Building Windows Applications

Visual Studio makes it easy to create Web-based applications, but there are times when you will want to create Windows-based applications that run, at least partially, on the client’s desktop. One reason is that Windows-based applications can provide a richer user interface and better management of large amounts of locally stored data. Another is that they may cost less to build and deploy as you don’t need to involve third-party hosting providers.

Windows Forms (WinForms) is the core development platform for building Windows-based applications for the .NET Framework. In Windows Forms, a form is a visual surface on which you display information to the user. You ordinarily build Windows Forms applications by adding controls to forms and developing responses to user actions, such as mouse clicks or key presses. A control is a discrete user interface (UI) element that displays data or accepts data input.

Learn How: Lab 9

Managers need the ability to easily manipulate the data in the database. The Windows Forms DataGridView control makes it easy to provide this ability. By updating the local database and exporting an XML dataset, both internal and external databases can be kept synchronized. In Lab 9, the Windows Forms application from Lab 2 is modified to read data from the SQL Express database and present a master-detail view of Employees linked to the Sales Orders. This lab will also show you how to use ClickOnce to deploy the Windows applications from a web server.

Additional Resources

Getting Started with Windows Forms
This list of how-to topics shows you how to harness the power of Windows Forms to display data, handle user input, and deploy your applications easily and with enhanced security.

Windows Client .net
This Microsoft site provides an array of resources related to Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). You'll find video tutorials, virtual labs, hands-on labs, discussion forums and over 800 controls you can download for your WPF and Windows Forms applications.

WinForms Video
This video introduces the enhancements to Windows Forms application development in the .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005.

DataGridView Control
The DataGridView control adds the ability to use heterogeneous controls, frozen columns, and enables you to easily create richer end user experiences than ever before.

Windows Forms Walkthroughs and How-to Topics in the .NET Framework 
These walkthroughs and how-to topics give step-by-step instructions for common scenarios, which make them good places to start learning about Windows Forms or a particular feature area of the technology.

Deploying Your Application
Learn to deploy Windows and Web applications and provide protection for applications and data.

101 Visual Studio Samples
This site has dozens of sample applications for use with Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0. Check out the Windows Forms sample section in either Visual Basic or C#.