Question

I am building a WPF application in which I want to send users to our website if software updates are available. What are the best practices for embedding a link in a WPF window?

Some sub-questions:
Can I include a clickable URL? Should I open the link in their web browser? If so, what sort of command would open their default web browser? Should I include a navigation control in-app so they can download updates from there?

Answer 1

The ‘textbook’ answer to deploying an application that will have updates is the ClickOnce deployment. From MSDN: ClickOnce is a deployment technology that allows you to create self-updating Windows-based applications that can be installed and run with minimal user interaction. ClickOnce deployment overcomes three major issues inherent in deployment…

From http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/142dbbz4(v=vs.80).aspx

As to hyperlinks, you might consider adding them to your “Help | About” box. An example is the one for Notepad++…

To add a hyperlink…

    <TextBlock>
        <Hyperlink NavigateUri="http://www.bbc.co.uk" Click="Hyperlink_Click" >BBC</Hyperlink>
    </TextBlock>

And the callback would be…

private void Hyperlink_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    Hyperlink hyperlink = sender as Hyperlink;
    if(hyperlink!=null)
    {
        Process.Start(hyperlink.NavigateUri.AbsoluteUri);
    }
}

This will open the default browser and cause it to navigate to the link’s address.