I have been trying to find some resource on this topic for a while now but to no avail so what is the best way to construct a WPF UI for LOB (Line of Business) applications? specifically Customers, Orders, Products, etc.. I have seen many single window WPF application examples that don't need to be anything else but a single window and i've looked at applications such as FamilyShow which looked promising until all I could see in the code was a big pile of user controls that faded in and out over the lifetime of the application and not something I could really use for lets say a 30-40 views in an application.
So what exactly am I asking? Well should I build a LOB application as a single WPF window with lets say a panel that has user controls dynamically loaded into it and then swap these out when lets say a navigation item is pressed or should I have multiple window forms that get shown or hidden when lets say a navigation item is pressed from a launching main form.
UI Design has never really been my strengh but i'm keen to learn so I would really appreciate your thoughts and offered experience in laying out your WPF LOB applications (Window+UC's or Windows) or could point me to any articles that cover WPF UI Layout design for LOB applications.
Thanks for reading...
Geoff.
What you want is Microsoft's best practices for composite client applications.
This is probably the best thing to date as far as a framework and starting for business applications. It is what it sounds like - a framework and basis for building a larger app out of smaller components, which happens a lot when creating LOB business apps.
Now, very specific to WPF, is the prism framework. Which I believe shares some of the same concepts as the above composite application blocks (CAB).