Talking with Microsoft, I learned of some of the additions they are making for .NET Orcas (due at the end of this year). I am investing quite heavily into Windows Forms projects here at my company; therefore this environment is quite important to what I am doing here. Some of the highly touted items that are being added to Windows Forms are a lot of WPF interoperability items. This was announced at last year's TechEd, but the idea is that you will be able to host WPF controls directly inside of a Windows Forms application. You will also be able to do the reverse. You will be able to host a Windows Forms control directly inside of a WPF application. This is going to make for some interesting hybrid applications. In addition to the WPF interoperability story, additional changes to expect for Windows Forms Orcas include:
- Getting rid of the "White Screen of Darn" – This basically means that presently there is sometimes the problem in the designer of a white screen when the code you have placed inside of the InitComponent() method. Instead, you will find that VS will help you better diagnose what the issue is.
- N-tier Data support for using a DataSet with a hierarchical update
- Offline and cached data with the new SQL Server CE and Sync Services for ADO.NET (for both WinForms and WPF)
- Client App Services, with caching and offline support (Authentication and Settings) (for both WPF and WinForms, although this will be more integrated into WinForms settings)
- Vista consistency and support such as the new Open File Dialog and Vista Themeing as well as Vista LUA support
- The Visual Basic group is shipping some additional controls, such as a Repeater and Line/Shape control , but since this is .NET, you will be able to grab the DLL and use it in your C# project if you so wish. This will probably be released as some kind of VB toolkit instead of being included in the actual framework – so look for it there
- Office (VSTO) support is scoped to Windows Forms. You will not find VSTO support for WPF applications so this is something for Windows Forms only
As I learn of more features, I will post them.