Create a WinForms Dashboard Designer (.NET)

• Dec 17, 2020
• 2 minutes to read

This tutorial describes how to create a WinForms application with the Dashboard Designer in .NET 5 (and .NET Core 3.1).

Prerequisites

• DevExpress .NET 5 and 6 Desktop Products
• DevExpress .NET Products v.20.2
• Visual Studio 2019 v16.8 or later with the .NET desktop development workload

Create a New Project

You can create a new .NET project in the console window or use Visual Studio’s template.

Create a New .NET Project in the Console Window

Open the console window and follow the steps below:

1. Create and open a new folder. The folder name is the project name.

   mkdir NewCoreApp
   cd NewCoreApp
   

2. Create a WinForms project:

   dotnet new winforms
   

3. Create a solution file:

   dotnet new sln
   

4. Add the created .NET project to this solution:

   dotnet sln add NewCoreApp.csproj
   

Open the created solution in Visual Studio.

Create a New .NET Project in Visual Studio

1. In Visual Studio, create a new project and select Windows Forms App (.NET) on the start page as the project template.

   

   Note

   Do not select the Windows Forms App (.NET Framework) template.

Install Dashboard packages

1. Select Manage NuGet Packages in the invoked context menu to invoke the NuGet Package Manager.

   

2. Register the DevExpress NuGet feed as a package source and select it in the drop-down menu.

3. Install the DevExpress.WindowsDesktop.Win.Dashboard package.

   

The installed libraries are added to the project after installation is completed.

Create a WinForms Dashboard Designer

To create the Dashboard Designer at runtime, add the following code in a Form1.cs file:

C#

using System.Windows.Forms;
using DevExpress.DashboardWin;

//...

DashboardDesigner designer = new DashboardDesigner();
this.Controls.Add(designer);
designer.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
designer.CreateRibbon();

VB.NET

Imports System.Windows.Forms
Imports DevExpress.DashboardWin

'...

Private designer As New DashboardDesigner()
Me.Controls.Add(designer)
designer.Dock = DockStyle.Fill
designer.CreateRibbon()

Run the application and configure your dashboard in the Designer. Follow this step-by-step tutorial for more information: How to create a dashboard in the WinForms Designer.

You can use the DashboardDesigner.LoadDashboard method to load an existing dashboard in code.

Next Steps

• Create Dashboards in the WinForms Designer

  Describes how to create and configure dashboards in the WinForms Designer.

• WinForms Designer

  Describes how to embed the DashboardDesigner control into a WinForms application and how to customize the control’s UI elements.

• WinForms Viewer

  Describes how to prepare the DashboardViewer control to display a dashboard in the WinForms application.