Win forms or WPF

[Tony]

Can somebody give some guidelines about windows desktop applications such as
when should WPF be used and when can win forms be used.
I know the difference so you don't have to explain that.

//Tony

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

Can somebody give some guidelines about windows desktop applications
such as
when should WPF be used and when can win forms be used.
I know the difference so you don't have to explain that.

You should go with WPF unless you either have very strong
Win Forms skills you want to utilize or need to run on
very old .NET versions.

WPF is preferrable because:
- it is newer and should receive more enhancements than Win Forms
- it uses more modern approach to GUI via XAML
- it is much closer to the WP/SL and Metro in XAML flavor, so
WPS skills are more reusable

Arne

 

[Neil Barnwell]

Can somebody give some guidelines about windows desktop applications suchas
when should WPF be used and when can win forms be used.
I know the difference so you don't have to explain that.

//Tony

It depends.

If you're writing a small app with few use-cases, that's not really "enterprisey", or maybe prototyping something out, you may find WinForms faster.

However, if you're beginning an app that has a long life-expectancy (several years) and a solid future in terms of new functionality etc, then WPF is almost certainly the way to go. If you do it properly and go with somethinglike MVVM you get better separation of logic from layout, and while XAML can be a steep learning curve, there are things like Pluralsight that will get you started in just a few hours, and the skills will be transferrable toWin8/Silverlight etc.

For anything other than a really very trivial app, I'd choose WPF every time.

 

[Radu Cosoveanu]

Can somebody give some guidelines about windows desktop applications such as
when should WPF be used and when can win forms be used.
I know the difference so you don't have to explain that.

//Tony

Hi,

From my point of view the most important differences are related to design and usability.
If you want to have a very rich interface, you should use WPF.
If you want to go and use Silverlight in your application, you should use WPF.
If you have more experience in WinForms and have no plans for web application, and no so rich design, you should use WinForms.

It is related to your project. If is a long project, you should take in consideration WPF. But it has a difficult learning curve.

regards,
Radu Cosoveanu