Windows Forms is a Graphical User Interface(GUI) class library which is bundled in .Net Framework. Its main purpose is to provide an easier interface to develop the applications for desktop, tablet, PCs. It is also termed as the WinForms. The applications which are developed by using Windows Forms or WinForms are known as the Windows Forms Applications that runs on the desktop computer. WinForms can be used only to develop the Windows Forms Applications not web applications. WinForms applications can contain the different type of controls like labels, list boxes, tooltip etc.
Creating a Windows Forms Application Using Visual Studio 2017
- First, open the Visual Studio then Go to File -> New -> Project to create a new project and then select the language as Visual C# from the left menu. Click on Windows Forms App(.NET Framework) in the middle of current window. After that give the project name and Click OK.
Here the solution is like a container which contains the projects and files that may be required by the program. - After that following window will display which will be divided into three parts as follows:
- Editor Window or Main Window: Here, you will work with forms and code editing. You can notice the layout of form which is now blank. You will double click the form then it will open the code for that.
- Solution Explorer Window: It is used to navigate between all items in solution. For example, if you will select a file form this window then particular information will be display in the property window.
- Properties Window: This window is used to change the different properties of the selected item in the Solution Explorer. Also, you can change the properties of components or controls that you will add to the forms.
- Now to add the controls to your WinForms application go to Toolbox tab present in the extreme left side of Visual Studio. Here, you can see a list of controls. To access the most commonly used controls go to Common Controls present in Toolbox tab.
- Now drag and drop the controls that you needed on created Form. For example, if you can add TextBox, ListBox, Button etc. as shown below. By clicking on the particular dropped control you can see and change its properties present in the right most corner of Visual Studio.
In the above image, you can see the TextBox is selected and its properties like TextAlign, MaxLength etc. are opened in right most corner. You can change its properties’ values as per the application need. The code of controls will be automatically added in the background. You can check the Form1.Designer.cs file present in the Solution Explorer Window. - To run the program you can use an F5 key or Play button present in the toolbar of Visual Studio. To stop the program you can use pause button present in the ToolBar. You can also run the program by going to Debug->Start Debugging menu in the menubar.
C# Windows Forms is a graphical user interface (GUI) framework that enables developers to create desktop applications for the Windows operating system. Windows Forms applications are created using the C# programming language and the .NET framework. They are built by dragging and dropping controls such as buttons, text boxes, labels, and other user interface elements onto a form.
- The Windows Forms framework provides a rich set of controls that developers can use to build applications with. These controls are designed to provide a consistent and familiar user interface for Windows users. Developers can customize the appearance and behavior of these controls by setting various properties and handling events.
- To create a Windows Forms application in C#, you can use Microsoft Visual Studio, which is an integrated development environment (IDE) that provides a visual designer to create and layout the user interface elements. The visual designer is a drag-and-drop interface for building your UI, and you can easily configure each control’s properties through a user-friendly interface.
- In addition to the visual designer, Visual Studio also provides a code editor that enables developers to write the C# code for the application’s logic. Developers can handle events and perform tasks such as data validation, data manipulation, and business logic implementation.
- Windows Forms applications are versatile and can be used to create various types of applications such as data entry, management, and reporting applications, as well as games and multimedia applications.
Overall, Windows Forms applications provide an easy-to-use and familiar graphical user interface for Windows users, making it an ideal choice for building desktop applications that require a high degree of interactivity and user engagement.