WebDesktopManager is a member of the WebDesktop.NET which plays one of the most significant role in the suite. We have designed the DesktopManager component to be extremely easy to use and easy to configure, yet is very powerful and rich in functions and features. DesktopManager is the first of its kind to offer the Windows-like navigation system which has been carefully modeled into component for high reusability. It offers built-in "Shell" features such as shortcut icons, taskbars, window buttons, complete window management features, professional animation to enrich the Windowing system, highly customizable styles and appearance for most elements, strongly-typed client side object model and as always, complete keyboard navigation system.

DesktopManager is designed to be highly customizable as we have prepared a lot of scenarios which might be used in enterprise-class rapid application development. Following is only some of the key features out of 40+ features in total.

Cinematic visual experiences.
WebDesktopManager now comes with 8 visual effects that you can easily apply to your project. The visual effect allows the desktop manager to look more appealing and smoother especially when it is combined with Preloader feature. You can apply the visual effect in two levels:
- DesktopManager level.
- Window level.

Built-in preloader for scripts and images.
This feature allows you to quickly add "preloading" effect to the WebDesktopManager instance. As web application becomes richer, the amount of scripts and images are growing too. This can cause significant delays to the loading time especially to narrow-band connection. This feature helps to solve the issue with an interactive loading progress bar so that your users are aware with the current loading progress and the estimated finish time of the loading.

Instead of using the built-in preloader, you can also create your own custom preloader layout by utilizing the LoaderTemplate.

