Anyone played with WPF (Windows Presentation Framework)?

[C. Hatton Humphrey]

(Cross-posting from CF-Community, sorry if you get this twice)

I'm starting to do some disk based programming work and have hit an
interesting roadblock.

We've (my bosses, actually) want to use .NET for the disk based apps,
but now that I have VS 2008 I'm presented with WinForms or WPF.  From
the look of things, WPF is where Microsoft is headed with the UI
fight.

Has anyone had to make this decision?
Does anyone have resources (web or email) for this?

When it comes to web, I've sold them on using CF to integrate with
..NET... (*yay*) but we have to decide on the disk-based solution.
I've been playing around with both and my biggest stumbling block is
the actual planning out of the interface.  Amazing how much having a
browser to contain everything can alleviate interface nightmares!

Hatton

--
George Burns  - "Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed."



--
George Burns  - "Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed."

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[Nathan Strutz-2]

I've played with it just a bit. It can drop out some fairly nice interfaces
and the XML is pretty well structured in the way that everything seems to
make sense and skill translation from HTML+CSS is not that difficult.

I decided not to use it, however, as the thing I was playing with is a wide
release customer-facing desktop app, and WPF requires the .NET framework
3.5, which is like 200MB, and not that widely available. I'm considering Air
vs WinForms (.net 2.0) right now.

When you say "disk based" - you mean like System.IO file & directory
interaction? If that's the case, I highly recommend .NET. It tends to be
remarkably fast in this category.

nathan strutz
http://www.dopefly.com/


On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 1:26 PM, C. Hatton Humphrey <chumphrey@...>
wrote:

> (Cross-posting from CF-Community, sorry if you get this twice)
>
> I'm starting to do some disk based programming work and have hit an
> interesting roadblock.
>
> We've (my bosses, actually) want to use .NET for the disk based apps,
> but now that I have VS 2008 I'm presented with WinForms or WPF.  From
> the look of things, WPF is where Microsoft is headed with the UI
> fight.
>
> Has anyone had to make this decision?
> Does anyone have resources (web or email) for this?
>
> When it comes to web, I've sold them on using CF to integrate with
> ..NET... (*yay*) but we have to decide on the disk-based solution.
> I've been playing around with both and my biggest stumbling block is
> the actual planning out of the interface.  Amazing how much having a
> browser to contain everything can alleviate interface nightmares!
>
> Hatton
>
> --
> George Burns  - "Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed."
>
>
>
> --
> George Burns  - "Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed."
>
>

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[Kevin Aebig]

Without more information on the type of application you're planning, my
suggestion would be to if at all possible keep everything in the family in
either case.

I'm sure some of the hardcore guys here will jump all over me, but if you're
going to have a .Net frontend, than it would be a lot easier to integrate it
with a .Net backend.

On the same token, depending on what you need for the app, I would suggest
some serious consideration into AIR for the desktop. It can offer a way
easier route as far as integration with a CF backend and the applications
themselves can be much more intuitive than regular desktop applications...

!k

-----Original Message-----
From: Nathan Strutz [mailto:strutz@...]
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 3:41 PM
To: CF-Talk
Subject: Re: Anyone played with WPF (Windows Presentation Framework)?

I've played with it just a bit. It can drop out some fairly nice interfaces
and the XML is pretty well structured in the way that everything seems to
make sense and skill translation from HTML+CSS is not that difficult.

I decided not to use it, however, as the thing I was playing with is a wide
release customer-facing desktop app, and WPF requires the .NET framework
3.5, which is like 200MB, and not that widely available. I'm considering Air
vs WinForms (.net 2.0) right now.

