I wrote a console program in c# that takes up to three files as input, and does some data calculations on them.
I’d like to make a simple frontend that allows the user to easily
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import files – basically choose up to three files to be routed to the backend code
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change settings – I have about 10 settings that I’m currently storing in an app.config file. maybe a simple settings box would be nice
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see what’s going on – the console program shows some status messages that might be useful to display on a GUI
I have practically no experience with windows forms or GUI design, so I really don’t know where to begin. I compiled the backend stuff into a *.dll and am currently playing around in design mode of sharpdevelop…but i really have no idea how to get the two to work together.
any pointers would be greatly appreciated!
If you want to get started with GUI design in .NET, I recommend you choose WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation). This is the latest technology released in the UI/graphics area by Microsoft and is where everything is heading now. (Windows Forms won’t be obsolete for a long time, though it is surely but slowly becoming deprecated.) I noticed however that you are using SharpDevelop, which doesn’t yet have real support for WPF (as far as I know), whereas it certainly does for WinForms. If there’s any chance you can use Visual Studio, I recommend you begin by learning WPF. You have the advantage of not being confused by previous experience with the styles and methodologies of WinForms, so it would very much be the right way to go.
Whichever you wish to learn, the Getting Started page of WindowsClient.NET (the official MS site for both WinForms and WPF) would be a great resource. There’s also a few MSDN articles on getting started with WPF.
Hope that helps.