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C#: Why is Application in System.Windows.Forms?

Answer 1

+6 A:

For the paths, you can also look at the Environment class in .NET:

Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData)

and there's a whole slew of "special" folders you can ask for.

The CompanyName and other options are pulled from the "AssemblyInfo.cs" in your "Properties" folder by default - if you have such a file, you can also access those yourself in code.

Hm, with those paths you have to append the company name and product name and such yourself though...

Yes, that's what the System.Windows.Forms assembly is doing for you. If you don't have a Winforms app, you'll have to do that yourself, that's true.

Marc

marc_s 2009-11-02 09:37:09

+1, sounds good to me, and all the useful stuff is available in any .net application, not limited to winforms

JL 2009-11-02 09:38:53

Hm, with those paths you have to append the company name and product name and such yourself though...

Svish 2009-11-02 09:50:15

@Svish: I don't understand what you mean - those are just the default "special folders" that Windows keeps internally - your user's AppData directory or stuff like that.

marc_s 2009-11-02 09:51:41

For example: When I print out `Application.UserAppDataPath`, I get *C:\Users\userName\AppData\Roaming\CompanyName\ProductName\ProductVersion*. But when I print out Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData), I get only *C:\Users\userName\AppData\Roaming*.

Svish 2009-11-02 09:56:06

How would you access the stuff in AssemblyInfo.cs? It has no class... (hehe...)

Svish 2009-11-02 10:40:46

That's where System.Windows.Forms gets that information from, that's what I'm saying

marc_s 2009-11-02 11:23:32

The AssemblyInfo class is in the System.Reflection namespace. You would need to create a new Assembly class and then use the GetCustomAttributes method to retrieve the values.

James 2009-11-02 11:47:16

@James: Aha, so some reflection is required to get those then.

Svish 2009-11-02 13:25:47

@Svish, yup I would imagine the Application class is simply wrapping this up in the static properties.

James 2009-11-02 13:50:46

Answer 2

A:

Application class launches win32 message loop which is tightly related to windows forms.

Vitaliy Liptchinsky 2009-11-02 09:45:48

Answer 3

+1 A:

Quoted from MSDN System.Windows.Forms namespace documentation:

The System.Windows.Forms namespace contains classes for creating Windows-based applications that take full advantage of the rich user interface features available in the Microsoft Windows operating system.

The only real reason I can see the Application class being placed in the System.Windows.Forms namespace is because it handles Windows Messages which are usually posted by Form controls.

James 2009-11-02 10:08:16

Yeah, that is true. I guess someone at Microsoft messed up regarding the single responsibility principle or something then... :p

Svish 2009-11-02 10:14:50

Wouldn't be the first time either! :P

James 2009-11-02 10:19:35

Answer 4

A:

You could get the info you're looking for using the Assembly namespace

Raj 2009-11-02 10:17:59

Do you have an example?

Svish 2009-11-02 10:37:46

Answer 5

+2 A:

Information such as "ProductName" comes from the main assembly in a WinForms application. There is no "main" assembly in an ASP.NET application.

If you are running under a service account without a profile (which may often be the case for an ASP.NET app), there will be no UserAppDataPath - in fact attempting to dereference the UserAppDataPath property will throw an exception.

For these reasons, it would not make sense to expose this information to an ASP.NET app.

Joe 2009-11-02 11:28:28

Good points. Didn't think about the ASP.NET side of things :)

Svish 2009-11-02 13:26:29

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C#: Why is Application in System.Windows.Forms?

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