WPF Controls
Jaime Rodriguez – Jaime did a quick port of the Chart controls from the Silverlight Toolkit to WPF. And he gave me a quick jab at the end of the post. :-)
WPF
Mike Stedman – 52 useful posts on WPF tips/tricks in under 2 months on The WPF Waltz
Rico Mariani (VS Chief Architect) - The Visual Studio Tech Roadmap Starring VS 2010. Discusses the remodel of VS and its use of WPF.
Charles Petzold – Simple Cable simulation written in WPF and Silverlight.
Vince Rithner – New Sobees video
Misc
Andy Clymer - Powerpoint to OneNote converter – useful tool for evolving a slide deck.
DotNetRocksTV (dnrTV) just posted a discussion (with video of action in VS) with Billy Hollis that goes through a number of concepts in WPF/Silverlight layout (Grid, StackPanel, size to content), ContentControl (Button, ToolTip), and XAML (attached properties, property-elements).
Very helpful for people new to WPF/Silverlight: Billy Hollis: XAML for Developers Part One
Given another 4 years of experience since I wrote “Our 7 Goals for XAML”, here is my updated list of XAML Benefits:
XAML Describes Data in a Concise, but Human and Machine Comprehensible, Way
Declarative formats provide the best and most concise way to represent many types of data. Comprehension of a declarative format is better than a general purpose programming language.
| <BookList>
<Book Author="J. K. Rowling"
Title="Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone"
Year="1997" />
<Book Author="L. Frank Baum"
Title="Wizard of Oz"
Year="1900" />
</BookList> | BookList bl = new BookList();
Book b1 = new Book();
b1.Author = "J. K. Rowling";
b1.Title = “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”;
b1.Year = 1997;
bl.Add(b1);
Book b2 = new Book();
b2.Author = "L. Frank Baum";
b2.Title = “Wizard of Oz”;
b2.Year = 1900;
bl.Add(b2); |
XAML is Useful for Many Types of Data
Microsoft already supports XAML Vocabularies to describe UI ([MS-WPFXV], [MS-SLXV]), Workflow (WF) and Electronic Paper (XPS). Many other vocabularies are possible.
XAML 2009’s new Name Referencing enables object graph definition, which opens up the number of types of data that can be described. WF 4 leverages this for modeling Flow Charts. WCF 4 Services can be modeled in XAML more naturally as well.
XAML uses Typed Object Models for Better Programming and Validation
Systems that have a strongly-typed OM (object model) enable:
- Manipulation of objects after initialization with strong-typing, which enables compile time checking of code.
- Markup Validation using the OM as the Type’s schema, as opposed to having to build an additional schema.
class Book
{
string Author { get; set; }
string Title { get; set; }
int Year { get; set; }
} | Works:
b1.Year = 2000;
Compile Time Error:
b1.Year = "6/1999"; | Validation Error:
<Book Year="6/1999" /> |
XAML is Extensible and Version Tolerant
Systems that are extensible through class inheritance can be modeled easily in XAML. Since BookList can hold Books, and since one can derive a PaperbackBook from Book, I can use PaperbackBook wherever a Book is allowed, in code or markup.
class PaperbackBook : Book
{
} | <BookList>
<Book … />
<my:PaperbackBook … />
</BookList> |
XAML's default is that every tag and attribute must be known, while HTML defaults to ignoring any mistyped element name, attribute name or attribute value. While there is a place for this ignoring to allow for forward compatibility, XAML uses Markup Compatibility and Extensibility (ECMA-376 Part5) for backward/forward compatibility.
XAML is Toolable
Systems described in XAML will be creatable and consumable by a wide set of tools. This goal drives our decisions throughout XAML, from our XML representation to schema and beyond.
XAML is XML
In .NET 3 and Silverlight, all valid XAML files must be valid XML files. The opposite isn't always true…all XML files are not XAML files. This bet on XML is important because it enables an ecosystem of tools, systems, APIs and developers familiar with XML to get a strong start on understanding XAML.
.NET 4 is broadening what it means to be a XAML document. We’re introducing a XamlReader and XamlWriter abstraction in System.Xaml.dll which enables anybody to provide or store XAML based data. We’ll provide readers and writers for XML, BAML, and object graphs, but many other storage or in memory representations are possible. We believe that our XML representation shipped with .NET 3.0 in 2006 will continue to be the most common representation of XAML documents, but time will tell.
XAML Enables Event Driven Programming Models
XAML enables description of object graphs which include the setting of properties and the wiring of events. This enables systems which need an event driven programming model.
XAML is Compiled or Interpreted
XAML is sometimes treated as source code, sometimes as runtime instructions. Different frameworks will make different choices around this: WPF chooses to compile XAML into a binary representation which gets embedded inside an assembly; Silverlight chooses to validate the XAML at compile time, but it embeds the original XAML file into a .XAP file. Either WPF or Silverlight can also interpret at runtime a XAML file that is not downloaded with the “application”.
WPF Apps
Carlos Quintero: Visual Studio 2010 PDC session: customizing and extending your developing environment. Scott Guthrie announced at PDC that VS2010 would have Shell UI and code editor made with WPF. This session goes into some details…
Brian Goldfarb: Must See: MSNBC Election 2008 Electoral Map. For those of you paying attention to US Elections today, this WPF app may be of interest… (p.s. go vote)
WPF Releases - CodePlex.com/wpf
WPF Toolkit released with V1 of DataGrid, DatePicker/Calendar controls, VisualStateManager preview.
WPF Ribbon Preview now available
WPF Futures now includes a Client Profile Configuration Designer
Silverlight
Shawn Burke: Silverlight Toolkit Released. Great to see a bunch of new controls for Silverlight!
WPF/Silverlight
Beatriz Stollnitz: How can I expand items in a TreeView? Beatriz is blogging again! In case you missed it, Beatriz Stollnitz (formerly Beatriz Costa) is blogging again after a 8 month pause. She is now focused on controls for Silverlight and WPF.
WPF
Tim Sneath: WPF Developers: PDC Wrap-Up and Visual Studio Tooling Update
UIHero: WPF Assembly Source Code Now Available – now available for v3.5sp1. Debug like a developer in the WPF team.
Charles Petzold: WPF Retained Graphics and the SubPropertiesDoNotAffectRender Flag
WPF for LOB
Beth Massi: New WPF How Do I Videos Released!
Vincent Sibal: DataGrid posts: Editing. DataGridComboBoxColumn. Frozen Row Sample.
WPF Tools
WPFPerf: Update to WPF Performance Profiling Tools. Lots of goodness.
XAML
me: PDC08 News: XAML in .NET 4: XAML2009 & System.Xaml.dll. See what I’ve been focused on for the last year or two…
XAML Vocabularies
Zulfiqar: What’s new in WF v4.0. WF 4.0 to have “First class support for authoring XAML only workflows.”
Events & PDC08
ArcaneCode – Easy links to all PDC session videos/slide. Very handy. I have a few links to many of the WPF oriented sessions: PDC08 – WPF Talks