Brad Abrams : WPF

Redmond Developer: Working with MEF in VB and WPF

BradA — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:21:00 GMT

Kathleen Dollard has a very good article on that talks about using Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) to allow customers to add their own forms to our Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) app?

In this simple example she show adding custom defined forms into the standard menus.. all of this is done in VB!

Redmond Developer: Working with MEF

<Export(GetType(IExtension))> _
<ExportMetadata("MenuCaption", "First")> _
Partial Public Class First
   Implements IExtension

   Public Sub ShowWindow() _
      Implements Common.IExtension.ShowWindow
   End Sub
End Class

Enjoy!

Great User Experience Example in a Business Application

BradA — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:00:53 GMT

DNR-TV has a great talk\demo with Billy Hollis on a next generation business applications in WPF and Silverlight. Billy is working with a customer to provide a temp worker to job matching services. So far the application is in WPF, but they are planning to create a Silverlight version as well. Watch the web cast for a full demo.

A few things I thought was cool:

They use visual clues effectively to direct the users attention (for example per-entity model pop-ups)
They multiple-module editing model. Many records can be edited at the same time. There is great navigation and notification support to manage all of this.
Dirty tracking seems nicely done.

Billy, we are all looking forward to playing with the real thing!

Here are a few screen shots:

WPF Composite Application Guidance is Live

BradA — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:20:49 GMT

A very common pattern for business focused applications is the "Composite Application Pattern". Over the last few months our P&P team has been working with industry leaders and the product teams in Microsoft to develop an sample application and a framework for building composite applications in WPF.

If you are looking at building a WPF business focused application, you should really check this out.. all the documentation, source code and even unit tests are included!

Check it out! Composite Application Guidance for WPF

Loving the South African Developer Community

BradA — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:12:56 GMT

I just got back from South Africa and I am happy to report that the .NET Developer community is very strong there.

User's Group Meetings in in Johannesburg and Cape Town

User group meeting in Johannesburg - thanks for setting this up Craig Nicholson.. I had a great time showing off Silverlight 2. We had lot of fun talking about Silverlight wit these slides and demo that I did. I also showed HardRock DeepZoom, the video wall and HSN.TV
User group meeting in Cape Town - Thanks to Hilton Giesenow for setting this up. This time I did a drill down into the ASP.NET MVC framework. The response was excellent! Thanks folks for your questions and interest! Here is the slides and demo..

Mix Essentials in Johannesburg and Cape Town

We had over 664 developers\designers attend the events in both cities… A little over 3/5^th of them were developers and the vast majority of them were active ASP.NET developers. Just about everyone was already on VS2008.

Keynote:

We kicked off the day with keynote highlighting Microsoft’s investment in UX. I got drafted to do a breif bit on to show off some of the great work we are doing in WPF for SP1. So I showed the very cool WPF Bitmaps effects demo ScottGu showed at Mix '08 in Vegas… Judging from the comments afterward, I think it got a few people thinking about what is possible with a desktop applications. People were impressed that the CPU was not being chewed up by this..

For the rest of the day we split up – the designers when to a different room and I kept all of the developers. I did three sessions covering the full web development space. The retention rate was really good… just about everyone stuck around for the end.

Silverlight 2:

Next up I did an hour fifteen minute demo on Silverlight 2 development. I focused on end-to-end development, not just the UI glitz side of Silverlight and the audience responded very where. Rather than going through a bunch of slides I created an application from scratch that does read\write data access via WCF and LINQ as well as local storage via Isolated storage Here is part of the flow I used: http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2008/06/26/data-focused-silverlight-demo.aspx and http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2008/06/23/using-asp-net-authentication-in-a-web-service-with-silverlight.aspx. Thanks Scott Morrison for your help with this! Here are the slides I used to kick it off.

Ajax:

I had a great time doing this ajax demo… It was basically a reprise of my Mix 08 talk which is an all demo talk.. I could tell people really loved it! Because I had just come back from Safari, I re-themed it with my pictures.

MVC:

I split the last talk on the “future of ASP.NET” into two parts… Part 1 was on MVC. The “no viewstate” and the “IDs not mangled” were winners! Folks generally seemed to get that they did not have to move to ASP.NET MVC. The two consistent big asks where for better\more ajax support and some sort of reusable component support. I think we are well on our way to address both of those. Here are the slides and demo I used.

