Introducing Windows Forms

Microsoft Windows operating systems have truly emerged as the de facto standard operating systems for end- user desktops. Multiple flavors have emerged in the past years , with the Windows XP operating system being the most current one. The graphical user interface capabilities provided by Windows have gone far ahead in increasing end-user productivity in computer-based applications. Not only have users become accustomed to the set of prebuilt Windows productivity applications, such as Microsoft Office Suite, Windows is a platform of choice for deploying customized enterprise and consumer applications.

You cannot ignore the impact that the introduction of Web-based application development has brought to "traditional" Windows-based applications. However, limitations that exist today in the Web protocols and standards still prompt enterprises to develop their own custom applications. Key is the stateless HTTP stack; limitations of HTML include browser incompatibilities. Windows applications still enjoy the enriched graphical user interfaces such as drag and drop, enhanced reporting and charting, and in a number of cases, a better overall user interface because the application resides on the desktop and doesn't have to connect with the server for each user activity. In a nutshell , as a developer you will face scenarios where you have to pick and choose the user interface that you should be using for your application: Web-based or the classical Windows-based interface.

Luckily, if you choose the classical Windows-based application user interface as your preferred application-development and deployment approach, you will be pleased with the enhancements to the Windows Forms (also sometimes known as WinForms) application development model introduced with .NET Framework with the rich Windows Forms class library.

Key to these enhancements are the following:

• Visual Basic programmers have traditionally enjoyed the benefit of a rich and simple development environment for rapid development of graphical user interfaces. With Windows Forms, support of richer graphical user interface development is extended and enhanced for Visual C#, Visual C++, and Visual J# developers with the introduction of the CLR Windows Forms class library.

• .NET Windows Applications provide zero install deployment capability and don't require any registration of controls. To install an application, just copy the application executable and any class libraries used to a desktop folder. Similarly, to uninstall an application, simply delete the folder. (This assumes that the .NET Framework distributable runtime is already installed on the user's machine. The good news is that the runtime is prebundled with later versions of Windows operating systems and service packs . Otherwise, the redistributable can be included with your application and should be installed prior to running any .NET applications.)

• A rich set of controls including buttons , labels, check boxes, radio boxes, group panels, tree view, tab control with tab pages, status bar, a number of predefined dialog boxes, and so on.

• Apart from the list of standard controls, users have the capability to aggregate the basic controls to develop more complex user controls or build a control from scratch to meet their own custom needs. The user control phenomenon leverages the third-party vendor support initiated by ActiveX Controls for a rich set of third-party .NET controls. If you are using a set of ActiveX controls with your existing applications, chances are that the vendor has already "ported" the control to its .NET counterpart .

• Support for ADO.NET data binding. In addition to relational databases, data binding can be easily extended to encompass data sources beyond databases using Web services.

ADDITIONAL SECURITY REQUIREMENTS FOR ZERO INSTALL APPLICATIONS

Whereas downloadable code means ease of deployment, it can pose additional security risks because of the very fact that the code is downloaded. Luckily, the .NET Framework includes the concept of Code Access Security (CAS), which provides additional permissions-based restrictions that can be imposed on downloadable code.

Windows Forms truly builds on the runaway success of Visual Basic and takes it to the next level. It still provides the ease of use and flexibility to a developer to quickly develop GUI applications and Web sites, and it also provides the flexibility of using any .NET programming language and using one integrated development environment, Visual Studio .NET.