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Making "pretty" GUIs in .NET?

J

JonTheBaller

Golden Member
I want to spice up the GUI in my C# .NET Windows application. I want to be able to do stuff similar to what a tool like DotNetBar does. Of course, I don't want to pay $190 for it. Any quick, easy, and hopefully free suggestions? Btw, I don't need to do stuff like dockable toolbars, just "prettier" menubars and buttons.

Thanks!
 
It isn't for me. I am doing some work for a small company, and they have backgrounds in business, not computers, so they are really big on presentation.
 
Making your app look totally different and not conform to any UI standards is good presentation? If that was true, why wasn't X hailed as the greatest UI around with all the different widget sets out there people use. I find it really annoying that MS preaches about how Linux doesn't have a chance at the desktop because no 2 apps look the same (which isn't even true) but then their Office and VS teams go off and totally ignore all of MS' own UI standards at every release.

No offense but if I knew those people were going to judge my application on whether or not my toolbars were beveled, I wouldn't be working for them much longer. Obviously if the UI sucks to the point that the app isn't usable without weeks of training there's a problem, but if the program works find and the only fault they can find is that it looks too 'normal' and that's enough for them to stop development that's also a problem.

Sorry for the rant but I really do like the idea of UI guidelines and frankly I think Linux and OS X both have Windows beat in UI uniformity, which is pretty funny considering how much MS touts their guideliness.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
Making your app look totally different and not conform to any UI standards is good presentation? If that was true, why wasn't X hailed as the greatest UI around with all the different widget sets out there people use. I find it really annoying that MS preaches about how Linux doesn't have a chance at the desktop because no 2 apps look the same (which isn't even true) but then their Office and VS teams go off and totally ignore all of MS' own UI standards at every release.

No offense but if I knew those people were going to judge my application on whether or not my toolbars were beveled, I wouldn't be working for them much longer. Obviously if the UI sucks to the point that the app isn't usable without weeks of training there's a problem, but if the program works find and the only fault they can find is that it looks too 'normal' and that's enough for them to stop development that's also a problem.

Sorry for the rant but I really do like the idea of UI guidelines and frankly I think Linux and OS X both have Windows beat in UI uniformity, which is pretty funny considering how much MS touts their guideliness.
Click to expand...

he makes a good point...the a pretty UI should come second to functunality and good clean code.
 
Nothinman, I completely see your point. This is just one cause that's not worth fighting for me. I'm not looking to do major UI overhauls, just thinks that these type of people would deem good UI. Also, what do you think of "skinnable" apps?
 
plus that toolbar at the top is very similar to the toolbars in Office 2003 and several other productivity apps coming out, so it wont be 'dissimilar' for long, good or bad.
 
plus that toolbar at the top is very similar to the toolbars in Office 2003
Click to expand...

I know, that's why I mentioned how the VS and Office teams get to go off and totally ignore all of MS' own UI standards at every release, which contradicts all of MS' talk of UI standards being a big advantage of Windows.
 
:shrug: why cant they make new standards? I saw some Longhorn presentations and the same visual representations were there as well, maybe that is just where they want their user interface to go next. What better place to start than Office and Visual Studio.
 
:shrug: why cant they make new standards?
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But not even MS' other tools use them, it's just Office and VS that look different.

And frankly what's the point? It doesn't help the usability of the app, if anything it just hurts it because it makes users adjust to a new environment.
 
then why not use the ass ugly setup from Windows 3.11? If things dont attempt to progress, things will always suck. It isnt just MS either, I see new KDE and GNOME versions coming out, and some of the newer Linux apps are starting to look pretty good too. Should they have all continued to look like they did under the old Xterm versions? I think not. Some people think change is bad. I think the opposite. I want things to change as rapidly as the users can conform, so we can get to the awesome user interfaces that are coming up in the next 50 years or so.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
I'm not saying progress is bad, but really what good is beveled buttons compared to flat buttons?
Click to expand...

It makes you wanna click on it more.
 
nevermind, some people arent worth trying to have a conversation with
Click to expand...

Only because you can't prove there's something better about fruit colored buttons compared to 'standard' windows grey ones. They add nothing in the way of ease of use or intuitiveness (is that a word?) if anything the only thing they do is make it harder for people with bad eyes to distinguish the buttons.
 
It's actually about marketing: MS changes the look with each new version to make the previous versions look old and out of date, to subtly pressure you into upgrading to shiny newness. It also helps disguise how little of substance has actually changed.

But it works, so be sure to do it in your own apps 😉
 
I guess I just don't have that "must have the newest version" syndrome anymore, years of using Linux and everything 'just works' most of the time will do that to you I guess =)
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
Making your app look totally different and not conform to any UI standards is good presentation? If that was true, why wasn't X hailed as the greatest UI around with all the different widget sets out there people use. I find it really annoying that MS preaches about how Linux doesn't have a chance at the desktop because no 2 apps look the same (which isn't even true) but then their Office and VS teams go off and totally ignore all of MS' own UI standards at every release.

No offense but if I knew those people were going to judge my application on whether or not my toolbars were beveled, I wouldn't be working for them much longer. Obviously if the UI sucks to the point that the app isn't usable without weeks of training there's a problem, but if the program works find and the only fault they can find is that it looks too 'normal' and that's enough for them to stop development that's also a problem.

Sorry for the rant but I really do like the idea of UI guidelines and frankly I think Linux and OS X both have Windows beat in UI uniformity, which is pretty funny considering how much MS touts their guideliness.
Click to expand...

Yeah... apps like trillian drive me crazy. The default skin (and 99% of other skins) look NOTHING like normal windows apps, and it is completely non-obvious what each button does. Plus, since my monitor is a rectangle, I don't particularly like any window shape that you can't tesselate inside of a rectangle, because that's a waste of realestate.
 
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