Rob Relyea: WPF/XAML Web News

Adam Nathan on .Net Rocks - Popfly, Silverlight, WPF

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:12:17 GMT

Listening to Adam on .Net Rocks now...on Popfly and Silverlight (and a bit of WPF)

In the intro, they mention type converters from System.Windows.Converters...yes, type converters are key to Xaml's ability to convert "strings to things".
Wow, he has learned to love Javascript...
21:20 - discusses using designers for development...

WPF, Xaml, Silverlight - mentions in blog posts growing

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:38:48 GMT

Love to see the progress on all fronts: http://robrelyea.com/wpf/mentions

WPF likely picked up since more people are seeing VS2008 and trying File/New Project...hey a WPF application! Mix will likely help again...I'm giving a talk or two there...hope to see many of you there...

Kevin Moore: Update to Bag-o-Tricks, WPF Set, and Xaml with WCF

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:49:11 GMT

Kevin, o, Kevin. I miss you in these halls of building 10...

But I'm very happy to see you continue your WPF blogging.

Notable posts of late:

WPF/Xaml Web News - 2008/01/08

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:50:00 GMT

As my compiler hums, I did a bit of blog reading...

Kevin Moore - Building "Set" in WPF.
IStartedSomething.Com - Frog Design brings WPF sexy to the enterprise masses
Dav Crevier - is interested in Rob Eisenberg's new framework...

Update: [Updated title to have correct year :-)]

WPF/Xaml Web News - 2007-09-11

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 09:21:45 GMT

Pavan Podila - TransitionContainer: Easy transitions between views - This is similar to some DHTML APIs (Play/Apply)...but it has been so long since I've done heavy dhtml that I can't tell you which ones anymore. (used to be IE PM for object model of DHTML)
Beatriz Costa - "Are there any tricks that will help me improve TreeView's performance?" - Part I & Part II
Commonality - VS2008 and VSSettings files - disappointed that the new Xaml editor doesn't share enough settings with the Xml Editor. I'll make sure the team sees this post.
VectorEye - convert .bmp (etc.) files into vector formats (including Xaml for 2d). Haven't tried this out...would love to hear if people find this useful (or not).
Wpf-Tutorials.livejournal.com - DataTemplate, value converter and ObservableCollection - provides source code a step by step in PDF.

WPF/Xaml Web News 2007-09-04

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 15:28:54 GMT

Coming back from a long weekend (Labor Day) here in the U.S. Getting the kids ready for there first day of school...the rain/fog today isn't great for pictures on the porch...

AdoSpace - WPF Docking Library -> AvalonDock...
Nir Dobovizki - WPF Image Viewer Tutorial - Introduction, Part 1, Part2 and Part 3.
Pete Brown- Holy Cow! Speech Synthesis is Much Easier These Days briefly discusses System.Speech
Ryan Cromwell - digs into conversion into WPF/Xaml from Illustrator: XamlXporter COMException Fix, Exporting Adobe Illustrator resources to WPF
Sacha Barber dives into the Ink API in WPF
Li Gao - Mini Task Pane in WPF, Visual Brush in XAML
Kevin Hoffman - Building a Ledger Style for WPF Grids
Orbifold - Data Visualization
Tim Anderson - Tip of the day- Robocopy is in Vista. I didn't know that...used to use RoboCopy a bunch.
Nish - A generic function to find a visual child from a visual tree
WPF and C#: Tip a day: Message toast in WPF: Example- Message Window
WPF Learning Experience: WPF Job Tracker Weekly Update
wpfbox: MultiTriggerImageControl "decorator that takes an image and splits it in five parts (default, normal, disabled, clicked, over (I’m not sure about the order)) and creates an animation between the states of the control"

