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Thread: Graphics Packages for improving look and feel of UI

  1. #1

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    Graphics Packages for improving look and feel of UI

    Hi,

    I am looking for recommendations with regards to any tips and suggestions on the improvement of the look and feel of windows forms designed in vb.net studio.

    I was used Krypton but my trial ran out and I am looking for other packages, tools or ways to improve the look of my forms.

    Can anyone suggest any ideas?

    Thanks

  2. #2
    Super Moderator si_the_geek's Avatar
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    Re: Graphics Packages for improving look and feel of UI

    Thread moved from the 'Database Development' forum to the 'VB.Net' (VB2002 and later) forum.

  3. #3
    PowerPoster boops boops's Avatar
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    Re: Graphics Packages for improving look and feel of UI

    Quote Originally Posted by AC1982 View Post
    Hi,

    I am looking for recommendations with regards to any tips and suggestions on the improvement of the look and feel of windows forms designed in vb.net studio.

    I was used Krypton but my trial ran out and I am looking for other packages, tools or ways to improve the look of my forms.

    Can anyone suggest any ideas?

    Thanks
    Hi Krypton,

    If you are not satisfied with the possibilities of Windows Forms, you should definitely look at WPF. You get it together with Visual Studio 2008+ including the free Express editions, and it's designed in the first place for creating high-quality GUIs. Unlike the System.Drawing classes, it takes good advantage of hardware acceleration. Among other things it provides better support for animations and for perspective 3D. You can provide its code in VB.Net, although it also makes extensive use of the declarative language XAML.

    The main drawback is that it is quite a steep learning curve if you are coming from Windows Forms and GDI+. Unfortunately it seems relatively hard to find detailed help on forums.

    BB

  4. #4
    Frenzied Member MattP's Avatar
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    Re: Graphics Packages for improving look and feel of UI

    Quote Originally Posted by boops boops View Post
    Hi Krypton,

    If you are not satisfied with the possibilities of Windows Forms, you should definitely look at WPF. You get it together with Visual Studio 2008+ including the free Express editions, and it's designed in the first place for creating high-quality GUIs. Unlike the System.Drawing classes, it takes good advantage of hardware acceleration. Among other things it provides better support for animations and for perspective 3D. You can provide its code in VB.Net, although it also makes extensive use of the declarative language XAML.
    I would agree with this as you have full control over how everything looks and behaves. If you go with the WPF route I'd stress that you get the Expression Studio suite as it can make a lot of the styling, animation and behavior modification trivial.

    Quote Originally Posted by boops boops View Post
    The main drawback is that it is quite a steep learning curve if you are coming from Windows Forms and GDI+. Unfortunately it seems relatively hard to find detailed help on forums.
    Not sure if you meant to say "steep learning curve" as that means it's very easy to pick up.

    That being said once I learned XAML and how things tied together this option makes more sense and is easier to work with.

    -----

    Here's some links to get you started if you decide to go that route:

    http://windowsclient.net/learn/

    http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/For...6-19daee04147a

    http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/wpf/threads

    http://social.expression.microsoft.c...zh/wpf/threads

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    PowerPoster boops boops's Avatar
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    Re: Graphics Packages for improving look and feel of UI

    Quote Originally Posted by MattP View Post
    Not sure if you meant to say "steep learning curve" as that means it's very easy to pick up.
    Well spotted Matt: I meant the opposite. I should stick to my usual metaphor of "a steep hill to climb".

    But that's a bit subjective. Perhaps there is a good book that will help. I'll admit I have not bothered much about interface design because I am mostly interested in using WPF as a graphics package per se. And my problem has been finding my way in the dozens of different Bitmap and Image variants rather than learning XAML thoroughly.

    BB

  6. #6

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    Re: Graphics Packages for improving look and feel of UI

    Thanks for all the valuable information it looks like I have a lot of reading to do.

    I have already done a lot of coding for my application but the GUI is designed with windows forms. If I replace the windows forms with wpf as my GUI does that mean I need to start coding from scratch again?

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