Hey that sounds like my "Good morning" replacement nowadays. On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Scott Barnes <[email protected]>wrote:
> P.S > > Invest in a cubicle swear jar, the amount of times I've also heard fellow > devs/designers breathe out a sigh followed by "F...you Microsoft..." > > > --- > Regards, > Scott Barnes > http://www.riagenic.com > > > On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 11:56 AM, Scott Barnes <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Not really, Blend's original purpose was to be the middle-ground tool, to >> take the WinForms "design your screens" and really just isolate that >> workflow into its own area. The grand vision was that a designer / >> developer mutated zombie (devigner?) was to sit in a cubicle and interact >> with both parties to produce a XAML based solution for all to worship, high >> five and adore. >> >> It wasn't until we spent around $500k in research that we soon figured >> out that the Devign Zombie doesn't exist, in that they are very rare (I'm >> an actual Devign Zombie, so ....i'm rare! lol) and in reality the overall >> story between the XAML/C# pipeline started to grow further and further >> apart. It's why you see the Cider Teams version of the designer surface >> didn't really matchup all that well in VS2008 to say Blend. In VS2010 the >> teams put together a better design surface, but the result is what I'd call >> "going to the prom with your cousin" (its better than nothing, but you're >> going to feel really wrong afterwards). >> >> Blend for me is the actual productive way of developing UI, I still every >> now and then revert into XAML mode mainly to fix bugs that I find in Blend >> - as its a piece of buggy crap. The gains you get over editing XAML imho is >> way better and i've never really understood why on earth developers spent >> so much time making sure the XAML is tabbed correctly and readable given it >> as a "language" was never ever ever ever meant to be touched by human hands >> other than to tweak attributes here and there. >> >> That being said, its clear Blend never got traction with developers as it >> was considered to foreign and the same goes for designers. It's why its >> actual download rates aren't that high and the actual purchases of Blend >> were embarrassing low. It's definitely in dire need of a UX personality to >> come through and simplify the entire existance of this into user friendly >> tooling but in reality that has been pitched and shot down many times >> internally. Given Blend is now a HTML5 focused tool going forward, who >> knows how that will pan out. >> >> All that said, WPF / SIlverlight has no short cuts to "getting started", >> its simply a solution that requires a pound of flesh up front. You're going >> to find days when you get excited about the possibilities but then there >> are also days when you figure out soon enough that the overall solution(s) >> have their way of kicking your butt. Many a time i've watched devs spend >> days on a bug, despite time boxing rules. >> >> Reality is, Silverlight/WPF aren't that well thought out and you simply >> have to pick fights with the two each day to master it. It at times feels >> like you have to plant the forest, harvest the wood, carve the tools and >> then you can start to build your dreams (kind of like Minecraft really, you >> start naked in the forest and 90hrs later, you have a wooden house that you >> can hide in from creepers (Blend/VS tooling). >> >> >> --- >> Regards, >> Scott Barnes >> http://www.riagenic.com >> >> >> >> On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 10:28 AM, Grant Molloy <[email protected]>wrote: >> >>> I think in the beginning Blend was thought to be the "designers" tool, >>> and vs to be the Devs tool. Many devs think of themselves as designers too >>> (devsigners) or their company doesn't have a designer, so they delved into >>> blend themselves. Then cae the blog entries, which I think led devs to >>> believe they need Blend. >>> >>> I haven't been in xaml for a few months now, but I think you need to >>> remember how mature winforms is versus xaml. MS missed the mark by a fair >>> way with xaml by not matching the completeness of winforms. I haven't >>> played with VS2011 and don't know if MS have improved this. >>> >>> Having said that, xaml is powerful and it's the fine control in these >>> times that makes it so powerful. I remember an app which needed a zoom >>> feature