WPF/Xaml Web News 2007-08-31

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:59:44 GMT

ArcaneCode has been posting a series of posts about WPF and some of the basics of Layout like Grid and StackPanel
Andrej Benedik posts an update that takes SVG files, metafiles on the clipboard (from office, etc..) or metafiles (.wmf, .emf) and converts them into Xaml or at runtime in your WPF apps: Added Paste2Xaml application and Ab2d.ReaderWmf class library
Ben Hall writes about Upgrading a project from Visual Studio 2005 to Visual Studio 2008
Cory Smith (AddressOf.com) writes about a new User Group in Dallas focused on user experience.
Drazen Dotlic (Bring It On) shows how extension methods in C#3.0 can be used to get Rails-like time convenience methods for the .NET
Marlon Grech talks about a set of WPF controls he is building as an open source project: datagridview, rangeslider, and many other more: AvalonControlsLibrary - Project in the PipeLine…
Chris Donnan (Programming Brooklyn Style) is excited about AppDomain isolated WPF Plugins
Don Burnett Review: Expression Blend Bible
WPF Hackery continues to be busy attempting to defy "Airspace" issues with WPF: WPF Win32 Renderer w/ 3D on Codeplex
Incremental Blogger writes about Having fun with Expression Design
Josh Smith builds A base class which implements INotifyPropertyChanged...yes, I've done a similar thing before...love it.
Tamir Khason has been busy blogging in August: Z-Order hack for WinForms interop controls in WPF, How to measure text length in TextBlock, How to use Windows Vista Search API from WPF application?, Quick WPF tip: Alternative text for images
LearnWPF.com posts Multi-Field Undo/Redo in WPF using Attached Properties
Mike Taulty writes about WCF V3.5 in Partial Trust and Viewport2DVisual3D and Friends in WPF V3.5 and QuickLinks: System.AddIn and the Microsoft AddInFramework
Nick Thuesen built a LayeredStackPanel

Could keep going past the N's in my blog list, but I'm going to go work out...a quick run/swim...catch the rest later.

WPF/Xaml Web News - 2007/07/23

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:05:58 GMT

Matthias Shapiro - Posts about his discovery of a MSDN paper on performance optimization with WPF...and calls out his biggest gotchas. He also gives feedback that we need better explanations of why in the Layout area.
Kirupa Chinnathambi - Shares his forum learnings via a blog post on ComboBox perf improvements using VirtualizingStackPanel.
SqeedleySpooch - Discovers the beauty of VisualBrush.
SerialSeb - says much more WPF content will come as he starts a super duper secret WPF project. Looking forward to it!
Josh Smith - Stretching Content in an Expander Header (Take Two). Expander is one of the HeaderedListItems...it has a header, plus items (children).
Liam Molloy - posts the Sirius Black (Harry Potter's fater) family tree for Family.Show application.
XTab - is doing a series on WPF for VB (or WinForms) developers.

WPF/Xaml Web News - 2007/07/10

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 13:32:50 GMT

Charles Petzold wants to know your blog url and postal address (to send you a book?) if you are a WPF blogger.
Adam Calderon, an MVP who works for Interknowlogy (they built (or helped build?) the Scripps Research application), posts slides/demos for 2 WPF Talks: 1) DataBinding; 2) Styles. I met Adam at TechEd 2006 and spent several fun hours with him this year at TechEd 2007 talking with developers about WPF in the WPF booth.
I found a book review by a WPF developer about "Pro WPF" by Matthew McDonald. He has a number of very good things to say about the book.
TheJoyOfCode.com: Sortable ListView in WPF. Josh builds SortableListView as a subclass of ListView.

WPF/Xaml web news - 2007/06/22

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:08:26 GMT

Walt Rischer (WPF Wonderland) explores CoDe Magazines WPF based reader: Xiine.
Daniel Chait (Lab49.com) discusses several WPF based trading applications that they and other companies showed off at SIFMA 2007.
MDavey wonders why Microsoft didn't include any WPF front end to the .Net StockTrader application from Microsoft. Good question!
WPF DataPanelBase: Rockford Lhotka discusses whether several classes he exposes in CSLA.Net should subclass from Panel or Decorator. This sounds like many debates we had over the years with WPF. We generally ended up with an explicit model...most things that added a bit of functionality (ScrollViewer, Border, Expander, etc...) were decorators or content controls and you needed to choose an explicit panel inside of them based on your layout needs. Page/Window only have one child, generally a panel.
Grant Hinkson wrote an Image to vector converter...sounds like it is just doing one pixel at a time. I imagine it could try to discover lines, etc...
Jordan of the WPF3D team posted that the WPF Feature Montage demo has four new 3D Transitions.
Amok (Windrago.wordpress.com) links to an MSDN article by Fulvio Giaccari on building an Outlook Add-in using WPF.
Colby Cavin does a series of posts that builds Scribble using WPF. First post is WPF Scribble 0.
Jerry Brunning of Clarity Consulting posts a WPF Dartboard scoring application [via Dave Bost]

