StrataFrame Forum

WPF

http://forum.strataframe.net/Topic24263.aspx

By Geoff Hirst - 8/23/2009

Guys,

I think that the topic of WPF has been briefly discussed in the past. However, we are now seeing beta releases of VS2010 which should, all being well, mean that a release  may be around by the end of the year, or maybe sooner for MSDN subscribers.

Many 3rd party toolsets now incorporate some WPF controls and as time moves on it is apparent that this will gather impetus and the current windows forms development will become legacy. Are Microfour moving in the WPF direction? If so, is there a timeline where we might see such controls appear in a beta. I realise that there has been much discussion of XAML and how the toolsets don't really offer good support at this time, but the latest editions of Expression and the VS2010 are great improvments over what is currently available. Above all this I like the idea of being able to offload the interface drawing to the GPU, given this advantage I have started down the road of getting my head around XAML, its a long road with lots of dead ends but this is a direction I want to go in.

Just as an interim would it be possible to use WPF controls, but introduce the Strataframe binding options into those control, like what can be done with the BBS and a current non-SF windows forms control.

I know you guys won't be left behind by this, it would just help some of us to plan our development too.

regards

Geoff.

By Geoff Hirst - 8/23/2009

Apologies for this being in wrong section.
By Trent L. Taylor - 8/24/2009

We will be rolling WPF collections into the next SF version. We have been looking at WPF for quite a while now and as there is a ton of neat things WPF does for you, it really is not easy to develop data applications using WPF at the moment for a lot of reasons. XAML is clunky and difficult for many people to get their heads around...and it is slow. So the integration required by SF to make this process as easy as it is now will require some work, especially in regards to dependency properties, etc. So the answer is that yes, our next major version which will be released in 2010 will have a WPF collection and this is something that I am very excited about, I would be very careful about putting all of your eggs into the WPF basket unless your application is more graphics related than data entry related.



Keep this in mind to for existing customers. Many of their video cards will need to be replaced if you rely to heavily on WPF. This is something that will have to be addressed at some point by all of our users, but just another heads up.



So in short, yes, WPF is something that all developers will have to move towards over the coming years as GDI+ is being phased out. Granted, it will take 10-15 years to kill GDI+, but .NET 4.0 and the next version of SF will make moving into WPF much easier. Just be careful not to leap too early on this otherwise you can be a bit frustrated.