HandyControl

With the end of the early 2000s trend of embracing skeuomorphic designs meant to mimic real-life objects in the digital environment ranging from physical mp3 player-like interfaces for media players for the purpose of maintaining a high degree of familiarity in terms of user experience, the industry has shifted towards less convoluted and cleaner minimalist layouts illustrated through libraries such as HandyControl.

When kick-starting their app development journey, most programmers tend to experiment with textbook-based code snippets before figuring out which templates best suit their needs. Luckily, thanks to the power of open-source software, the resources are not only plentiful, but also significantly more interactive and useful, with one example being the component collection at hand.

Instead of going the usual route of trial-and-error before settling on the necessity of a particular type of functionality, developers can directly test the behavior of each feature to ensure the animations, layout and overall structure is compatible with their own vision of what their ideal app should look like.

Programmers wishing to streamline Windows’ settings by condensing them into a single section can make use of the bundled scrolling elements for creating brightness sliders for each display in a multi-monitor setup, the CoverFlow component for elegantly switching between the currently playing songs or the PropertyGrid when adjusting the text size for accessibility purposes.

Image editing suites can have a dedicated introductory screen showcasing its capabilities via the CompareSlider functionality to give users a taste of the type of adjustments that can be made. Download managers can benefit from both in-app and system-wide notifications to alert users when their ongoing operations are completed.

If you happen to be a programmer seeking to gain insight into the world of desktop-grade applications using the Windows Presentation Foundation framework, HandyControl should give you a well-rounded idea regarding the type of functions one can use to provide enough customization potential for a solid user experience.