Skyscrapr xbap (WPF based Architecture Content Map) & Optimized WPF Apps for UMPC or touch enabled PC

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:17:27 GMT

Skyscrapr which includes a WPF based Architecture Content Map (xbap) was announced by Simon Guest via this post: WPF Architecture Content Map. Cool...similar concept to the Office Interactive Developer Map - lots of great ways to navigate/search content.
Todd Landstad has an article/code on The Code Project that covers Optimizing your Mobile .NET 3.0 WPF Application for a UMPC or Touch-enabled PC.

WPF/Xaml Web News - 2007/06/12

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:07:13 GMT

Kevin Moore discusses why putting a Panel at the root of a compiled Xaml file isn't wise in Don't subclass a Panel, unless you're making a Panel
Steve Teixera posts about Microsoft's win32 support, WPF tooling timing, etc...: The "other" Steve T. and the API war
Doug Finke writes about seeing Microsoft Surface live at the Sheraton in Manhattan...Saw the Microsoft Surface demo at the Sheraton

Rob's blog comments/forum replies

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 14:03:40 GMT

Blog Comments

XAML case sensitivity

Forum Replies

Office Interactive Developer Map: using WPF to help navigate through all the developer documentation

Thu, 31 May 2007 13:59:25 GMT

Saw Serge Lenbet's mention of a new resource for developers who focus on Office Development. The Office Interactive Developer Map (web page | .application) is a clickonce-installed WPF application that provides a pretty comprehensive list of resources for all the components an Office developer may want to learn about.

Each "link" either navigates the browser to the right resource (usually on MSDN) or drills down into a categorized list with more links.

"The map stores resource links in an XML file hosted on MSDN. Once you install it, the map pulls the latest version of the resource file."

Great openness!

I love the fact that this project has links to blogs of 6 Microsoft employees, so you can really give good feedback. Erika Ehrli discusses the project with her "Announcing the Microsoft Office Interactive Developer Map built with WPF" post.

Feedback

Some feedback from me:

I think this is a great start at improving ways to navigate through lots of information. Lots of ways this can continue to get more valuable over time. I'm excited to talk to Erika and team about what they are planning...
Nit: the home page should be resizable to the size of the window. Right now it seems to be a fixed size...
it would be nice to understand what will happen when I click on something (via a status bar, icon or the tooltip???)

Questions for you:

What do you think of this as a way to navigate through the many developer resources?
How could it get better?

Technorati tags: WPF, MSDN

WPF/Xaml Web News - 2007-05-30

Wed, 30 May 2007 11:50:21 GMT

WPF

Pavan Podila - "Structuring a WPF User Interface" - Pavan shows how a UI can be factored into user controls using an example of an IM client.
Kevin Moore - "20 steps to happiness" - Kevin shows how WPF Goodness + VS "Orcas" design-time Goodness + Linq goodness = happiness
Satine.org - "How to build the next ultimate application platform" - He calls out GPU assisted rendering, great typesetting/layout, insanely easy animation, & the basics. I'd argue that the basics is a lot longer than listed...
Me - "list of Mix07 WPF Talks" - Kevin Moore's XD009 WPF for Devs Part 2 just had his video posted...check it out.
Dwayne Need - "Multithreaded UI HostVisual" - Dwayne is a great dev lead on our team that I often go to ask "how does X work?" Noticed on Kevin's blog that he started blogging in April. Go encourage him to blog more...
hawaiiantime.com - WPF Map Bird View System - Goo Labs published Xbap map viewer. Hard to navigate extensively without Japanese knowledge...would love to see somebody's analysis if they can read the UI...
Flash Platform! - Remix event in Milan, Italy - this blogger is impressed by Expression Blend.

