Integrating Ranet UI in a WinForms Application

Ranet UI was developed for WPF and Silverlight frameworks but can also be used in Windows Forms applications. In this post, we will show how to integrate its components in a WinForms application as exemplified by integrating Dynamic Pivot Grid Control using Visual Studio 2015 (you need to have Ranet UI 3.7 installed on your PC).

1. Start Visual Studio 2015 and create a new WinForms project.

2. Open Reference Manager -> Assemblies -> Extensions, and add references to the following Ranet assemblies in the project (Figure 2):

• Olap.Core.dll
• Olap.dll
• Olap.Mdx.dll
• Olap.Themes.dll

3. In the same window, go to Assemblies -> Framework and add references to the assemblies required by WPF:

• PresentationCore.dll
• PresentationCore.dll
• PresentationFramework.dll
• System.Xaml.dll
• WindowsBase.dll

4. You will need System.Windows.Application instance in order to work with WPF components. Open Program.cs and change the code of Main method as follows, also adding Ranet services initialization:

using System;
using System.Windows;
using Ranet.AgOlap;
using Ranet.AgOlap.Controls.General;
using Ranet.AgOlap.Services;
using Ranet.AgOlap.Themes;
using Ranet.Olap.Core.Interfaces;

namespace RanetUIIntegrationSample
{
  static class Program
  {
    #region  Methods

    [STAThread]
    static void Main()
    {
      // Create instance of WPF Application
      var wpfApplication = new Application();

      // Configure Ranet services
      RanetServiceLocator.RegisterServiceFactory<IStorageManager>(() => new ServerStorageManager());
      RanetServiceLocator.RegisterServiceFactory<IDataLoader>(() => new ServerDataLoader());

      // Enable Ranet components theme
      RanetThemeManager.CurrentTheme = RanetThemes.MetroLight;

      System.Windows.Forms.Application.EnableVisualStyles();
      System.Windows.Forms.Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);

      // Run main form
      System.Windows.Forms.Application.Run(new MainForm());
    }

    #endregion
  }
}

5. Open Toolbox, select ElementHost component from WPF Interoperability category and drag it to the form (Figure 3).

6. Open the form’s code and add DynamicPivotGridControl initialization:

using System.Windows.Forms;
using Ranet.AgOlap.Controls;

namespace RanetUIIntegrationSample
{
  public partial class MainForm : Form
  {
    #region Ctors

    public MainForm()
    {
      InitializeComponent();

      // Create DynamicPivotGrid and initialize with Adventure Works cube
      var dynamicPivotGridControl = new DynamicPivotGridControl
      {
        Connection = "Provider = MSOLAP.4; Data Source = https://bi.galaktika-soft.com/olap/2012/msmdpump.dll;Catalog=AdventureWorksDW2012 MD-EE;",
        CubeName = "Adventure Works"
      };

      dynamicPivotGridControl.Initialize();

      // Add DynamicPivotGrid to form
      elementHost.Child = dynamicPivotGridControl;
    }

    #endregion
  }
}

7. Now you can compile and start the application.

We hope this article was helpful for you.

Contact us if you have any questions about integrating Ranet UI library in a WinForms application or any other question about Ranet UI.