CODEWITHSUNDEEP
winforms
Isaac Bolinger
Isaac Bolinger

Reputation: 7388

Can anyone point me towards a winforms prototyping tool?

I don't know if such a thing exists, but suppose you're at a meeting with a client and you're designing gui screens together. Is there some program out there that makes it easy to just draw a picture of the winforms screen, and maybe append little notes to the picture? I don't want to use the designer for such a thing. Hopefully if it's really good, then my clients could design the screens for me.

Anyone know of such a tool?

-Isaac

Upvotes: 7

Views: 8910

Answers (4)

IgorJ
IgorJ

Reputation: 428

There are many such tools: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/156937/balsamiq-mockups-alternative-for-building-wireframes

And for the difference between IDEs and specialized mockup tools check this: Whats the best way to create interactive application prototypes?

Upvotes: 2

Jude Cooray
Jude Cooray

Reputation: 19862

I've found Pencil to be really nice and easy to use. It can run standalone or on Firefox. It's free, open source and light weight!

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Upvotes: 14

Keith Nicholas
Keith Nicholas

Reputation: 44298

this is a fantastic tool for doing this :- http://balsamiq.com/products/mockups

there's also a plugin to convert to winforms, however, I think its better to just mock it up using this tool, then design using the mockups as a guideline

Upvotes: 4

BenSwayne
BenSwayne

Reputation: 16900

There are tools for this, but then again the current generation of IDEs like Visual Studio are just as fast to mock up a design as would be a graphics tool.

If you insist on a non-IDE software, try Microsoft Visio. It comes with some built in stencils for the "core" windows controls (a little dated with traditional menus, toolbars, etc.. no ribbon UI or even Vista UI) but you can also download more stencils online and create your own stencils for frequently used pieces of work. One area Visio excels at is the ability to add annotations, notes, arrows and symbols to your drawing.

Many developers take a hybrid approach by taking a screenshot of your UI from your development application and pasting it into Visio. Now you can decorate the screenshot with all the little annotations and explanations while you discuss it. (This is also a good technique for documenting your UI).

Upvotes: 1

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