Silverlight

MarcoCantu.com - Remix07 in Milan (my take on Silverlight) - interesting read. 6 ui platforms is a bit much - i like to think of it as 3...but perhaps gadgets should be added to make 4: gadgets, asp.net/ajax, silverlight, wpf. I leave out the fact that there are 2 versions of Silverlight (1.0 jscript only, 1.1 w/ .net support) and I don't list WinForms as most of their functionality is (or will be) supported in WPF.
Mobilitee.org - Fat Pipe (and a little Silverlight) - discusses experience with a Yahoo Pipe and now Microsoft Popfly.

Alan Le of Vertigo Software: blogging on WPF and more...

Fri, 25 May 2007 00:38:28 GMT

Tim has discussed Family.Show a nice new WPF Reference Sample that Vertigo Software built.

@ Mix07, Vertigo did a session that was well received about building Family.Show. (other wpf-ish sessions are here).

I had met Alan Le of Vertigo at Mix, and now I just discovered his blog...many interesting posts: http://blogs.vertigo.com/personal/AlanL/Blog

Xaml, XML, & XPS Preview handlers for Outlook and Windows Explorer

Mon, 21 May 2007 22:00:55 GMT

Just tripped on Kurt Shintaku's post about these Preview Handlers that MSDN posted.

PCWorld: Times Reader is 24th best product of 2007

Mon, 21 May 2007 18:52:03 GMT

This wasn't ranking just software, it was ranking any and all products. Impressive! Congratulations to the folks at the Times and at Microsoft who worked on this.

Via Nick's post.

WpfSdk Blog: links to 2 interesting posts

Thu, 10 May 2007 10:14:26 GMT

Dark Secrets of the WPF SDK Exposed! (goes into reflection, DPs, RoutedEvents, AttachedProperties, AttachedEvents, Xaml Syntax, Xaml XSD Schema)

Warning? XSD? XAML? Whatever...

WPF/Xaml Web News - 2007/05/09

Wed, 09 May 2007 23:24:39 GMT

Nice WPF Video

WPF Momentum Video (Silverlight video version) - Tim Sneath
WPF Momentum Video (WMV inside a ZIP) - Karsten Januszewski

Into Twitter? I'm not yet...

WPF based Twitter Client - David Ohara

Vector logos

WPF - Make sure your company has a XAML logo - MDavey

Sun F3 renamed to JavaFx

What is Java FX Answered by Don Park - Dare Obasanjo

Interesting to see customer reaction to Silverlight on devices news

Compact Silverlight - Daniel Moth

Chris Anderson's Essential WPF book in stores!

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 03:54:21 GMT

Just saw a post from the WPF SDK blog (likely Michael), that Chris Anderson has shipped his WPF book.

I've updated my WPF book list. (which you can always find on the home page of my blog: http://rrelyea.spaces.live.com)

Congrats Chris! Looking forward to diving in.

Mitsuru Furuta - WPF Book Control

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:26:52 GMT

Very impressive flipbook control + demo available from Mitsuru!

It includes downloadable source code and video available via zip.
Video preview on another page.

My favorite is the partially transparent pages. Great job Mitsuru!

Mix07: Lots of great WPF & WPF/E content

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 18:06:54 GMT

Getting excited for Mix07, always fun to have a major event. Mix07 is @ http://visitmix.com.

We should have 4 or 5 great talks on WPF and a bunch related to WPF/E as well.

I'll be doing a WPF talk. Look forward to seeing/meeting you there.

Update: Found some Mix blog bling.

WPF debugging/learning tips from Josh

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 20:26:37 GMT

Josh Smith posted a nice set of tips on finding information, debugging, and beyond with WPF. You'll likely learn a couple of useful things...

David Ing: XBAPs and Reality

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 11:50:41 GMT

Interesting feedback and ideas from David Ing about XBAPs and Reality.

[Update: oops, i labeled the post incorrectly as Bryan Bell's...but it was David Ing. Sorry.]

Joseph Cooney - ThoughtEx.Net - Mind Mapping Tool

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 11:42:41 GMT

Congrats to Joseph on shipping the beta of this cool mind mapping software. I'm kind of afraid to actually map my mind...but in the couple of minutes I spent with it, I was very intrigued. Please give Joseph feedback on what you think.

I also like his flamebait tshirt designs for Web UX vs WPF UX

Mix07, TechEd, PDC - oh my!

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 09:50:15 GMT

This is going to be a fun year for major events.

