A
Andrew Connell
Occassionally I'll see posts in here from users looking to design applications with a UI that is more web-like than desktop. An example of this would be the latest Money, Quicken, and even the latest MS CRM suite. None of these applications use what look to be web-feeling interfances. I personally think these are favored by users over the traditional desktop (or thick client) apps.
Unfortunately, all the replies I seem to find only speak of workarounds and fixes on howto handle events. I was hoping, and actually expectnig, to see more design, arctitecture, strategy, and MSDN articles on this subject from MS developers, but have been surprused at the lack there of.
In my latest pet project, I've dedicated my focus on what I call the "RichWebUI WinForm". I've even toyed with the idea of extending my own WindowsForms class to implement some of these methods. If you've found some good articles on this subject please post them as I'm sure others would love to dig in... and maybe one or two of the .NET WinForm MVP's can chime in here.
Here are some resources or methods I've seen implemented. The former talks about using the ASP.NET runtime within the context of a WinForm app (sort of like the start page in VS.NET). The demo is a look at some screenshots of the CRM suite... this is the ideal UI (Money comes in a distant 2nd). The latter is a MS article on IUI, dealing with breaking an application up into pages... a web technique.
Using the ASP.NET Runtime to Extend Desktop Applications with HTML Scripts
http://www.devx.com/codemag/Article/15575
[Flash Demo]: Microsoft Business Solutions CRM Overview Demo
http://www.microsoft.com/BusinessSolutions/MSCRM/Demos/mscrm_demo.mspx
Microsoft Inductive User Interface Guidelines
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwui/html/iuiguidelines.asp
Unfortunately, all the replies I seem to find only speak of workarounds and fixes on howto handle events. I was hoping, and actually expectnig, to see more design, arctitecture, strategy, and MSDN articles on this subject from MS developers, but have been surprused at the lack there of.
In my latest pet project, I've dedicated my focus on what I call the "RichWebUI WinForm". I've even toyed with the idea of extending my own WindowsForms class to implement some of these methods. If you've found some good articles on this subject please post them as I'm sure others would love to dig in... and maybe one or two of the .NET WinForm MVP's can chime in here.
Here are some resources or methods I've seen implemented. The former talks about using the ASP.NET runtime within the context of a WinForm app (sort of like the start page in VS.NET). The demo is a look at some screenshots of the CRM suite... this is the ideal UI (Money comes in a distant 2nd). The latter is a MS article on IUI, dealing with breaking an application up into pages... a web technique.
Using the ASP.NET Runtime to Extend Desktop Applications with HTML Scripts
http://www.devx.com/codemag/Article/15575
[Flash Demo]: Microsoft Business Solutions CRM Overview Demo
http://www.microsoft.com/BusinessSolutions/MSCRM/Demos/mscrm_demo.mspx
Microsoft Inductive User Interface Guidelines
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwui/html/iuiguidelines.asp