Introduction

With so much focus on Web-based user interfaces, it s easy to dismiss the traditional Windows architecture when developing for the Internet. The recent popularity, however, of peer-to-peer file sharing and online chat programs demonstrates that the rich client can work extremely well over the Internet, and provide features unavailable in thin client model. The .NET platform provides a modern solution for developing Windows applications, with the following key features:

• A revamped object-oriented model, with a focus on consistency and extensibility

• A rapid application development environment in Visual Studio

• Easy access to the Internet through .NET networking libraries and Web Services

• Managed execution environment that allows custom controls to be hosted in a Web page

• Compilation to a small executable

And, of course, you no longer have any installation worries you just need to copy a small executable to the target machine and run it. Rich client has become thin.

The components provided in the .NET library for writing Windows applications can broadly be divided into two groups: Windows Forms (the components that manage windows and controls) and the graphics device interface known as GDI+ (the classes that encapsulate the lower-level graphics functions). This chapter covers Windows Forms in some detail, also touching upon GDI+, and it takes you step by step through the process of creating typical rich client applications.

Introducing Windows Forms

In essence, Windows Forms is a collection of classes and types that encapsulate and extend the Win32 API in a tidy object model. In other words,...