We have a customer who needs some simple forms (probably we would be creating a simple Winforms app for them) but there is a requirement to capture a mix of input fields plus some freehand drawing. It's the freehand drawing which worries us.
They will be using a tablet pc with stylus. The customer is running Office 2007.
This project needs to stay simple. We were thinking of embedding a OneNote element into our Winforms (is this even possible?).
I have to admit to not having used OneNote but have a vague idea that it's the "kind of thing that would do freehand capture", which is why I mention it here. The embedding is a priority since we don't want the UI to involve dropping out into something else. I think.
Or else some other free or low cost alternative. Any suggestions?
I'd really recommend looking into Microsoft Ink. It works with Tablet PCs and it sounds like exactly what you want.
This is a decent getting-started tutorial that launches into code pretty quickly.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms811392.aspx
It also has awesome integration into WPF, so you might consider writing a WPF control to manage the Ink functionality, and then embed your WPF Ink component into a WinForm (if you want to still go the WinForms route).