Some ideas for future WinForms improvements

[noseratio]

Bellow is a list of ideas for potential WinForms improvements I've come up with, while working closely with WinForms over the last few months. It was sparkled by this Twitter thread I participated in, where some folks suggested turning it into a repo discussion (cc @OliaG, @merriemcgaw, @RussKie, @KlausLoeffelmann), so here we go 🙂

• An option on WindowsFormsSynchronizationContext to prevent reentrancy issues caused by pumping while blocking. E.g., see how it may affect folks using SkiaSharp:

  [BUG] SkiaSharp can call WM_PAINT handler and random COM callbacks when creating or obtaning objects mono/SkiaSharp#1383 (comment)

  (or unseal WindowsFormsSynchronizationContext to be subclass-able, so we can overrride SynchronizationContext.Wait)

• inb4, a proper Control.InvokeAsync implementation. E.g., see how the lack of it currently affects BlazorWebView:

  [Bug] BlazorWebView: WindowsFormsDispatcher.InvokeAsync implementation issues maui#2313

• FlowLayoutPanel's children anchoring behavior (they don't stretch in the way one may expect). I don't understand why the child controls are stretched to the widest peer, while they are set to anchor or dock to the parent panel's right/left. I had to come up with a workaround that attaches a custom resizing behavior to each child control, which triggers in when the parent FlowLayoutPanel changes its size.

  In my opinion, TableLayoutPanel, FlowLayoutPanel, Docking, Anchoring and AutoSize are the most important building blocks for creating responsive UI in WinForms, so it'd be great to have an option to enable consistent sizing behavior across all of them.

• ShowDialogAsync API: https://stackoverflow.com/a/33411037/1768303

• Work with the WebView2 team to solve the pending keyboard accelerators and focus handling integration issues: https://github.com/noseratio/BlazorWebViewWinFormsApp.

  This might be tricky (given the out-of-proc nature of WebView2), but should be doable. I believe WinForms has the required input handling plumbing in place already (unlike WPF).

  A smooth integration with WebView2 is particularly important. I'm sure we'll see more and more of hybrid UI desktop apps in the wild. WinForms is an ideal host for WebView2 (just add a menu, status bar, tray icon and a WV2 control), but those are still the issues to resolve, in particular they may affect accessibility.

I'm happy to share what solutions/workarounds I currently use for the above (some are linked already), if there is any interest.

Thanks for considering it. We really appreciate that WinForms as a UI framework has always been actively maintained 💗🤞

[KlausLoeffelmann]

I am sorry that I am completely missed this.
Is this something which would be important for you?

As you can see, we already have a series of new API suggestions, we'd like to take on.
I would very much like to add discussions point there, and - if you're still up to that - create new API suggestion issue which we can more concretely talk about!

[alex-oswald]

Updated repo page:
https://github.com/alex-oswald/WindowsFormsLifetime

[elachlan]

Can we reopen the linked issue?

[elachlan]

@alex-oswald are you okay if your WindowsFormsLifetime code is included into the Winforms Codebase is some form or another? It would obviously have to go through the API review, which I suspect the team has zero time for before .net 8 unfortunately.

@RussKie should I open a new issue based on #2861, or should we re-open that issue?

[RussKie]

Thank you for keeping the discussion alive. Personally, I'd love to see something like what @alex-oswald has done as a Windows Forms out-of-the-box feature.
However, priority- or way-forward-wise, the question is for

• @alex-oswald - whether Alex is willing to do a formal API proposal, go to the API Review and provide an implementation (something like Windows Task Dialog #146 and Implement the Windows Task Dialog #1133 come to mind), and
• @merriemcgaw and the team - whether this feature is something the team would consider, and if so, the resource allocation to support Alex in this journey (e.g., something like Implement the Windows Task Dialog #1133).

[alex-oswald]

@elachlan I am. I created #2861 with that intention, but at the time couldn't commit.

@RussKie I will happily commit to start working on a proposal and implementation if the team is willing to consider this addition.

[KlausLoeffelmann]

While I found this super-interesting, I am afraid we're currently missing the resources to prioritize this. But, let's discuss this in the next runtime meeting, therefore tagging @merriemcgaw, @JeremyKuhne, @dreddy-work, @Shyam-Gupta, @Tanya-Solyanik.

[elachlan]

#2861 got closed again. Are you able to reopen it and avoid the auto-close?

[merriemcgaw]

Yep. 😄