Chapter 18: Integrating WPF with Windows Forms

Overview

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) was introduced in the last chapter as Microsoft’s next-generation solution to graphical user-interface development. In terms of user interfaces, the transition to this new model will be similar in significance and paradigm shift to the shift from COM-based Visual Basic to Visual Basic .NET. In other words, the paradigms and syntax familiar to developers of Windows applications are changing, and most of the changes are not backwardly compatible. Currently, there are no plans for an automated migration from any existing user-interface paradigm, forms, or Web, to the new WPF format.

Yes, again you will need to transition existing application source code to a new technology paradigm. Perhaps not this year or next, but at some point the WPF paradigm will be used to update the look and feel of existing applications. How will this transition compare to the last major .NET-related transition - the one from COM? Whereas Visual Studio includes a tool to aid in migrating code from the COM-based world to .NET, there will not be a migration tool provided to transition existing user interfaces to WPF. You might consider this to be a good thing, considering the history of the current migration tools. However, Microsoft is providing libraries that enable user-interface developers to integrate these two interface models. In the long run, this integration will probably go the way of COM-Interop, which is to say it will be available but carry such a stigma that people will only use it when absolutely necessary.

This chapter takes you through several key areas of Windows Forms Integration, including the following:

• Forms integration - Crossbow

• Using WPF controls in Windows Forms

• Using Windows Forms controls in WPF

• Interop limitations

This is a fairly short list, but you might want to consider reviewing some of the Interop limitations. After all, nothing clarifies some of the differences between the capabilities of these two user-interface platforms quite like a look at the limitations when they are viewed together. Just as with COM-Interop, the key for this tool is to help you, the developer, transition your application from Windows Forms to WPF over time, while working with time and budget constraints that all developers face and potentially waiting on the availability of a control that isn’t available in the .NET 3.0 version of WPF.