Windows Forms: Difference between revisions

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| website = {{URL|https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/desktop/winforms/}}

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'''Windows Forms''', also known as ('''WinForms'''), is a [[free and, open-source]] [[graphical user interface|graphical]] (GUI) [[Library (computing)|class library]] for building Windows desktop applications, included as a part of [[Microsoft]] [[.NET]], [[.NET Framework]] or [[Mono (software)|Mono]],<ref>{{cite book|title=Windows Forms Programming in C#|last=Sells|first=Chris|publisher=Addison-Wesley Professional|edition=1st|date=September 6, 2003|page=xxxviiii}}</ref> providing a platform to write client applications for desktop, laptop, and tablet PCs.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff647339.aspx|title=Design and Implementation Guidelines for Web Clients by Microsoft Pattern and Practices|publisher=Microsoft|date=November 2003}}</ref> While it is seen as a replacement for the earlier and more complex [[C++]] based [[Microsoft Foundation Class Library]], it does not offer a comparable paradigm<ref>{{cite book|chapter=Appendix B|title=Moving from MFC, Windows Forms 2.0 Programming|last1=Sells|first1=Chris|last2=Weinhardt|first2=Michael|publisher=Addison-Wesley Professional|edition=2nd|date=May 16, 2006}}</ref> and only acts as a platform for the user interface tier in a [[Multitier architecture|multi-tier]] solution.<ref>{{cite web|title=Introduction to Windows Forms|type=Visual Studio 2003 documentation|publisher=Microsoft 2003|url=https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa983655(v=vs.71).aspx}}</ref>

At the [[Microsoft Connect]] event on December 4, 2018, [[Microsoft]] announced releasing Windows Forms as an open source project on [[GitHub]]. It is released under the [[MIT License]]. With this release, Windows Forms has become available for projects targeting the [[.NET Core]] framework. However, the framework is still available only on the Windows platform, and [[Mono Framework|Mono's]] incomplete implementation of Windows Forms remains the only cross-platform implementation.<ref name="OpenSourcingGuiMartin">{{cite web |url=https://www.infoq.com/news/2018/12/msft-open-source-wpf-winforms | title=Microsoft Open Sources WPF, WinForms, and WinUI | last=Martin | first=Jeff | work=InfoQ | date=4 December 2018|access-date=2018-12-06 }}</ref><ref name="OpenSourcingGuiHanselman">{{cite web |url=https://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingWPFWinFormsAndWinUIAreGoingOpenSource.aspx | title=Announcing WPF, WinForms, and WinUI are going Open Source | last=Hanselman | first=Scott | date=4 December 2018|access-date=2018-12-06 }}</ref>

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==XAML backwards compatibility with Windows Forms==

For future development, Microsoft has succeeded Windows Forms with ana [[XAML]]-based GUI entry using frameworks such as [[Windows Presentation Foundation|WPF]] and [[Universal Windows Platform|UWP]]. However, drag and drop placement of GUI components in a manner similar to Windows Forms is still provided in XAML by replacing the root XAML element of the Page/Window with a "Canvas" UI-Control. When making this change, the user can build a window in a similar fashion as in Windows Forms by directly dragging and dropping components using the Visual Studio GUI.

While XAML provides drag and drop placement backwards compatibility through the Canvas Control, XAML Controls are only similar to Windows Forms Controls and are not one-to-one backwards compatible. They perform similar functions and have a similar appearance, but the properties and methods are different enough to require remapping from one API to another.

== Alternative implementation ==

[[Mono (software)|Mono]] is a project led by [[Xamarin]] (formerly by [[Ximian]], then [[Novell]]) to create an [[Ecma International|Ecma]] standard compliant [[.NET Framework]] compatible set of tools. In 2011, [[Mono (software)|Mono]]'s support for System.Windows.Forms as of [[.NET Framework version history#.NET Framework 2.0|.NET 2.0]] was announced as complete;<ref>{{cite web

In 2011, [[Mono (software)|Mono]]'s support for System.Windows.Forms as of [[.NET Framework version history#.NET Framework 2.0|.NET 2.0]] was announced as complete;<ref>{{cite web

| url=http://www.mono-project.com/WinForms

| title= WinForms

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|access-date=2011-07-30

|quote=''For tools that are mostly OpenGL/DirectX based, use Windows.Forms, keeping in mind that some bug fixing or work around on their part might be needed as our Windows.Forms is not actively developed.''}}</ref>

Full compatibility with .NET was not possible, because Microsoft's System.Windows Forms is mainly a wrapper around the [[Windows API]], and some of the methods allow direct access to Win32 [[Callback (computer programming)|callbacks]], which are not available in platforms other than Windows.<ref name="monofaq-winform"/> Mono's WinForms implementation is based on Mono's libgdiplus, which implements [[GDI+]] on top of [[Gtk]] and [[Pango]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Mono / libgdiplus · GitLab |url=https://gitlab.winehq.org/mono/libgdiplus |website=GitLab |language=en}}</ref>

A more significant problem is that, since version 5.2,<ref>{{cite web

|url=https://www.mono-project.com/docs/about-mono/supported-platforms/macos/