MS apps looking more like web applications... THE FUTURE OF UI?
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It seems that the next generation (including many products released in the last two years) of desktop applicatoins developed by Microsoft seem to look more and more like web applications. Quite a few seem to use IE as the interface host. Take a screenshot of the new CRM suite to be released by year end: http://www.greatplains.com/documents/images/CRM\_integrate\_smartly.jpg This is obviously an instance of IE... the menu, status, and tool bars really hammer it home but I'm also noticing quite a few of the applications also have hover text links and perform most of their actions via a web-like interface. In my opinion, these new interfaces are a welcomed change. Nothing negative of the past ones. I think they are starting to blur the line between what is a desktop application and what is a web application. I'm curious to how this is being implemented. If they are using IE has their UI host, then how exactly are they making the interface itself? Is it just HTML pages with a lot of web controls? I'm a seasoned web developer and have some experience in desktop apps (getting more and more into WinForm applications). I'd like to start using this type of an interface in my applications rather than the existing UI we've been working with for so many years. I'd love to see some discussion on this topic from some of the MS developers as well. Thanks! -AC, MCDBA Andrew Connell, MCDBA IM on MSN andrew@aconnell.com
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It seems that the next generation (including many products released in the last two years) of desktop applicatoins developed by Microsoft seem to look more and more like web applications. Quite a few seem to use IE as the interface host. Take a screenshot of the new CRM suite to be released by year end: http://www.greatplains.com/documents/images/CRM\_integrate\_smartly.jpg This is obviously an instance of IE... the menu, status, and tool bars really hammer it home but I'm also noticing quite a few of the applications also have hover text links and perform most of their actions via a web-like interface. In my opinion, these new interfaces are a welcomed change. Nothing negative of the past ones. I think they are starting to blur the line between what is a desktop application and what is a web application. I'm curious to how this is being implemented. If they are using IE has their UI host, then how exactly are they making the interface itself? Is it just HTML pages with a lot of web controls? I'm a seasoned web developer and have some experience in desktop apps (getting more and more into WinForm applications). I'd like to start using this type of an interface in my applications rather than the existing UI we've been working with for so many years. I'd love to see some discussion on this topic from some of the MS developers as well. Thanks! -AC, MCDBA Andrew Connell, MCDBA IM on MSN andrew@aconnell.com
It is done by using the MS HTML engine together with the HTML DOM engine in IE. The text for the HTML is stored in strings in the application, and they are outputed to the IE control via the DOM calls (document.Write("bla") in javascript) Events get raised up into the application, so clicks can be processed by the EXE. This is all still a bit of a hack. I can't wait for when they get it really right, with a form designer built from the ground up with all the features of IE for rendering.
