How to build UIs like skype

Question

I want to know how can I build UIs like skype using standard .Net/C#. Is it possible at all?

Thanks

Answer 1

You can use Windows Presentation Foundation to build more stylish GUIs than Windows Forms. It's pretty difficult to move from Forms to WPF. You usually need a good design tool, like Expression Blend.

Answer 2

AFAIK skype was built using Qt4, it's rather easy to build custom gui widgets, check C++ GUI Programming with Qt4, 2nd Edition and this tutorial.

P.S. check this to see how to build qt4 on windows using MSVC 2008.

Answer 3

It might be possible to build such an UI using Windows Forms, but only with a lot of custom control code or a really good component suite. But as Chris said, WPF should be the tool of your choice when you want to use .NET.

Qt4 is a really powerful C++ framework, also powering apps like Google Earth. The Qt SDK, inclduing everything you need to get started (Compiler, IDE, documentation), can be obtained here. It's licensed (among others) under the LGPL.

Answer 4

Windows Presentation Foundation will give you the most flexibility, but it can be hard to use. An alternative to this is Sliverlight - Version 3 is going to be capable of being used outside of the browser (similar to Adobe Air), and in some ways provides an easier development experience. You might want to consider using some third party controls to give you access to nice functionality that you wouldn't get out of box.

Answer 5

To my acknowledge Skype is build with Delphi an a set of third party tools, so it for sure can be done without WPF. Take a look at the components from DevExpress or TMS.