UI components for touch screen winforms applications? - vb.net

I have seen this question:
Are there any decent UI components for touch screen web applications? and have allmost exact the same question but Im focused on winforms.
I working on an application that is not primary made for using with a touch screen, but now I see more and more customers using touch screen and want the application to support it better.
I want to "add" to the UI so that for example a rightclick on a combobox (or click a button at the side of the combobox) opens up a dialogbox that handles the showing and selecting of the items easier on a touch screen.
Controls I want to enhance or replace are listboxes, comboboxes and textboxes.
I know its easy to create those controls myself, but I think there must be some standards and allready tested UIs that works good in that environment. I dont want to reinvent the wheel and make a bad one if it allready exists good ones.
To sum it up:
Are there guide-lines for controls regarding touch screens, then where?
Are there any allready made controls I can byu (or free ones) out there?
Thanks!

Found some information:
Interaction Design Guide for Touchscreen Applications
http://www.sapdesignguild.org/resources/TSDesignGL/INDEX.HTM
pdf-version:
http://www.sapdesignguild.org/resources/TSDesignGL/TSDesignGL.pdf
The interface between humans and interactive kiosks
http://www.visi.com/~keefner/pdfs/focus1.pdf
Keys to a Successful Kiosk Application Some tips can be used generally:
http://www.visi.com/~keefner/pdfs/Kiosk-Tips.ppt

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Changing application layout via buttons in VB .NET

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adding animation to an access form - front end

I am Learning how to create dynamic Access Databases using VBA code and SQL. One of my big "pet peaves" is that the user interface is slick and very professional looking.
I am looking for some tecniques in cosmetic touch ups to make the user interface more professional looking. For example, i would like it so that when the user clicks on a button to activate a sub form which is hidden, that the form appears with a bit of "smoothed animation" such as and exploding transition-type effect instead of the standard hard visual appearance of the form which is the standard.
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This can not be done within Access, it's not designed for that. Access is a database application that comes packaged with Office. It's not going to provide any crazy out-of-the-box animation, it's just not meant for that. It's meant to be a very simple, stripped down database application.
It is somewhat feasable that you could create animations in a 3rd party app (such as Adobe AfterEffects) and have those animations run prior to the form opening, similar to how one would create motion menus for DVDs.
You could put a bunch of small animated graphics (like lights on a Christmas tree or tiny arrows) all around the sub-form and time it to display for a short while.

VB.Net form as part of desktop

I've spent a while searching around and I can't find a solution to this:
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It seems to do what you require.
This article is about Application Desktop Toolbars, which are
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article will develop a base class for developing such apps.

Silverlight - Lync Application nested in a table

I'm very new in Silverlight and the Lync-SDK. So sorry for the question from a beginner.
Long time ago, i wrote al little web application, based on php for reading out contacts from a sql database.
Now the customer expand his envoirement and place Lync. Now he want the little Lync-Status-Square in the webapplication for click to call features.
I playing a little bit with the SDK of lync.
The following problem comes up. The square of Lync is nested in a td of my table. But the Lync-Silverlight-Applet need dynamical space for hover effects or single clicks. But in my table, i have no space, specially dynamic space.
So i switch off all hover and click functionality and place the follwing buttons in the StackPanel separate.
PresenceIndicator
StartInstanceMessagingButton
StartAudiCallButton
SendEmailButton
Two of them are fine.
Clicking on the IM-Button, The Lync Client opens the right Contact in IM-Mode and i can directly type a message. Perfect!
Clicking on the Mail-Icon, an Mail-Client will open, perfect.
The PresenceIndicator just display the color, not the exactly state, thats a problem, when the color is yellow. I can display the state in a TextBlock, but i prefer a label appears while hovering over the icon.
But my mainproblem is the StartAudioCallButton. This Icon is an dropDown-Icon. And i have no space for dropdowns. I would be so nice if this icon has the same behavoior like the IM-Button. The Lync Client will open in Call Modus and i can select, which callernumber i will use. Is that possible?
Thank you for Your time!
Frank
If you're having trouble with the layout of the standard Lync SilverLight controls, then the best thing to do is implement your own SilverLight controls for the function you're having difficulty with.
User Controls are really simple to create, there are plenty of tutorials on how to get started if you're not familiar with the process.
The Lync SDK has some great walkthroughs to get you up and running with signing in to Lync and placing an audio call
I don't know of any way to get Lync to open in a Call Mode as you suggested, but if you're limited with screen space, maybe you could have your custom StartAudioCallButton open a popup with the phone numbers in?