Blocking user interactions in busy mode.
WebDesktopManager now comes with built-in capability to set a WebDesktopWindow to busy mode programmatically. When you set to busy mode through API, the specified Window will be non responsive to users. I.e., non clickable and cursor will change to HourGlass. This is useful especially when you need to perform lengthy operation and do not want users to change anything inside the Window while the action is in progress.
Windowing navigation system.
Free your users for having to switch a webpage forth-and-back and totally improve the user experience by using the new innovative Windowing navigation system which works in both Internet Explorer or any favorite browsers of Gecko/Mozilla. Implementing the UI Standard already familiar in today's modern OS such as Windows XP or Mac OS, DesktopManager automatically shows any active windows in a centralized place called TaskBar, unless the specific Window has ShowInTaskBar set to False. The window can be easily arranged with one of 3 predefined WindowArrangement, such as Cascaded, TiledHorizontally or TiledVertically.
ClickAndEdit™
With this innovative technology, you no longer need to work in separate window to edit the content of the Window. ClickAndEdit greatly enhances developer's productivity by simplifying editing mechanism which takes advantages of Visual Studio 2005. With it, developers can simply click on an inactive Window object directly in the IDE, the clicked Window will then become Active Window and you can start typing inside the editing region of the Active Window. You also do not need to worry when and how to end the editing, as the content will be automatically saved when the Control lost focus or when you click on somewhere outside the editing region.
Shortcut system.
The built-in shortcut system can be used to represent a module or application that runs on the top of DesktopManager. This is a powerful feature developers would not miss! You can specify what action should be taken when the shortcut is opened (that is when double clicked or Enter is pressed when the shortcut has focus). Built-in actions are to open a new Window with its ContentURL, or activate an existing Window which is currently hidden or minimized. Furthermore, you can implement your own codes to fit your application needs by utilizing the extensive client side events.
Shortcut settings.
DesktopManager offers numerous advanced settings for the Shorcut system. There are configurable AutoArrangement feature which automatically arrange the icons from top to bottom, and move to 2nd column and so on when there are more icons. The AutoArrangement feature will rearrange the icons to keep them visible and in order everytime the Desktop is resized. The other noteworthy feature is Movable. When Enabled, user may move the shortcut to any location they preferred, just like the way they did it in Windows. The shortcut system also enables specified shortcuts to be located individually by specifying its own Location property.
Desktop management.
Desktop is one of the element that cannot be separated from the DesktopManager entirely. With the provided complete desktop management functions, such as the ability to save latest structure from client side or at server side, the ability to focus on the desktop and right click on it to display available actions, and much more. The desktop is the primary used object for the integration with the rest of 10+ Intersoft's components, such as tight integration with WebNotification for displaying Notification at desktop level, tight integration with DialogBox to create a modal window on the top of Desktop architecture, tight integration with ContextMenu, Button, ToolBar, and others to take advantage of the built-in Window and Desktop features. Another important feature is its capability to manage minimized Windows in special Minimized Form when TaskBar is not Visible.
Window management.
Window is the atomic element of the Desktop, where a Desktop could contain multiple Windows. DesktopManager carefully implemented the Window to be easily manageable through built-in User Interface (through TaskBar Buttons) or via object-based codes. Any windows can be quickly accessible by clicking the WindowButton in the TaskBar area. The WindowButton will be synchronized at real time when a new Window is created, closed, minimized, hidden or become activated. The WindowButton area has also been designed to comfort with UI Standard, such as, it will be able to adjust and shrink perfectly when more windows are opened. The text caption will then be automatically clipped as ellipsis. In this context, when user mouse over on the clipped text, the tooltip will appear to show the complete text.
Window features.
DesktopManager offers complete windowing features similar to those we can find in today's popular Desktop. A Window can use its Default configuration or individually configured to allow Minimize, Maximize/Restore and Close as well as Resizing. Windows will be automatically managed by the Desktop to be shown at its initial Location and Size according to the specified WindowArrangement. You can also specify individual Location and Size at Window level in order to be shown at specified coordinate and sized instead of using managed arrangement. Another essential feature is the configurable WindowState where one can easily specify the state of Window when initially loaded.
TaskBar and TaskBarButton.
DesktopManager is equipped with built-in TaskBar element which you can easily enable by setting TaskBarVisible property. The TaskBar is used as the placeholder where open Windows are shown. Moreover, the TaskBar has been designed with highly customizability in mind where it can be also be used to hold other objects in the left and right side of the WindowGroupButton area. With the TaskBarLeftTemplate and TaskBarRightTemplate which used new Visual Studio 2005's Templating feature, you can put virtually any kind of server controls to create even richer style of web apps, such as you can put a "Start Menu" like button, or integrate Intersoft's WebToolBar for Quick Launch function, or create Tray notification icons in the right side of the TaskBar.
TaskBar settings.
With the already powerful features offered by the DesktopManager, the TaskBar can also be configured to use more advanced settings. Some north worthy settings are Position, to configure where the TaskBar should be positioned in the Desktop; ShowWindows lets you configure whether the open Windows should be listed and accessible, WindowButtonSpacing and WindowButtonWidth to configure the spacing and width of the WindowButton.
High performance Animation, Moving and Resizing architecture.
DesktopManager comes with a high performance architecture for Animation, Moving and Resizing functions. The architecture ensures your users to have complete peace of mind when interacting with the Desktop, Windows, Shortcuts and other DesktopManager elements. Animation can be easily configured by specifying the EnableAnimation property which is set to True by default. Every window is movable by default and users can easily move any visible window by dragging the CaptionBar just the same way as in today's popular desktop.
Strong keyboard support.
Strong keyboard support is one of Intersoft's renowned features which implemented extensively across all product lines. It is a key to the successful of web applications especially when connected to desktop like Rich Internet Applications. The keyboard support in DesktopManager has been extensively implemented to work under Internet Explorer and Gecko-based browsers. The supported keyboard actions includes fast windows switching in ascending or descending order, closing window, arrow key navigation for shortcuts when focus is on the desktop, as well as Task Manager like switching (similar to pressing Alt+Tab or Alt+Shift+Tab in Windows desktop). The extensive keyboard support means that the DesktopManager automatically complies to U.S. Section 508 Accessibility standard.
Clientside construct-able objects.
The new breakthrough introduced in DesktopManager is not only about server side technologies and masterpiece in browsers API. The new WebUI collection including DesktopManager added more power and turn the Clientside Object Framework already introduced in WebUI.NET Framework into perfection. For example, instead of creating Window or Shortcut at server side level, you can now construct the Shortcut and Window object at client side programmatically and add it to the collection the same way and manner as you did it in server side. For instance, to show new Window programmatically, you only need 3 steps. Firstly, you constructed the Window object by using new WebDesktopWindow() syntax, then configure the properties and add it to collection by using desktop.Windows.Add(newWindow) syntax, and finally simply call newWindow.Show(). This introduced new paradigm in the world of web development where developers no longer need to face different kind of object model between server and client side.
Extensive clientside events.
Client side events are the way to greatest level of extensibility where developer can integrate their own algorithm or logic when specific events are occurred. DesktopManager offers up to 17 client events, from context menu, control initialize, shortcut selected and created to complete window events such as creation, moved, destroyed, resized and more.
Highly customizable elements.
Design any popular styles for your WebDesktop, from Windows XP to MacOS Tiger appearance. Elements that are customizable including Frame, Window, Caption, CaptionButton, TaskBar, TaskBarButton, Shortcut, and more. The DynamicStyle for some of Styles enables developers to easily define the interactive style for Normal, Over and Active in object model design -- not CSS coding!
ComplexImages BorderType.
In order to enable higher level of customization, DesktopManager offers ComplexImages BorderType. The term "ComplexImages" is used in almost WebDesktop.NET components to indicate that the rendering will use many images to draw up an element. For instance, there needs to be 3 separate images in order to draw left part of caption, the body of the caption and right part of caption. In DesktopManager alone, there are more than 20+ properties under ImagesSettings provided in order to let developers to design high detailed, gradient, shadowed or round corner style of border. Developer would be able to design virtually any kind of skins or styles as significant added value for end user experience.
ContentMode.
DesktopManager and the rest components in WebDesktop.NET introduced two kind of Content Mode. The default is UseInlineContent which used the content defined in the template within the page itself and UseIFrame which will use IFrame as the content source. When configured to use IFrame, developers can easily pick which WebForm to be assigned into each Window by using ClickAndSelect feature supported in Visual Studio 2005.
IFrame Transparency and built-in Loader.
These are two advanced features when Window is configured to use IFrame ContentMode. IFrameTransparency which is set to True by default enable the ContainerStyle of the Window to stay visible and ignoring the background color of the loaded WebPage. IFrameShowLoader is an useful feature which shows a loading progress bar and loading text inside the center of Window during the loading of WebForm in the IFrame. When the WebForm finished loading, the content of the Window will show up immediately. This process of loading, hiding and showing the content are done automatically by DesktopManager and requires no additional codes.
Natively supporting ASP.NET 2.0.
DesktopManager as well as the entire WebDesktop.NET components are compiled on .NET Framework 2.0 and therefore it has utilized numerous new features available in ASP.NET 2.0 and C# 2.0 to deliver even higher performance, secure, scalable and reusable components.

Intersoft WebDesktop Documentation
Features
See Also Send Feedback

See Also