If any of you are planning to go to Mix07, TechEd or PDC - I'd love to see you there to:

meet you
hear about (and maybe even see) what you are doing with WPF/Xaml
hear where you need us to grow for your scenarios

As I have links to talks/events I'll be directly involved in, I'll post.

WPF: Databinding, Training

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 13:32:54 GMT

The Joy of Code - DataBinding in WPF rocks my world - "...This is the bit that can take a bit of mastery but the results are well worth it. It's taken my hundreds of lines of GDI+ and left me with just one screenful of Xaml..." Josh follow up with a few other posts going deeper as well: More than just dynamic updating & DataTriggers. Does WPF have an answer for everything
Shannon Braun - WPF Training - worth missing the MVP summit for? Robbie and Identity Mine got a good plug here...

NYTimes Pricing - The Big Picture

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 12:52:32 GMT

Long Zheng, of IStartedSomething.com, posted NYTimes Times Reader goes paid - boooooo. In that post and comments I learned a bit more about the NYTimes pricing model.

Folks are focusing on the $15/mo

NY Times Tiered Pricing

(mostly determined via Long's post...so please comment if I got it wrong...)

Times Delivery @ home & access to all of the below, I believe - $18/month
Times Reader (includes Times Select content & crosswords) - $15/month
Times Select membership - $7.95/month or $49.95/year w/ free 14 day trial (now you can get more content on the web site)
NYTimes.com web site content - free

Seems like they are positioning it as:

a great feature for delivery subscribers.
an environmental friendly option for news hounds.

Pricing Analysis/Questions

They should be positioning the pricing all together...the whole story makes the increase from a free Beta version to $15 a month more reasonable.
Perhaps, they should offer an $7.95 a month option for Times Select or Times Reader. If you get both, it is $15 instead of $16.
Perhaps, they should offer a single days paper through the Times Reader - perhaps for $1.
I think this is a reasonable pricing experiment for the Times. Will it change over time? Is it making the $18 people happier...or attracting more of them. What will it do to the bottom line?
Will they have a 14-day trial for the Reader as well...I think they should...gotta hook people...

I'm interested to find out. I'd love to have rich software help their bottom line and their customer experience.

What am I going to do?

My profile:

I have never been a subscriber.
I love an occasional Sunday or daily Times.
I read it more often when I am traveling for business or vacation.
I don't find the web site experience to be compelling enough to read regularly...I will only go there when somebody points out an interesting article.
I find the Times Reader experience to be very nice and read the paper several times a week now that I have it.

My answer:

for $7.95 w/o select content...I would do it
- likely not for $15.
for $1 a day, I would buy several a month.

What are you going to do?

What is your profile? What does the addition of the Times Reader to the pricing model change about how much you will pay the Times each year?

Don't give an answer without giving more background, like I did above...that is what is interesting.

Random Admission

[yes, i am not very prose-y...i like bulleted lists.]

Updates

One person's comments: http://media.www.nyunews.com/media/storage/paper869/news/2007/03/20/Opinion/Make-The.Times.Reader.Free-2781994.shtml

Petzold: Dr. Dobb's article on "Props, DPs, and WPF: Putting XAML to Work"

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:56:13 GMT

Just ran into an article that Charles Petzold published in DDJ.com. Likely good reading for most WPF devs...

5 pager covering:

BlogTalk: News Readers

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 12:51:00 GMT

Building on my earlier post (WPF based NewsReaders), I just did a quick look at the last week of blogdom regarding the Times Reader and the Seattle PI Reader:

Raking Leaves: "I just wanted to recommend the New York Times reader again. They just updated it so that you can read any issue of the Times from the past week, a really useful feature. I've used the reader extensively on flights by syncing the articles before I leave, and it's been great."

jkOnTheRun: great post on gadgets and software used by jk includes Times Reader

Doc Searls: quotes "The Race", Robert Kuttner's take on where newspapers are headed...including the quote:

"even people like me of the pre-Internet generation will be largely won over by ingenious devices like Times Reader, supplemented by news alerts, rss feeds, and God knows what else."
It isn't clear if Doc has tried the reader yet though...

Technovangelist: "When traveling, I love to get a bit of news from home" ... likes that the Seattle PI Reader is out.

