Puzzled and frustrated by WPF

[Bill Gower]

Maybe it is just due to my just starting out using WFP and Beta 2 of VS but
I feel like I am back in the 1990s programming in Java. One of the reasons
why I liked using VB and previous versions of VS was being able to quickly
design forms and have them look great. Now I am creating my forms in XAML
and it feels like a lot of work. Maybe it will get easier I hope so. I
find trying to use the designer to create forms is very frustrating and it
is easier to use XAML but not by much. Anyone have any suggestions and
maybe I am way off base and going at it wrong. As an example, my first
attempt at doing a menu was very frustrating having to code the whole thing
in XAML. And as I said, this was all done in AWT and Swing in Java and now
it seems that MS is adopting the Java way of doing forms. I can understand
the reason way so that when changing the form size, the form stays in
proportion. But it is just very frustrating designing a form this wrong.
But I am not going to give up and go back to winforms because I do agree
that this is the future of windows apps.

Bill

 

[Guest]

Hi Bill

Welcome to the jungle!
At my "first contact" with wpf and xaml i feel like you.
Now, some month later I feel great.
Some things in the databinding are not supported or need some workaround but
it's a begin of a little love ;-)

To design Windows use Expression Blend:
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/overview.aspx?key=blend

Some very good how-to-to Videos you find here:
http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=359


Good look
Horst

 

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

Welcome to the jungle!
At my "first contact" with wpf and xaml i feel like you.
Now, some month later I feel great.
Some things in the databinding are not supported or need some workaround
but
it's a begin of a little love ;-)

To design Windows use Expression Blend:
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/overview.aspx?key=blend

I don't think this is the right tool for designing simple forms silimar to
classic .NET Windows Forms. VS 2008 will include a forms designer for WPF,
but I didn't take a look at the Beta 2 version so I cannot tell you if the
designer support is sufficient for normal scenarios.

 

[Bill Gower]

And yet even MS says to use Expression Blend for developing WPF windows
apps.