Orchestra
Orchestra is a composable shell and WPF framework built on top of Catel
Install / Use
/learn @WildGums/OrchestraREADME
Orchestra
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Orchestra is a mature, composable WPF shell and framework built on top of Catel.
It has been in active development for over 5 years (initial commit 2012/06/18) and is used in numerous Line of Business (LoB) applications on a daily basis.
Orchestra consists of a main shell including an SDK with services that allow developers to communicate with the shell.
Goals
Provide a robust yet flexible LOB shell, designed with best practices in mind, to jump start the development of desktop applications.
In other words, we wanted to create a shell that dramatically speeds up the time it takes to release a LOB application to market by enabling developers to concentrate more on the business logic and less on scaffolding.
Available Shells
Orchestra provides support for the following shells:
- Fluent ribbon
| Fluent ribbon shell |
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Project Templates
Want to get up and running fast? Grab the project templates from the Visual Studio Marketplace:

You can pick the Fluent.Ribbon shell and have a fully running project within seconds:

Sample Applications
Here are some examples of applications built with Orchestra and other Orc.* libraries:
| LogViewer | Rantt | CsvTextEditor | FlexGrid |
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|Log viewer | Gantt chart application | Csv file text editor | Data visualizer |
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LogViewer and CsvTextEditor are open source projects hosted on Github.
Other examples of commercial applications built with Orchestra can be found on our official website WildGums.com.
NuGet packages
Prerequisites
A good working knowledge of Inversion of Control (IoC).
Orchestra features
- Application wide logging with an in app log viewer (CTRL + L)
- Command manager
- Shortcut key manager
- Fluent validation
- Themeable 'about box' window
- Themeable splash screen
- Consistent styling across the whole application
Orchestra + module features
We purposely designed Orchestra to be a lightweight shell. However you can 'super charge' it with the following open source libraries: (We use all these libraries with Orchestra. In fact they were designed to work seamlessly with Orchestra. Hint: the libraries all start with Orc.*)
- License management (Orc.LicenseManager)
- Project management (Orc.ProjectManagement)
- Automatic updates (Orc.NuGetExplorer Orc.Squirrel)
- Undo/Redo (Orc.Memento)
You can find the full list here.
Other similar open source projects
For documentation, please visit the documentation portal
Backers
Thank you to all our backers! 🙏 [Become a backer]
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Sponsors
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