Dynamic Data:

This talk was a real crowd pleaser. I started off by showing how to change an existing site into being Dynamic Data aware and this really drove home the point about the value Dynamic Data adds. http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2008/06/20/asp-net-dynamicdata-an-introductory-demo.aspx . By this point ½ the room was already sold… but there was much more. I then used the wizard to show off all the customization capabilities of DD. That pulled the rest of them in. http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2008/06/27/asp-net-dynamic-data-customizing-the-ui.aspx . The questions here were all about support for different data sources. NHibernate, plain old objects, etc. I think we have a great story here and I wish I would have had time to demo it. Here are the slides I used

Closing

I had a little fun to close out the event. Through the day I had been throwing out giveaways (t-shirts\balls\hats) whenever someone asked a question or pointed out a bug I had made (there were a few!). But I was left with a big Microsoft keyboard that I didn’t want to through. So I ask for a volunteer to come up and code something on stage like I had done all day! I chose creating a LINQ model over top of Northwind as I did that like 5 different times during the event so I thought it was fair. The victims.. ah, I mean volunteers at the Cape Town and Johannesburg events did well! They started off kind of shaky and made me nervous, but they got in and nailed it! It was a good fun time for all as the audience “helped” out a bit by yelling suggestions. One guy even said “you owe me ½ that keyboard” when he finally go it ;-). Oh, and some folks asked me about the zooming tool I used to zoom in on the screen. It is called ZoomIt.

Here are a few blog posts I have already seen from the event..

http://liamb.com/2008/06/23/brad-abrams-visits-south-africa/
http://metallemon.blogspot.com/2008/06/mix-essentials-2008.html
http://www.fremus.co.za/blog/2008/06/first-experiences-with-visual-studio-2008/

I'd love to hear your feedback\thoughts on this... and if you blogged on the event please let me know and I will add your link here.

Oh, and I did spent a few days on Safari at Mala Mala adjacent to Krueger national park. I was amazed at the big game viewing... I highly recommend it. Here are some photos.

Silverlight Roles, Profile and Authentication Example Updated for Silverlight Beta2 Now with Visual State Manager (VSM) goodness!

BradA — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:23:54 GMT

I am very excited about Silverlight Beta2 shipping recently... I took a few minutes to update my recent sample "Accessing the ASP.NET Authentication, Profile and Role Service in Silverlight" post to Beta2. While I was at it, I thought I'd take advantage of the new Visual State Manager (VSM) feature to simplify some of the UI.

VSM is a new Beta2 feature of Silverlight (and soon WPF) that makes it much easier to define and transition between UI states in your application. For more information check out Christian Schormann’s VSM blog post and this great VSM screen cast and associated demo files which I stole from... ah, I mean "leveraged" in this example.

Download: Silverlight Beta2 Roles, Profile and Authentication Example Code (you need all the good stuff from http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/ to play)

Here are a few "states" now in the application.

Not logged in:

Transitioning to logged in...

Logged in as manager:

It is very simple to do this in blend... You simply use the new "States" tab in Blend to define a base state (highlighted below) and a set of transition states...

For example, here is the logged in state... the pattern I am using is basically to move Xaml elements on and off the screen

As you can see here, in the logged in state, the controls for logging in are simply moved off the screen.

Then the source code is super simple. The key line is the first one in each function. This where I programmatically tell Silverlight to change what state the UI should be in. Much better than hiding a show a bunch of controls and very designer friendly. Now I do not need to touch my code when some aspect of the design changes.

private void LogIn_Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    VisualStateManager.GoToState(this, "LoggedIn", true);
    AuthenticationServiceClient client = new AuthenticationServiceClient();
    client.LoginCompleted += new EventHandler<LoginCompletedEventArgs>(client_LoginCompleted);
    client.LoginAsync(UserName.Text, Password.Password, "", true, UserName.Text);
}

private void LogOut_Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    VisualStateManager.GoToState(this, "LoggedOut", true);
    WelcomeMessage.Text = "logging out..";
    AuthenticationServiceClient client = new AuthenticationServiceClient();
    client.LogoutCompleted += new EventHandler<System.ComponentModel.AsyncCompletedEventArgs>(client_LogoutCompleted);
    client.LogoutAsync();
}

Download: Silverlight Beta2 Roles, Profile and Authentication Example Code (you need all the good stuff from http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/ to play). Thanks to Hanu Kommalapati for help in porting to Silverlight beta2.

I'd love to hear what you think!

Oh, while we are at it, Kathy updated her very popular controls sample page for Silverlight Beta2 as well.

Silverlight Control Demo Sample
A sample of twenty-four Silverlight 2 controls that can be viewed live together with the source code used to drive the controls.

By clicking Download It you accept the license

.NET Framework Client Profile

BradA — Thu, 22 May 2008 07:47:23 GMT

As I mentioned a few days ago, with .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 Beta we are taking some MAJOR steps toward making it easier for customers to acquire the .NET Framework. One of the ways we have done that is creating a client profile of the .NET Framework that includes only those parts of the framework that are relevant to client developers.

