Alternative to MDI in WPF?

Question

Hope this is a suitable question ...
This is my first time playing WPF with the ultimate goal of ultimately converting our program from a winforms application to a WPF application. Currently, our application uses the MDI form as the main form, allowing multiple open windows to display data, etc.

In WPF, what is the best practice for displaying multiple datasets?
I saw the tab method in VS 2010, but is this the best way? What other methods are there?

We only in the early stages find out that we want the updated program to behave this way, and I still don't know anything about WPF, so if there is a better question I should ask, let me know. Or if it's a wiki question.

Answer 1

You can use AvalonDock - it creates an interface for dockable sub-windows, similar to Visual Studio. It also allows floating windows inside the application (and these windows can be docked to create a tabbed interface).

As a rule, I think that such docking interfaces are much better than traditional MDI.

Answer 2

My company is currently porting the MDI MFC application to WPF, and we are using SandDock . I am still satisfied with this. They have a demo app and a free 30-day trial, so you can evaluate it to make sure it meets your needs.

Answer 3

I do not know if you are looking for guidance or design recommendations. Microsoft has a free platform called Prism for large modular applications that supports various recommendations for your business case.

http://karlshifflett.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/new-book-available-developers-guide-to-microsoft-prism-4/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg406140.aspx

Prism Download here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=3453ab2b-2067-41e4-b087-312d8385cf1b&displaylang=en

Even if you are only looking for a plugin and want to do some serious WPF development, you should at least consider checking these links ...