Best practices for C# GUI naming conventions? [clo

Question

GUIs, whether written in WinForms or XAML, seem to have the most widely differing naming conventions between projects I see. For a simple TextBox for a person's name, I've seen various naming conventions:

TextBox tbName      // Hungarian notation
TextBox txtName     // Alternative Hungarian
TextBox NameTextBox // Not even camelCase
TextBox nameTextBox // Field after field with TextBox on the end
TextBox TextBoxName // Suggested in an answer...
TextBox textBoxName // Suggested in an answer...
TextBox uxName      // Suggested in an answer...
TextBox name        // Deceptive since you need name.Text to get the real value
TextBox textBox1    // Default name, as bad as you can get

I abide by the StyleCop rules for all my .cs files normally, and see others do so as well, but the GUI tends to break these rules or vary wildly. I haven't seen any Microsoft guidelines that specifically refer to GUI elements instead of just normal variables, or even examples that would apply outside of a console application.

What are the best practices for naming elements in a GUI?

Answer 1

This is not my invention, but I like it:

TextBox uxName = new TextBox();
Label uxNameLabel = new Label();
Button uxAccept = new Button();

I prefer this to Hungarian notation since all of my UI controls show up in one block in intelisense. UX for "User eXperience". It's also nice if you change a control from a textbox to a combobox or something, as the name won't change.

Answer 2

The most important thing about naming conventions is to choose something that makes sense, get a consensus from all parties, and stick to it like your life depended on it.

As for which convention to use I would vote for this one:

TextBox name

It is short and has semantic value as an identifier. As for the type of the identifier I would rely on Visual Studio to tell you that as it tends to be good at that sort of thing.

Answer 3

I name all my UI elements TypeDescriptor. Following your example, TextBoxName.

Answer 4

I've been working with a team lately that is moving from MFC (6.0 ...). There they would have something like

CString Name;
CEdit ctlName;

The easiest way to migrate has been to use something like

TextBox ctlName

It's just enough of a reminder that the variable is the control and not the value of the control.

I think including the type as a part of the name is just OLD.

-- edit -- Another benefit is that all of the controls are grouped together when navigating. If the actual type were used, the ComboBox controls would be quite far from the TextBox controls.

Answer 5

I use the Hungation notation with one little difference.

I now work on a project that has quite a rich UI. So finding, with Intellisense, a button called, let's say, btnGetUsers its very easy.

Things get's complicated when the application is able to get users from different locations. That is different controls. So I started to name my controls after where they are located and still use the Hungarian notation.

As an example: tabSchedAddSchedTxbAdress means that txbAddress is a text box where an address can be inserted and is located on the Add Scheduling tab from the Scheduling Tab Control. This way I can find controls very easy and, when I type simply "btn" I don't get, at once, a lot of buttons from all over the user interface.

Of course this is just to help myself. I'm not aware of such a best practice. However it helps a lot.

Mosu'