Make C# applications look nice

Question

I have been designing many applications for my company lately where "fancy" interfaces have not been needed, and where the "basic" controls have been good enough in terms of looks.

However, I have just been handed a project where the "typical" VS(Visual Studio 2010) look is not going to cut it. Is there some where that I can get "fancy"er looking controls for VS so that it does not look like a cheap build, or a basic windows program?

Answer 1

Go and learn Windows Presentation Foundation. It utilizes DirectX and provides developers with a compact model for building rich user experiences for Windows-based systems. You can start on this tutorial site to learn about what WPF is and what you can do with that framework.

Also check out these components to see the power of WPF:

• DevExpress DXperience
• Telerik
• ComponentOne
• Syncfusion

Answer 2

Some of the options:

1. Move to WPF.

2. Telerik, Devexpress, Infragistics etc offer richer library, but could leave a hole in your pocket.

3. Bare minimum, you could just How can you make a .net windows forms project look fresh?