Neowin.net: characterizes MS statements as a policy offensive against Google.

In Rubin's speech later today, he will put forth the proposition that society today finds itself at a crossroads. "What path will we as a society choose in making the world's books and publications available online?" he plans to ask. "Will we choose a path that nourishes creativity and innovation over the long term and that preserves incentives for authors to offer their best works online? Or will we choose a path that encourages companies simply to 'take' the works of others, without any regard for copyright or the impact of their actions on authors and publishers too?"

The speech will make mention of three Microsoft beta programs which will not be news to many publishers in the audience: its library archive search program, now being called Live Search Academic, which enables individuals to peruse the collected works from major libraries and institutions whose copyrights have often long since expired; the New York Times reader program, which presents a replica of the daily newspaper's precise contents on-screen; and the British Library's "Turning the Pages 2.0," which makes use of the new Windows Presentation Foundation for delivering rich content crafted around selected works, such as the notebooks of da Vinci.

DaviSayer: "Times Reader...has become part of my daily routine"

PI Reader FAQ+: "In the two weeks since we released a beta of P-I Reader, a standalone Windows application for downloading and enjoying our content offline, users have given us a lot of feedback. Here are answers to some of the most common questions we've received..."

Wanted to search a bit about London Daily Mail Reader and Forbes Reader...but my blog search engine is down...so I'll catch them next time...

Forum ask: What WPF App are you doing now?

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:27:10 GMT

Ales Sturala asks WPF Forum users what they are working on. It has prompted several to publish their apps or screenshots.

WPF/XAML links

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:05:53 GMT

Some blog post links...

WPF/E

Don Burnett writes an interesting piece discussing WPF/E: what it is, what it should be, etc...: Poor maligned, and misunderstood by many: WPF/E He likes that we've kept it simple...

Testing WPF Apps

"Unit Testing WPF controls with Automation Peers" may be worth a read...and perhaps commenting with your experiences.

View/Source

I like to see the code sharing going on in the WPF community. I've often thought about how to make publishing a WPF apps source code more automatic (if the developer desired). We'll see where that goes in the future.

Usability

Mat says: Some bits of WPF are really really nice, and other bits just seem really really impossible!

We want to know which bits are impossible! Please give us detailed feedback.

WPF Databinding

XamlForMorons.com has published an XML creator to help visualize databinding and an update. Seems like Matthias has some other good content as well.
Karl Hume discusses how to represent information such as how VS uses "*" to indicate a file is unsaved.

Single Instance WPF Apps, Screen Saver disabling and Power Management

Tamir Khason gives his steps.

VS "Orcas"

DonnysDelectables asks for the WPF Designer on VS2005. Would love to know what is wrong with using the Orcas CTP right now...it would slow down the Cider team to have to deliver a less than perfect solution for VS2005 while they strive for the best possible solution in Orcas. The nice thing about working in Orcas is that they can work to get changes done to msbuild, the project system, write a new xaml intellisense engine, etc... That said, I want to hear what people think...

Blend

compilewith.net says that Blend is contagious and wants it with MSDN.
MyWebTop similarly raves about Blend.

Reading Experience

Auxiliary Memory writes a thoughtful piece about "Rediscovering the Page". He likes Times Reader experiences and would like to see more of them. He mentions that PDF documents in Landscape mode are better than the web also...let him know what you think.

Sandcastle

Never heard of Sandcastle before, they mentioned xaml, so I found it...March 2007 SandCastle CTP: Documentation compilers for managed class libraries

Java

Greg Brown calls for Sun to do Java Browser Applications.
A developer discusses Java vs .Net. He mentions that properties are one major thing that .Net does better than Java...but also points out the pace of innovation.

Some people think WPF apps are all 3d and run only on Vista

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 17:41:30 GMT

I was excited to see "Putting the graphic artist in the loop" up on the Register by David Norfolk.

