David Anderson

Open Source Initiative

Get it now!
http://www.dcomproductions.com/products/bitflex/

I understand that almost no one knows what BitFlex is because it has never been exposed to the public before, so I will give you a small description.

BitFlex is a framework written in C# and targeted for .NET 3.5. It is a combination of the Microsoft         Composite Application Block (CAB) framework, WinForms controls, and Enterprise         services written by DCOM Productions. The core goal is to provide a powerful         framework of enterprise services, while also providing Windows UI Integration to         give your applications the “Windows Look and Feel”. BitFlex makes powerful         improvements to the existing .NET controls enabling the true Windows Experience,         and also introduces various other controls you see in Windows that are not         provided in .NET.

The current stable version of BitFlex is 3.0. It has been widely used by DCOM Productions in deployed products in production for clients and internal projects alike. Part of the reasoning behind releasing BitFlex is that I want developers to enjoy the same framework that has been used in my products, and to enjoy the numerous “Windows Look and Feel” controls I have provided, bundled with the power of Microsoft’s CAB framework, and the power of some of the Enterprise Services that come along with it.

Windows “Look and Feel” Controls
Microsoft’s .NET controls for Windows Forms are, to say the least, partial implementations, or at least limited. They don’t look anywhere near the same as the actual controls scattered around Windows. Some of the controls you notice this about immediately are the ListView control’s theming, the TextBox’s lack of cue banner text, or even the ProgressBar’s lack of the full implementation. Here is a fill list of the controls that are provided with fixed implementations.

• CommandLink
• ExplorerButton
• ExplorerComboBox
• ExplorerContextMenu
• ExplorerLabelDivider
• ExplorerListView
• ExplorerMainMenu
• ExplorerProgressBar
• ExplorerSplitButton
• ExplorerTextBox
• ExplorerTreeView
• ExplorerHyperCommandLink

BitFlex WinForms Controls

As you can see the controls have the built-in Windows look and feel, or the “explorer style” as I call it. There are other libraries out there on the net that offer the same implementations, and I have not tried most of them. But with BitFlex this is a pretty complete list, and implementation. There are a couple bugs need to be worked out. One I can say off the bat is sorting the ListView causes it to lose its explorer style. This is an easy fix though, and is in the queue to be corrected.

Other useful WinForms Controls
BitFlex has other useful controls as well. I have provided a fully customizable progress bar control. You can make it work virtually any way to you want it to. It doesn’t support circular progress indication, custom shapes or the sort, though – it is a progress bar, and is meant to act as one. If you like how the Linux Ubuntu progress bars look, or maybe the Adobe Photoshop CS3 installer progress bars, or anything else, this can do the job, and more.

It also contains a fully design-time oriented Wizard control as well. Full design-time support for navigation, customization, and its easy to use. There are a lot of improvements it could use even still, but its a start at providing a well implemented Wizard control for your applications. I originally created this to use when writing custom installers, and it is used in the BitFlex setup project.

An implementation of the Windows Ribbon control is bundled in BitFlex. This, I did not write and it retains its original copyright information, but it is included never the less in the goal to provide Windows look and feel controls. Another interesting control is the AppBar, though not fully implemented yet as it wasn’t in the budget, there is one in BitFlex that does the basic job of an AppBar.

Enterprise Services
The enterprise services are really what make BitFlex even more useful, moreso than the WinForms controls.

• Command Line Application Block to easily implement command line parameter handling in your programs
• Windows Fonts classes which provide the latest Windows font color structures like Header, DocumentText, Link, Active Link, etc
• Authentication services for SQL, Registry, or the ability to implement your own from the existing interfaces and classes
• Fully functional global keyboard and mouse hooks and listeners with the full ability to disable various keyboard combinations (Windows Key, Alt+F4, etc)
• Full implementation of various Windows Shell policies (WinlogonPolicy, NoDrivesPolicy, etc), there are about 20 of them and classes to implement more
• IO services like CSV file, Initialization file for compatibility, etc
• XDF, a simple and easy to use configuration format similar to an SLN file

There will always be improvements that can be made to BitFlex in everyway possible. This is part of the reason I made this open source. It is a pretty small framework, but it provides a few things that are definitely handy to developers. I hope that others get as good of a use out of it as I have.