour of VB!?

Either way, you can use WPF with C# as well as VB so im a little puzzled how changing to C# led you off WPF

[DeanMc]

Well here is what happened....

The more I debugged x:Light the more examples I needed of how people worked with strings. Every example I found was in C# so I gave in to the dark side and start writing in C#. Once I got over the silly little quirks in Visual Studio I began to like C# for some odd apparent reason.

As I played with C# more I became more interested in the language than my project so I started to mess around more with sample code people had. This led me to find a sample game made in XNA and I got hooked. I'm not sure if it is the game making part or the engine part that has me hooked but I am really enjoying the XNA challenge as you really have to think about what your writing!

[chris128]

I seeeee I tried my hand at XNA ages ago but as it was all C# I couldnt really get my head around it that well as I'm too used to using VB so I gave up on it pretty quickly lol
Is x:Light finished now then?

[DeanMc]

It it is more easy to use. On the subject of x:Light, yes and no, it parses Xaml fine but the C# version does not work so well. For that I have a mass of C# language specifications to read up on. I'm also looking at implementing a new rendering engine so that could be a while.

[chris128]

Well just to try and keep this thread alive, here's a screenshot of my new custom error message box that appears whenever an exception is thrown in my app. I didnt intend for it to turn out quite so similar to the windows vista dialog box style but now that its finished it does look quite like them... but oh well. It looks exactly the same on XP, obviously minus the aero glass in the title border.



when you expand the debug information section it animates the window height as it expands

[DeanMc]

Very nice except for the black button, actually I am in the process of working on a game level editor in WPF so I will update when i get some of it working!

[chris128]

Cool yeah post it up when its looking good

As for the black button, thats not actually included in my error dialog box class, its just that in that particular screenshot I was using the class within another project that has a custom button style defined for all buttons in the application, so it affects this one too. Might have to have a look at changing it so that this one overrides the default style..

[DeanMc]

You should other than that it's a really well presented box. How are you getting on with expanders?

[chris128]

You mean expanders as in that thing I've used for the "Debug Info" section? If so, yeah I find them to work perfectly well when you set what you want to be inside them via XAML instead of trying to use the designer to drag stuff into them lol you having a problem with them or something?

[DeanMc]

I was with the designer too but I also used the Xaml way and found it (like most times I use Xaml of the designer) easier!

[chris128]

Yeah I dont really use the designer much to be honest, it changes too many things that you dont want changing half the time. I use Blend occasionally to make gradient brushes etc but I do pretty much everything else through XAML or code

[DeanMc]

Lol power user, man my WPF has got very rusty I really need to brush up on it!

[chris128]

same here mate, I havent used it for a couple of months... dont even talk to me about data templates and binding!

[DeanMc]

*shudders* I know I know, but this level editor should bring it back into swing for me!

[chris128]

My new custom messagebox class that now replaces all of the MessageBox.Show calls in my application

Just took a few screenshots to show the difference between the standard one. Any feedback welcome