For most business apps it is probably much faster to stick with Winforms/GDI+ rather than try to force yourself to use WPF.
Unless you have a very good reason to use WPF (or you already know it well) I wouldn't bother using it. If you happen to need WPF for a specific screen or feature you can try to use it for only this feature rather than use it for the whole app. Certainly a data centric app seems to be, without knowing the details, better suited for Winforms. cheers, Patrick On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 12:52 PM, Kirsten Greed <[email protected]>wrote: > It’s the many little things that are getting me – like why can’t I move > a tab control using the designer?**** > > When I go to select a control I accidentally select the grid inside it**** > > Why does everything seem to have a grid in it – or else be inside a grid?* > *** > > Is it best to have text boxes inside grids or not?**** > > Should I get my eyes tested?**** > > Should I skip WPF and go straight to HTML5?**** > > Should I join my 13 year old and take up Minecraft?**** > > Its just a line of business app , sales order entry and the like. I > though that by learning WPF I could shake off my VB6 persona and join the > real programmers…**** > > Ah a swear jar I guess it’s a start!**** > ------------------------------ > > *From:* [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] > *On Behalf Of *Winston Pang > *Sent:* Thursday, 24 November 2011 1:05 PM > *To:* ozWPF > *Subject:* Re: Getting up to speed in wpf**** > > ** ** > > 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 > >
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