on an image, so I styled a check box control into a zoomable image, >>> using xaml (layout, style, and behaviors). >>> >>> My question about your interfaces would be why are they so complex? >>> Do they need to be? >>> Should you simplify / refactor them? >>> Are you using a 3rd party control suite or just VS controls? >>> Are you cutting your own themes or using 3rd party ones? >>> Are your themes in separate resource files? >>> >>> Am I wrong in saying that you can drag and drop a toolbox control into >>> the text editor view? >>> >>> In the end, if it's not economical for you, don't use it. >>> On 24/11/2011 9:12 AM, "Greg Keogh" <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> Hi Folks, I’ve been working with Kirsten on her new WPF app, and I’m >>>> the source of her concern about WPF productivity, after she watched me >>>> composing moderately complex screens by editing the XAML in VS2010. I >>>> posted about this last year, but only received replies about “persist and >>>> you’ll get there and like it” types of responses.**** >>>> >>>> ** ** >>>> >>>> I’ve now been writing Silverlight and WPF intermittently for a few >>>> years now and I have never found a more productive way of creating >>>> reasonably complex screens other than by manually editing the XAML, and if >>>> it weren’t for the intellisense I would probably never have started.*** >>>> * >>>> >>>> ** ** >>>> >>>> I hope you’ll agree that the VS2010 design surface is utterly useless >>>> for composing XAML using the toolbox, if anyone disagrees, let me know. Any >>>> attempts to drop tools onto the designer produce bizarre unexpected >>>> results, and you’ll be lucky if they even drop where you expect. For that >>>> reason I became quite proficient in editing XAML directly.**** >>>> >>>> ** ** >>>> >>>> Then Blend 2, 3 and 4 came out. I didn’t actually legally own Blend >>>> until I recently paid $3750 for a two year premium MSDN subscription which >>>> include Office and Blend suites. I have never like Blend. It has a totally >>>> different “feel” with new shortcuts, docking behaviour, colours and UI >>>> hints, it’s also “cluttered”, confusing, non-intuitive and worst of all I >>>> would have it open on one screen and VS2010 on the other, getting dizzy >>>> looking back and forth. Blend gives me the stinkin’ sh*ts.**** >>>> >>>> ** ** >>>> >>>> As a result of all this, I claim it can take me from 5 to 20 times >>>> longer to write a WPF app UI compared to a WinForms UI. That results in a >>>> lot of time, money and frustration wasted. I know that WinForms and WPF >>>> have totally different underlying encoding schemes, so it’s simply the >>>> design experience that leaves me bewildered and leads me to ask this:** >>>> ** >>>> >>>> ** ** >>>> >>>> Do others out there have day-to-day techniques for efficiently >>>> composing complex WPF UIs? How are you doing it? Is there a friendly >>>> toolbox-drop and design technique that Kirsten (and me) are used to?*** >>>> * >>>> >>>> ** ** >>>> >>>> Any specific advice would be most welcome. I feel I must be missing out >>>> on some productivity “trick”. Perhaps it’s because I hate Blend that I’m in >>>> this rut.**** >>>> >>>> ** ** >>>> >>>> Greg**** >>>> >>>> ** ** >>>> >>>> Ps. I have skipped mentioning other irritations like styling (which >>>> requires someone with special skills and Blend) or adding animations and >>>> triggers which bloat the XAML to huge sizes making them nearly impossible >>>> to edit by hand. I also ignored the sheer complexity of the XAML and how >>>> hard it is to remember something like the syntax and nest of tags required >>>> to make a ListBox item template (for example). I find I’m continuously >>>> looking up XAML samples on the web and pasting them in. I also find I’m >>>> writing converters all the time to get stuff appearing as I need.**** >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> ozwpf mailing list >>>> [email protected] >>>> http://prdlxvm0001.codify.net/mailman/listinfo/ozwpf >>>> >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> ozwpf mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> http://prdlxvm0001.codify.net/mailman/listinfo/ozwpf >>> >>> >> > > _______________________________________________ > ozwpf mailing list > [email protected] > http://prdlxvm0001.codify.net/mailman/listinfo/ozwpf > >
_______________________________________________ ozwpf mailing list [email protected] http://prdlxvm0001.codify.net/mailman/listinfo/ozwpf
