Comments on: Aero.Wizard and Aero.Controls code pack released

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 00:23:00 +0000

Aero.Controls isn’t a shrine to elegance, it’s an effort in convenience. The Windows UX Guidelines dictate what a Main Instruction label is, and so I set those defaults. Yes, it’s just like a regular label you get out of the box… except, it’s ready to dump onto a form and be ready to go. Just like the rest of the controls.

Aero.Wizard is a bit rough, because I ripped it out of Default Programs Editor, rather than starting it as a separate project from the start.

However, it takes some hubris to announce you have superior revisions you won’t be contributing back. This is why it’s open source- so my efforts can be improved upon by others such as yourself, and the next guy benefits from both of us, and so on. Not contributing back isn’t hurting me, it’s hurting the next guy who was looking to make an Aero UX compliant project in Winforms, and came here not interested in rewriting the wheel. This stuff is super basic, and nobody should have to rewrite it from scratch- that’s why I posted it.

By: Nameless

Nameless — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 23:57:00 +0000

I must say, your coding style is severely lacking. I pray to God that nobody will ever inherit any code you write. These projects are the biggest mess I have come across in quite some time. Variables thrown all around the place, random naming conventions, redundant comments, violating several standard coding practices, not using P/Invoke correctly (you just stole some code from random websites, I guess?), etc. etc; the list could be continued endlessly.

Even after taking apart Aero.Wizard and Aero.Controls and throwing away everything I don’t need (seriously, a Main Instruction Label whose only function is to enforce a specific Font and ForeColor???), FxCop still gives me over 60 warnings.

I still have about a day of refactoring to go before this stuff is anywhere near usable for production-quality code; I’ll stop for now since the day is almost over. The depressing thing is that due to the BSD license, I actually have to credit you for your “effort” even though my refactoring is essentially equivalent to a rewrite. *sigh*

PS: No, I don’t intend to make my refactoring efforts public.

By: factormystic

factormystic — Sat, 29 May 2010 05:01:06 +0000

You could do it a couple ways. One easy way is to make the controls public scope, then access them via their page via the Wizard's history stack. You could also define globally scoped data structures in your Program.cs (if this is a Wizard-only project, this is probably where you'd instantiate it). Basically, do it the same way you'd access data or controls in a multi-form application, except, in this situation the forms are page controls and they all have access to one another via their host Wizard.

By: Al

Al — Fri, 28 May 2010 00:13:57 +0000

I figured it out. Call ShowDialog and pass the instance of the first page in Main.
How do you pass any control values from controls placed on a page? That is, if I have an instance of page1, and it has controls contained, I can't get an instance of a local page1 on page2 and have the local page1 objects avaialable.

By: factormystic

factormystic — Mon, 24 May 2010 02:27:36 +0000

You mean, can the wizard be the only form of your application? Like how Default Programs Editor works? If this is your question, yes, no other forms are required.

By: alleyes

alleyes — Fri, 14 May 2010 19:32:15 +0000

Any plans for a WPF port?

By: alleyes

alleyes — Wed, 12 May 2010 18:41:47 +0000

Stupid question here.
Does your code pack allow a page as the start-up? That is show a wizard page first rather than have another form call the ShowDialog method of the first page?

By: alleyes

alleyes — Wed, 12 May 2010 00:25:56 +0000

Long search for Aero Controls/Wizards taken me here. What a find! Absolutely perfect for anyone looking to upgrade wizard pages to the new controls. Many “Aero” samples out there including samples in the latest SDK (v.7.0) However, this is the only code pack that works in XP as well. Perfect if you are targeting XP and up.

Well done

By: Factor Mystic

Factor Mystic — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 15:57:31 +0000

It works on XP, but it doesn’t switch to an old wizard style; just a gracefully reduced mode.

By: Stefan

Stefan — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 21:04:48 +0000

Hi,

is it possible to use the aero wizard for applications which should run on Windows XP too? Does he have the native WinXP/Wizard look then_