A few nice paragraphs in the beginning, but a couple of problems with the article:

Yes, our 3D integration is great, but WPF != 3D only

"Joubert is obviously impressed by Microsoft's sleek new 3D look and feel, but seems to see its 3d capabilities as more about impressing the marketplace than about providing anything that the Enterprise really needs"

WPF runs in XP SP2 or later, not just Vista. The question isn't when Vista will be important in the enterprise, it will be "when will WPF apps deliver great value to enterprises":

"And Joubert doesn't expect Vista to be important in the Enterprise for some time – perhaps not until around 2010 –"

UI, Media, and Documents
One major benefit of WPF is that it provides an integrated markup and programming model for: Controls + 2D Graphics + 3D Graphics + Mediia + Documents. We often refer to that as: UI, Media and Documents.

Griffiths/Sells: 2nd edition WPF book in the pipeline

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 16:57:58 GMT

I've updated my WPF Book List to have an updated pointer to Ian's post advertising the availability of Rough Cuts of their 2nd edition of Programming WPF

Thirteen23's Nostalgia - a flickr front end

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 20:00:42 GMT

On 10, Tim shows off some of thirteen23.com's applications: a flickr front end and a netflix front end.

I don't have a netflix account anymore, but I enjoy using Nostalgia, the flickr front end. (easily run via ClickOnce)

WCF will work in Partial Trust in .Net 3.5

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 04:47:58 GMT

I was glad to see that it was in the build that just released.

Thom Robbin's posted a summary of some of the .Net 3.5 features, including:

Partial trust on the client is provided for ASMX parity focussing mainly on partially trusted WCF applications deployed through click-once. Support is provided for basic HTTP binding provided that the application runs in the Intranet zone and have granted the apropriate WebPermission. Secure communication is possible through transport security only. All other features are not available to partially trusted applications including hosting services, duplex communications, non-HTTP transports, WS-* protocols and any WF use.

I assume that means it will work in an XBAP on the internet? The "Intranet zone" mention scares me a bit...

[update from Steve Maine, a PM on the WCF team]

That’s a typo in Thom’s post. We require InternetZone permissions, not Intranet.
XBAP grants WebPermission back to the origin server for HTTP communication; that’s all we need. Providing a good OOB experience for XBAP apps using WCF/HTTP is a primary scenario for our partial trust work on the client

:-)

Equities app & ContentPresenter.com

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:44:51 GMT

Looking forward to see applications like "WPF: Equities Trading" in action.

Lee Brimelow has been cranking out a number of great tutorials on WPF/XAML/Blend @ contentpresenter.com

Map goodies

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:24:50 GMT

Peter Antal post a nice set of links to help those of you who want to use Maps with WPF/XAML solutions...I've seen many.

WPF based NewsReaders

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 14:41:03 GMT

NewsReaders

Building on previous success with the New York Times Reader, last week we saw a few announcements of new readers. Great to see partners like IdentityMine and Conchango getting in this game!

Tim introduces them nicely. Scott Guthrie starts doing some WPF blogging digging into FlowDocuments.

Seattle PI (article) (reader install)
Forbes (reader install)
London Daily Mail (reader install)

Some personal critique + nits on these preview editions:

Seattle PI:

I enjoy having my local paper online in this richer way!
This Sunday when I was up on Whidbey Island, I was upset that I couldn't read any new content...The Seattle Times provides the Sunday paper. Doh!
Nit: Icon in start menu is in a folder, when there is only one item. This isn't following Shell design guidelines.
The splash screen is not only modal to the PI Reader, but to all apps.
Today's Pictures: Want to use keyboard for this. (arrow keys) Also, would love fuller screen like Times Readers pictures.
I want to understand visually which section I am in.

Forbes.com:

Seems like there is too much whitespace at the top of the page
Nit: Icon in start menu is in a folder, when there is only one item. This isn't following Shell design guidelines.
I want to understand visually which section I am in
probably more to come here...will keep better track next issue I read...

We'll see what my Mom says. She has been a fan of the Times Reader.

"xaml" and "wpf" mentions per day...

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 22:05:17 GMT

Check out the 2 on demand created charts here: http://robrelyea.com/wpf/mentions

Xaml and WPF are high hit ratio terms. Occasionally WPF finds the World Podcast Forum...or other groups...but generally people are meaing "Windows Presentation Foundation".

First submission to Josh's XBAP contest

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 04:47:34 GMT

Shawn Van Ness is the first to submit an entry into Josh's contest...

Nice...but doing O's is a little tricky...should I really have to close the O...or just come close...

