I’m working on some AutoCAD plugin for my company and I was considering some layouts for it. However, I cannot spend a ridiculus amount of time on the look of the application. I need something resonably fast to deliver that will improve the global user experience. That said, I don’t think I can get too far away from Winforms or WPF (Winform being my comfort zone, but I know the advantages of WPF and might have to expend my zone of comfort).
The main thing I’m trying to acheive is a “floating” multi-panel interface where you can “slide out” additionnal options and such. Imagine a form that has a list of projects in a list view or grid view and when you select one, a panel slides on the left of the form with a list of all the items involved in that projet. That’s pretty much what I’m trying to do but there will be more then one panel like that.
I have tried different approches in Winforms such as:
- Split Pannels – I found the layout limitations too high to be usable
- Using seperated forms instead of panel – The maintenance would become a nightmare…
Is there another Winform alternative or should I move on to WPF? If I move on to WPF, what exactly is the feature I should be looking for to acheive my goals?
It seems the general consent is that WPF is more flexible but to achieve extensive customization with moderated to little amount of work, a UI library would be required. Also, it seems there isn’t a whole lot of “good” free frameworks and I would need to buy something like DevExpress, Component One or Telerik