When you say "disk based" - you mean like System.IO file & directory
interaction? If that's the case, I highly recommend .NET. It tends to be
remarkably fast in this category.

nathan strutz
http://www.dopefly.com/


On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 1:26 PM, C. Hatton Humphrey <chumphrey@...>
wrote:

> (Cross-posting from CF-Community, sorry if you get this twice)
>
> I'm starting to do some disk based programming work and have hit an
> interesting roadblock.
>
> We've (my bosses, actually) want to use .NET for the disk based apps,
> but now that I have VS 2008 I'm presented with WinForms or WPF.  From
> the look of things, WPF is where Microsoft is headed with the UI
> fight.
>
> Has anyone had to make this decision?
> Does anyone have resources (web or email) for this?
>
> When it comes to web, I've sold them on using CF to integrate with
> ..NET... (*yay*) but we have to decide on the disk-based solution.
> I've been playing around with both and my biggest stumbling block is
> the actual planning out of the interface.  Amazing how much having a
> browser to contain everything can alleviate interface nightmares!
>
> Hatton
>
> --
> George Burns  - "Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed."
>
>
>
> --
> George Burns  - "Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed."
>
>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date
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[Mike Chabot]

WFP is the future and is where MS is focusing their development
efforts. WFP is highly regarded by those that are using it, except it
has a high learning curve and WPF projects often require a
professional graphic designer on the project. The WPF Unleashed book
gets rave reviews as a good way to learn the technology. The most
recent July 4th Hanselminutes podcast is a good discussion about
developing in XAML.

-Mike Chabot

On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 4:26 PM, C. Hatton Humphrey <chumphrey@...> wrote:

> (Cross-posting from CF-Community, sorry if you get this twice)
>
> I'm starting to do some disk based programming work and have hit an
> interesting roadblock.
>
> We've (my bosses, actually) want to use .NET for the disk based apps,
> but now that I have VS 2008 I'm presented with WinForms or WPF.  From
> the look of things, WPF is where Microsoft is headed with the UI
> fight.
>
> Has anyone had to make this decision?
> Does anyone have resources (web or email) for this?
>
> When it comes to web, I've sold them on using CF to integrate with
> ..NET... (*yay*) but we have to decide on the disk-based solution.
> I've been playing around with both and my biggest stumbling block is
> the actual planning out of the interface.  Amazing how much having a
> browser to contain everything can alleviate interface nightmares!
>
> Hatton
>
> --
> George Burns  - "Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed."
>
>
>
> --
> George Burns  - "Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed."
>
>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date
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[Dave Long]

I'm looking for a software package that will function with MySQL4.0 DB on a
ColdFusion5.0 server.

It would have to allow multiple accounts with user maintenance of pics of
resorts' and/or hotel/motels' units, rates, and have some sort of calendar
to show lodging availability of individual account units.

Anyone seen anything like that?

Dave Long


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[C. Hatton Humphrey]

> When you say "disk based" - you mean like System.IO file & directory
> interaction? If that's the case, I highly recommend .NET. It tends to be
> remarkably fast in this category.

I guess I could have been a little less vague on the projects - We
have two "systems" that we use for our in-house business.  One is a
commercial app that is built on top of Microsoft Dynamics GP (an
accounting package that uses MS SQL Server).  The other is a
collection of homebrew Visual FoxPro apps that have provided the
functionality that the commercial app does not.

Some of these apps are for interacting with the database to manipulate
table data that the commercial app won't let us.  Other apps provide
additional functionality that are part of our business logic that are
not addressed elsewhere.

In the conversation I had with my boss today I made the comment that I
don't want to get in the habit of "coding for coding's sake" or
building "throw-away" apps.  The oldest of the VFP apps that is still
in use today was written almost 10 years ago.  My stuff is going to be
replacing it but it needs to have the same kind of shelf life.

One of my biggest issues is in identifying the right tools to use and
properly planning their use.  I've been building web apps for 8 years,
I know how utilities have to "flow".  I haven't been exposed to the
"Visual" world and so now I'm looking at these two technologies and
trying to figure out code and layout and interface all at the same
time.  I never knew how "safe" working inside a browser really was!

Hatton

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