[phrootoo]

I'm starting out playing around with themes and custom controls and have some fairly neat results.

I'm just wondering if anybody would actually be interested in paying for such components/themes? It looks to be an area that would be fairly big, since there doesn't seem to be a market there right now, but its just whether or not people are willing to pay for it.

Ideally, if I do go ahead with it, I'll be attempting to create the visual style of common bootstrap visual styles so you can expect to get that 'bootstrapped' feel within your VS projects.

What do you guys think?

[Hiiro]

There is a market for some of them,
but more than most just release them for free.

[KillαMuvz]

They would have to be incredibly good. Most free themes are quite impressive already.

[phrootoo]

They would have to be incredibly good. Most free themes are quite impressive already.

Agreed.

I'm more in to bringing custom controls in, too. eg. Maps (Which i have working already), toggles, nav bars, alerts, graphs, text panels, etc. Essentially everything beautiful from the web, imported in to form controls. As a web dev enthusiast (Wouldnt say i'm really seasoned, but i know my shit), one thing that i've hated with win forms is the consistency in application. being able to bring new life to the forms would be great, especially since i feel that the whole C# side of things is lacking a lot.

Any custom controls that you guys would be interested in?

[Odus]

I think the market for themes mainly works on an as-needed basis. For example if someone is making something to sell on HF and they want a custom theme, they'd hire someone who makes themes to do it specifically for that program.

[phrootoo]

I think the market for themes mainly works on an as-needed basis. For example if someone is making something to sell on HF and they want a custom theme, they'd hire someone who makes themes to do it specifically for that program.

Great point - Bespoke works well, though being able to essentially 'Bootstrap' a forms application seems like something that could be a great asset to have. I don't think I'd charge much, something like $25 or so for a standard control set, with a more extended version at a higher price.

What do you guys think?

[KillαMuvz]

If they are extremely good quality I would pay for it. Current theme I use on my crypter was 20$ from Aeonhack long long time ago.

[6e756c6c]

There is absolutely a market for custom themes. A few years ago I sold a custom theme (Deumos) and made over $1,200 on it, then a another one (Carbon) with a partner and made at least $600. I still get requests all the time to create custom themes but I don't have the time to do it. If I were you, I would avoid any kind of private themes since most people won't be willing to pay more than $100-$150. If you sell them for $20-$30 in the marketplace you can easily make $200-$600 each. However, to prevent overuse I would recommend only selling a limited number of copies.. say 15-20. Also, keep a list of each user that purchased your theme so if you see someone using a leaked version in their application you can report their thread for copyright violations. There is also an expectation now days that you have the basic controls covered, which include..

Code

-Button
-CheckBox
-ComboBox
-ContextMenu
-GroupBox
-ProgressBar
-RadioButton
-TabControl
-TextBox
-Form Skin
-TrackBar

Once you have the base of those complete it's really easy to re-skin them for use in new themes. You can use the Net Seal theme as a good starting point.
http://www.elitevs.net/nstheme.html

[phrootoo]

If they are extremely good quality I would pay for it. Current theme I use on my crypter was 20$ from Aeonhack long long time ago.

Quality and performance are my main concerns. If it's not perfect, I wont release it.

Question still open in regards to controls that you guys would feel would be beneficial.

---

Appreciate the words, Aeon.

I've had a think about this and I'm starting to verge away from it. Whilst there's definitely a market, I don't know whether it would be big enough. Win forms are dying out now, and it would seem like a fairly silly idea to approach a dying platform.

I'll keep looking in to it, but for now, i'm tempted to just release what i've been working on for free - Concept work, but still fun to play with.

One of the things that I played with was colour consistency. Using a standard 'VisualType' I've essentially been able to reference the colours through a colour manager, giving the following functionality (Note the properties in the view). These properties can refer to ANY control (Progress, button, toggle.. etc):

i.imgur. com/iei8DRt.png

[6e756c6c]

I've had a think about this and I'm starting to verge away from it. Whilst there's definitely a market, I don't know whether it would be big enough. Win forms are dying out now, and it would seem like a fairly silly idea to approach a dying platform.

I strongly disagree, Windows Forms isn't going to die out anytime soon, I would say they have at least 5 more years. WPF just isn't at a point where it's user friendly enough and they have changed so much that adoption is going to be a slow process. Take VB6 for example, it stopped being supported in 2005 and didn't really die off until (conservatively) 2010?

[Hawk HF]

The answer to this is definitely yes. However, the payment for creating a well-made and properly functioning theme is about $25. Themes can sometimes take a few days to create and therefore the payoff may not be worth it. Personally, I create themes for people because I enjoy designing them.

---

They would have to be incredibly good. Most free themes are quite impressive already.

This. People love free themes.
Over the past few years, designing themes has become extremely popular among the .Net community. All theme designers want to be known for their work, so the free themes out there are pretty good.

For example, here are my last two releases:
Spoiler (Click to View)

---

I think the market for themes mainly works on an as-needed basis. For example if someone is making something to sell on HF and they want a custom theme, they'd hire someone who makes themes to do it specifically for that program.

This is another reason that theme-designers will create free themes. They want to show their talent to the community so that when the time comes and someone needs a custom theme, they can take a look at a user's previous work. Logically, the person who has released the best themes, considering appearance and functionality, will receive the job of creating a custom theme.

---

I hope this answers your question.

- Hawk

[phrootoo]

I strongly disagree, Windows Forms isn't going to die out anytime soon, I would say they have at least 5 more years. WPF just isn't at a point where it's user friendly enough and they have changed so much that adoption is going to be a slow process. Take VB6 for example, it stopped being supported in 2005 and didn't really die off until (conservatively) 2010?

Whilst I agree a little with this, I'm learning on a first-hand basis that the future is the web. I work for a company that are currently porting their desktop software (Originally wrote in .Net) over to the web. It's a lot more powerful, has the ability to serve a larger customer base (Think both operating systems and hardware) and is a lot easier to maintain.

I wouldn't say that Win Forms are dead just yet, maybe I worded that wrong, but taking the choice of starting a development in Win forms nowadays is something I'm not sure I want to do.

---

...

This is another reason that theme-designers will create free themes. They want to show their talent to the community so that when the time comes and someone needs a custom theme, they can take a look at a user's previous work. Logically, the person who has released the best themes, considering appearance and functionality, will receive the job of creating a custom theme.

---

I hope this answers your question.

- Hawk

I like what you've said here, though free isn't an option. Unfortunately I value my time greater than the majority of the community (This is probably the worse thing I've ever said, but I'd rather speak from my heart than speak some pretty bullshit just to keep people happy) and don't feel that it's given enough to me for me to want to share my hard work/time for free. I'm looking to make money, not internet credit.

Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm not trying to be an asshole, but I'm just extremely business minded and as such need to justify my time in terms of profits.

[Hawk HF]

I like what you've said here, though free isn't an option. Unfortunately I value my time greater than the majority of the community (This is probably the worse thing I've ever said, but I'd rather speak from my heart than speak some pretty bullshit just to keep people happy) and don't feel that it's given enough to me for me to want to share my hard work/time for free. I'm looking to make money, not internet credit.

Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm not trying to be an asshole, but I'm just extremely business minded and as such need to justify my time in terms of profits.

Well releasing free themes isn't the only way to get your themes viewed.
You could release previews through screenshots and videos.

[Astek]

i personally just like devexpress, looks so good for winforms.

[Aristocles]

shit, I never heard of that before but it looks amazing
It's just a lot of money to fork over at one time compared to a $25 theme

ever heard about "crack" ? :)

And somebody ripped their Win8 UI-Form on github