Winforms are too plain to "polish" your applications?

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Do you think WinForms are too plain and unsmooth?(ugly) And in fact, most of programmers use a third party library (very beautiful). To build such that library is not simple at all. And I think .NET forms and controls are only basic controls to develop other libraries not recommended to use directly building business applications.
Please share me with your experience on this problem (the appearance of application).
Thank you so much!

Posted 21-Apr-11 4:34am

King Boy

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#realJSOP · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-21T04:38:00

Solution 1

This is really not the appropriate place to post something that would lead to a threaded discussion on the topic. Use the appropriate forum for this.

Posted 21-Apr-11 4:38am

#realJSOP

Comments

[no name] 21-Apr-11 11:12am

I'm sorry, but I don't know where to post this. I have created my forms with many codes to make my application run, but when looking at my partner's work (we work in a group), although he hasn't written any codes (as I did, so hard), but his forms are so fine in appearance, he is using DevX library, and the master of group of course will prefer this to my design with Winforms. That means I may have to re-design with DevX library, and maybe some codes won't work in the new design. That's my unhappy story in this project. It made me think of this question. You know we are students and even a student can think of DevX to design not Winform, so what about real programmers? And I would like to know the truth, please pardon me! Anyway, .NET libraries are fundamental and the root of any others.

Marc A. Brown 21-Apr-11 11:23am

Perhaps in the lounge?

[no name] 21-Apr-11 11:35am

I'm sorry but what is in the lounge? Thank you!

Marc A. Brown 21-Apr-11 13:36pm

I was suggesting that the lounge (http://www.codeproject.com/Lounge.aspx) might be a better place to pose a non-programming question such as yours. After all, there's no "right" answer to the question; you're looking to stir up a discussion of the merits of skinned vs. non-skinned apps, right?

[no name] 22-Apr-11 1:26am

Thank you! I understand!

Marc A. Brown · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-21T04:40:00

Solution 2

I believe that if you're going to use a nonstandard look you have to be careful not to make a mess of it. WinForms gives you the standard Windows look & feel. Does that look make an application look "plain"? It can, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Posted 21-Apr-11 4:40am

Marc A. Brown

Comments

Rick Shaub 21-Apr-11 11:11am

I agree 100%. What others may call "plain", I call "clean".

[no name] 21-Apr-11 11:28am

To me, System Utilities and Applications really don't need what called "the good appearance", but some others may need it badly, and you can imagine the feeling of your customers when looking at your products. It is better when looking the better skinning applications.
Thank you!

Nish Nishant · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-21T04:41:00

Well Winforms is primarily a wrapper around the Windows API. So it looks like what the native windows and controls will look like. For skinning/theming and for better eye-candy, most folks I know use the DevEx library. DevEx is so popular that it's hard to find a large business application that uses Winforms without also using DevEx.

Technically you can customize the UI with Winforms too but that is nearly always too much effort. It may be more sensible to move up to SL or WPF where skinning and customizing the UI is far simpler and more flexible.