Panels or Windows?

I wrote an application in using Windows forms and want to convert it to WPF. The application consists of a main window with sub-applications that consist of a toolstrip and a panel on to which geometric shapes are drawn. There are quite a lot of these sub-applications and the toolstrip is the only thing that is essentially different between them. The panel is just a drawing pad really. The toolstrip offers navigation between sub-apps as well as an interface to the sub-app itself.

My question is this : would the application be better written as windows that overlay each other and can I make the windows overlay each other exactly?

The main reason that I chose the panels was that it was easy to make them overlay each other exactly. Each sub-application is fairly large in itself. Would it then be better to make each sub-app a project in itself?

Sorry, this is a fairly basic question. May be it is just a question of preference. It is not a question most books tend to broach.

Thanks for any opinions.

Steve

1 Reply

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Mahesh Chand18y ago
If there is some common code (I would imagine) among all tabs/forms, I would stick with the tabs b/c you can use the common functionality on the same window and use tab to switch between the interfaces. It doesn't make sense to duplicate same functionality everywhere. Also, tabs can be faster if you're already creating your default drawings when user switches between them. In WPF, you can use the TAB control than using Panels or Windows.