Introduction

CompositeUI Application Block (CAB) is an architectural framework that provides a flexible and independent approach for developing Windows Forms applications.

It is intended to provide proven practices to build complex UIs based on simpler “parts”. The CAB UI framework is designed to improve the development speed, ease of maintenance, reliability and re usability in large Windows Forms applications. CAB is built on a new component-based framework that is an extension of the System.ComponentModel namespace.

Basic Concepts - CAB and Component Model

The CAB core consists of three projects. The first two, CompositeUI and CompositeUI.WinForms, compose the UI-centric portion of the code. The third,ComponentModel, contains the structural classes that make up the backbone of the architecture.

Composite UI - Modeling the Use Case

One of the central concepts in CAB is the WorkItem. Each WorkItem represents a single use case. A WorkItem object is a container that holds all of the objects that are required to complete the use case for which it is responsible. These objects could be user controls (called "SmartParts" in CAB), state containers, or even other WorkItems to handle child processes.

SmartParts are the windows controls that you use to build the UI for an application. They are "smart" because they live within the context of a WorkItem and are self-describing. These can be any type of control, including custom-developed user controls. All you have to do to make a control a SmartPart is to mark the class with the [SmartPart] attribute. The trick is that these parts should be independent from one-another as possible and communicate only through well known channels. This allows “composing” the application from many such parts and switching them dynamically.

There should be a placeholder that can be used to put the controls in. In CAB these are called Workspaces. These are special controls that can be put on a Form or UserControl and then tell the framework to display a SmartPart in a particular Workspace. Out of the box, the following are the types of workspaces:

• WindowWorkspace

• MdiWorkspace

• TabWorkspace

• DeckWorkspace

• ZoneWorkspace

Each workspace implements a set of methods and properties that allows you to display and control SmartParts. Related to workspaces, they are SmartPartInfo components that you can put on your SmartPart to provide additional information to the containing Workspace.

However all these elements are hosted in a suitable environment which, is provided by a Shell. It is a root of the non-visual organization of components and you create it by writing a class that derives from FormShellApplication.

Syncfusion CAB Add-on

Syncfusion Essential Studio consists of several .NET UI libraries that provide support for building modern Windows and Web applications using Microsoft .NET framework. The Syncfusion CAB Add-on provides extensible support for working with the CAB easily. It helps developers to enhance the look and feel of their application and speed up the development with customizable UIs. Syncfusion CAB Add-on includes the following Workspaces and UI Elements.

Workspaces

1. Dockable WorkSpace
2. GroupBar WorkSpace
3. PopupContainerControl WorkSpace
4. TabControlAdv WorkSpace
5. TabbedMDIManager WorkSpace
6. XPTaskPane WorkSpace
7. SplashPanel WorkSpace
8. DockingClientPanel WorkSpace
9. SplitContainerAdv WorkSpace

UI Elements

1. XP Menus
2. TreeViewAdv
3. StatusBarAdv
4. StatusStripEx
5. ContextMenuStripEx
6. RibbonControlAdv
7. XPTaskBar

Pre-Requisites

1. Visual Studio 2005
2. Microsoft Composite UI Application Block Framework.
3. Syncfusion Essential Studio (Essential Tools).