I code GUIs in .NET frequently, and most of them only have the value of being a GUI, e.g. they don’t do anything otherwise impossible. So most of the development goes to making them friendly, intuitive and eye-candy.
Then it comes to my mind it would be simply amazing to skin them through .msstyles files, since there are so many places to find those files, and also tools to make your own.
And some of those msstyles are just stunning, probably not for your whole desktop, but for styling homemade apps it would be perfect.
So, is it possible to style apps in .NET (either VB or C#) using .msstyles (or maybe something similar, since .aero.msstyles, .theme, etc. should be convertable to some point)? Even if it requirired some complicated setup or something to learn, once made practical all GUI development would be much easier.
Maybe some sort of virtualization? I don’t know how virtualization works behind the scenes, but I believe the .NET app calls some Windows API to give him the style, maybe virtualizing that would work? how?
Any idea is very welcome! And if I find an answer to that I’ll contribute it as well 🙂
If you want to theme your own GUI then why don’t you use WPF?