Multiple panels in a Windows Forms app. Standard coding or encapsulated browsers?

Question

1.00/5 (1 vote)

See more:

My project has a main form with a header and several navigation buttons below. Below those is an area for displaying the content associated with each nav button and the panels that contain the content span the whole bottom area. I have coded a good chunk of the first two panels but it then occurred to me that, because this app consists heavily of forms, why not use an encapsulated web browser in each of the panels that dynamically load pages and their forms and then are controlled by the main form.

Which is a better, more efficient, and easier way to tackle this issue, and are there any major drawbacks to the second approach that would make me want to avoid it?

Posted 22-May-15 13:14pm

FrostedSyntax

Add a Solution

Comments

Dave Kreskowiak 22-May-15 20:46pm

That depends entirely on what your "content" is, what you're going to with it and how you're going to interact with it. You didn't go into any of that so it's really impossible to say.

FrostedSyntax 22-May-15 22:36pm

I appreciate the response and I apologize for the lack of needed information. The content will be mostly comprised of forms with fields to contain values. There will have to be panels of buttons too and a few data lists, like usernames, emails, first and last name etc. Some of the panels will allow for an administrative function like adding and removing users, and some of the panels will deal more with the use of data reporting. It will need to be pleasing to the eye as well as very user-friendly. Nothing too complicated as our client's don't tend to be very technically inclined.

gggustafson 22-May-15 22:33pm

I would have used a TabControl

FrostedSyntax 22-May-15 22:40pm

I considered that. I really did, but the interface just isn't customizable enough. For our client we need to follow a color scheme and keep everything easy to look at and easy to use. We have decided to make the navigation a simple blue bar with equally spaced white words for the buttons. To my knowledge there isn't a way to achieve that level of customization with a TabControl. Good thought though.

gggustafson 22-May-15 23:00pm

I'm not sure what you mean when you state "the interface just isn't customizable enough". You can draw your own TabPage headers in whatever color scheme you'd like. See https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/a2d68883-e5b8-47e9-a46b-6d8f0008086e/how-to-set-color-for-tabpage-header-in-a-tabcontrol-?forum=csharpgeneral

1 solution

Add a Solution

Add your solution here

Treat my content as plain text, not as HTML

Preview 0

…

Existing Members

Sign in to your account

...or Join us

Download, Vote, Comment, Publish.

Your Email
Password
Forgot your password?

Your Email
This email is in use. Do you need your password?
Optional Password

I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Please subscribe me to the CodeProject newsletters

When answering a question please:

Read the question carefully.
Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar.
If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or edit the question and fix the problem. Insults are not welcome.
Don't tell someone to read the manual. Chances are they have and don't get it. Provide an answer or move on to the next question.

Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.

This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

Dave Kreskowiak · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-22T17:25:00

Web pages inside of a bunch of browser windows is just too complicated for something like this. Plain old Panel controls or UserControls populated like forms would do the job quite easily.

As far as what you mean by "customizable", only you know.

If you're looking for theme support or something like it, consider doing this in WPF instead of Windows Forms. The problem with going that route is the steep learning curve of WPF. I would HIGHLY recommend getting on book on WPF and working through it before you even think of starting an app in it.