With Wise J you have a choice of using Windows or Pages
VWG essentially encouraged the use of a single main form onto which you switched user controls in and out to provide the functionality you needed.
Before I embark on building quite a large app I want to make the right basic choices.
What the advantages / disadvantages of using Windows instead of Pages?
Can a user control be constructed using either?
What is best approach to use with Wise J?
Thanks
For your help
Ewan
I’d say that Pages and Windows are not alternative to each other. It depends on the design of your app. For a new app I’d use either a Page for the main screen and windows for modal dialogs. Or a maximized mdi (not closable or resizable) with mdi children.
I don’t understand the question about user controls being constructed using pages or windows. A user control is a control that can be used anywhere.
This is an example of a landing Page
Followed by a themed Mdi with mdi children
Hi again Ewan,
For a Desktop with mutiple applications, have a look at the CodeProject sample.
You can have a look at UI Containers sample in Examples.
Hi Ewan,
As a personal note I would say it’s your choice. I made a few sample applications you can see and run on WinForms/Wisej Samples. I had the same question. As the main application workspace, on some of the samples I used Page while on others I used a maximized unmovable Window.
On CslaSample I have two versions, one for each scenario. Anyway what I have on the main application workspace is a panel where I load controls. You can load controls directly without a panel, but that’s an MVVM thing, well… Caliburn.Micro’s to be more precise. This can be done with either Page or Window. No differences here.
There is a 3rd scenario – use a desktop with several applications. In this case, applications should be Window applications because that’s easier to handle. And I think this answers my question. For multiple applications, I would use a desktop. For a simgle application I would use a Page application because it’s cleaner and I see no pros on having a maximized unmovable window.
Provided your application workspace is just a host for controls, this is a design decision you can change later, as you don’t need to change the controls. Changing from one scenario to the other is just a question of adapting the Window to the Page or vv.
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