Windows Phone 7 WebBrowser control swallows manipulation events?

If I place a WebBrowser control on any page, the page no longer responds to manipulation events under the WebBrowser. Other areas of the page work fine.
It's easily confirmed by overriding OnManipulationCompleted in a page, then placing a WebBrowser control on the page. Try swiping over the WebBrowser, and OnManipulationCompleted is never called.
I can't set the WebBrowser to IsHitTestVisible=false because I need to be able to click on links. But I want the page to respond to left/right swipes.
Anyone got any bright ideas? Or know if this is a bug in the current release?
I'd like to extend what Skeet already written.
The point is, that the MS WP7 dev team has published "guidelines", where they highly discourage putting (on the same page) multiple layout controls that accept and react to the same set of gestures. For example, you shouldn't try to embed a Pivot inside a Pano, because the horizontal-swipe will clash and it will be hard do distinguish which of them should execute its actions. The same case is with the browser: it responds to all swipes and pans.. so should not be put in almost any scrolling control!!
Now, having said that, I want to tell you it is possible to overcame it - although it may turn not easy, depending on your actual case.
The most trivial thing to do, if you want to still be notified about the gestures is to use GestureService/GestureListener from the Silverlight Toolkit library. Even when the WebBrowser extinguishes the raw manipulations events, the GestureListener will still be able to notify you - because it apparently listens on some "other layer", I don't exactly want to get in to it now. Just fetch the library, add-reference it, do something like:
GestureService.GetListener( targetcontrol ).Flick( myBrowserFlickHandler );
and it's done - you get the notification whenever someone flicks on the control, with completely no regard of the manipulation events being e.handled=true or not. Small disclaimer here: I don't remember if on 7.0 it works, because the WebBrowser is build a bit differenlty there. On 7.1 and 7.5 it should work.
However, if you apply that on a WebBrowser - you will get the notif - but the webbrowser will get it too. That means, that 2 controls will react, and it turn to be visually quite rejecting if you start some storyboards from within the handler..
On 7.1 and almost-current 7.5, it is possible to play hard with the WebBrowser and to completely control which manipulation-event it will see. Thus, by filtering the mani-events for the WB, and by using GestureListener to see the events yourself, you can both block the WB from doing anything, and at the same time you can respond with your own action instead. I've written about that extensively in a response to similar problem, see WP7 Pivot control and a WebBrowser control for details. It is not a quick/easy/funny thing to do though.
EDIT: and MOST importantly, it is NOT guaranteed to work in the future. Throughout the 7.1 and 7.5 SDK/OS/API versions, inside the WebBrowser control some major internal undergoing changes are visible, and I would not be surprised, if it would dramatically change in the next few releases. Don't play with the things I've wrote there about if you do not want to have to revisit the subject again in the next 1-2 years.
This is a consequence of the way we implemented WebBrowser. The touch events are handed off directly to the browser engine. Once that happens Silverlight is basically out of the picture. Unfortunately I can't think of any workarounds that might give you what you want. -Skeets, MS dev
If you really want it:
<Grid>
<phone:WebBrowser Source="http://www.microsoft.com" />
<Rectangle Fill="Transparent" ManipulationCompleted="HandleManipulationCompleted"/>
</Grid>
But of course it completely locks down interaction with web browser control and there's just no way to echo manipulation events to browser...
I think you have a better way capturing the manipulation events, if it is in WP7.5 Mango since the browser controls are completely different, which I read from this link