Using DirectX in Windows Forms
Windows Forms is a Microsoft technology that provides a clean and easy framework for building graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and is both extensible and componentized. However, it is sometimes desirable to have a rich 3D user interface to display 3D data or to allow the user to interact in 3D. DirectX, another Microsoft technology, is a graphics framework with support for 2D and 3D graphics, which supplies an abstraction layer between low-level system components (such as drivers) and high-level applications (such as a GUI or a game). This document will discuss the process of hosting DirectX inside of a Windows Forms application in order to provide seamless integration between the two frameworks for use in GUIs that may be graphics intensive.
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Understanding the Windows Scripting Host
One of Windows’s most notable deficiencies when compared with other operating systems is its lack of a batch language for automating tasks. Although the underlying MS-DOS supports batch files, they are of little use in the Windows environment: under Windows 3.1 you can’t even launch Windows programs from batch files. Support staff wishing to automate tasks for their users have been forced to use third-party tools like Wilson WinBatch or JP Software’s Take Command. Because these tools are not part of Windows, they must be separately installed before they can be used. Licensing of these toolsmeans that additional costs are often incurred, which, if the budget is not available, becomes a problem.
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