Windows Update Install of .Net 3.0 on top of a pre-release version runs into problems

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 16:37:48 GMT

I recently posted that Windows Update has made .Net 3.0 available via WU (windows update).

Unfortunately, it seems like our Windows Update install will not work well if you already have a pre-release version of .Net 3.0 installed. Perhaps you installed that with early builds of Times Reader.

The New York Times just released a required upgrade (v0.1.0.5) that requires you to be using the final version of .Net 3.0.

We are working with the .Net Setup folks to see how this issue should be fixed...until we do, please be careful...the advice now is to make sure you manually uninstall the older version of .Net 3.0 and then install using Windows Update or an app that will help install the framework (like Times Reader).

Or you could just get Windows Vista...

FlowDocument .xaml and .docx (OpenXML) Writer

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 17:41:31 GMT

This text editor from OpenXML.biz saves to FlowDocument .xaml files or .docx files.

Classes in the System.IO.Packaging namespace give a .Net developer the capability of creating OPC (open packaging convention) documents. .docx is an OPC based file format.

[via coolThingOfTheDay.Blogspot.com]

Update: It has a save as that targets .docx, but it appears that "Open" can't open even the simplest .docx file that word 2007 creates. I guess that is why it is called "Writer"?

CodePlex: 9 wpf controls in "Fun Controls Bag"

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 15:40:09 GMT

Thomas Lebrun has posted 9 wpf controls up on codeplex...

CheckedComboBox, CheckedListBox, CollapsiblePanel, ComboBoxFontSelection, ConfirmButton, FilteredTextBox, BindableRunControl, RichTextBoxWithToolBar, PresenceControl.

Wpf @ CodeProject.com, ESRI maps, XBAP contest

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 14:37:38 GMT

Josh Smith and several others have been writing some great articles at codeproject.com digging into many WPF areas.

An article by nschan was just posted that imports ESRI files into WPF. These files are a common file format for map data. Article: WPF Application for Importing ESRI Shapefiles

Speaking of Josh, he recently started a contest for XBAPs which use WPF in an interesting and/or innovative way.

[updated ESRI article link per comment...thanks]

WPF Controls public beta from Infragistics

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 23:31:49 GMT

Saw Walt's (of WpfWonderland) post about these controls.

Happy to see what looks to be a great set of controls for WPF: http://www.infragistics.com/hot/wpf.aspx#NetAdvantageforWPFBeta

Would love to see the controls demoed in an XBAP!

My last post about components was just 2 days ago...a new Ribbon control.
A list of some other tools and controls for WPF can be found on Mike Swanson's blog.

Ribbon Control for WPF from DevComponents

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 21:15:27 GMT

I was happy to be pointed to this announcement by DevComponents by Marc Schweigert, a MS Developer Evangelist in D.C.

Very interesting reading behind the Office Team's design of the Ribbon is on Jensen Harris' blog.

Many folks find that building apps that look and work like Office is well received by their users...

A list of some other tools and controls for WPF can be found on Mike Swanson's blog.

"Grava" - from MS Education Products Group

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 13:21:09 GMT

I saw "Microsoft "Grava" may create opportunities for academic ISVs" on whatisnew.com.

The Microsoft "Grava" team is using WPF...CTP sounds like it is coming soon.

Grava screenshots. See details on http://connect.microsoft.com/grava

What is "Grava"?

"Grava" is the code name for a new set of tools from Microsoft’s Education Products Group that is designed to allow the education community to create and assemble materials that will increase discovery and allow learners to go at their own pace and learning style. "Grava" tools are scheduled for release in fall 2007.
"Grava" Player—The "Grava" player enables users to view the rich interactive content created in "Grava" Authoring.
Developer Tools—The "Grava" SDK is built on Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and provides a programming model and tools for building rich educational experiences.
Authoring—"Grava" Authoring allows users to create interactive and stimulating non-linear projects to view in the "Grava" player.
Services—"Grava" provides an array of services which complement the authoring, SDK and player components. These services include the ability to do assessments, log results, and create intelligent learning solutions.

.Net 3.0 is an optional update for XP users through Windows Update

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 19:38:58 GMT

Nathan Dunlap just pointed out that XP users can use Windows Update now to get .Net 3.0 installed.