Several customers have asked me recently exactly what is in this subset. Well the good news is it is a very large subset of what you need in a client application. We profiled tons of client apps to be sure we got the right set. But we'd also love your feedback. Justin Van Patten has recently blogged out the official list of what is in this profile. This includes WPF, WCF, WinForms, System.Data, etc... Please check it out and give us your feedback.

Customers have also asked about the details of the development experience. How do you target this profile? How is it deployed? How does it work on different versions of Windows? etc. Troy Martez has done a great post that walks through all the details on targeting the .NET Framework Client Profile. We'd love your feedback on this as well!

Enjoy!!

Reusable WPF Transitions Project is live!

BradA — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:33:51 GMT

Jared Bienz has been working on getting some cool WPF transitions code posted to codeplex. The project, Transitionals, is now live!

Transitionals is a framework for building and using WPF transitions which provide an easy way to switch between UI views in a rich and animated way. Think of transitions for applications in the same way you think of transitions for video editing. Wipe, Cut, Dissolve, Star, Blinds and 3D Rotating Cube are all examples of transitions supported by the Transitionals framework.
The best way to get started with the Transitionals framework is to download and take a look at the TransitionalsHelp file. You can find it on the Releases tab and it includes a pretty comprehensive Getting Started guide. You can also download the binary archive which includes two sample projects. Transitionals is compiled in Visual Studio 2008 against .Net Framework 3.5.

Single source code base for Silverlight and WPF solutions

BradA — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:28:06 GMT

At Mix08, several people asked me about the possibility of creating a single source base for both WPF and Silverlight. The scenario folks had in mind was to provide a reach solution with Silverlight that hits *ALL* possible users while also offering a really rich solutions for some users on full WPF (.NET Framework 3.0 or 3.5).

This is a clear benefit of the Microsoft Ux platform.. We have worked hard to get a smooth continuum between WPF and Silverlight... Basically if it works in Silverlight you should be pretty sure it will work on WPF.

I was chatting David Anson (one of the developers of the Silverlight 2 controls) and he mentioned that the shipping versions of ListBox and ScrollViewer were written this way! That is right, to test out the continuum message, David built ListBox and ScrollViewer for Silverlight in such a way that the run (and past unit tests) on both WPF and Silverlight.

Now, in and of itself, this is not all that interesting, because WPF already has a ListBox and ScrollViewer, but it does serve as a nice test case to demonstrate how you can build controls and applications that work on both Silverlight and WPF.

Because we shipped the source and unit tests for the Silverlight controls, you can check this out yourself!

In addition, David did a nice blog detailing the work he did and why and posted the test project you can try out as well.

On a related note, be sure to check out the final step of ScottGu's Silverlight 2 tutorial... Notice how easy it is for him to make a WPF application out of it.

Silverlight and WPF Control Developer Huddle at Mix08

BradA — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 01:57:09 GMT

I just ran into Ted Glaza from Ajax Control toolkit and Silverlight Controls fame and he is getting some of the control developers together (3rd parties, Microsoft as well as in house) to talk about building controls for WPF and Silverlight.

We will have some folks there are are building the current set of controls that ship in the box for Silverlight and WPF from and I hope some folks from Telerik, ComponentOne, and Infragistics.

Ted tells me we will meet up in a few tables in the center of the dining room here at Mix tomorrow (Friday) at during the lunch break.

Anyone is welcome be there if you can!

Cool new WPF application: Cayra Mindmapping tool Free!

BradA — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 19:44:07 GMT

Check out this cool new new mind mapping tool that uses some of the great layout and graphics capabilities of WPF.

http://cayra.net/

Here is a mindmap of Mix I created to test it out.. Fun stuff!

WPF Coming into the mainstream with excellent component vendor support

BradA — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 08:06:00 GMT

I love the ecosystem around Microsoft technology... The 3rd party component vendors add some much jazz and productivity to our platforms. I recently saw a list of the component vendors already shipping products for WPF and I couldn't help but share it.

Are there any I am missing? What has your experience with these been?

Actipro WPF Studio: Ribbon, Bar Code, Wizard, DateTime, Calendar, Transition, Color Selection, Transition Effects Library

Divelements: Office UI, Window Management

DevComponents: Office UI, Window Management

SoftwareFx: Charts

Infragistics: Carousel, DataPresenter, Grid, Masked Edit, DateTimeEdit, CurrencyEdit, NumericEdit, CheckEdit, TextEdit, ThemePacks, Chart

Component One Schedule, MonthCalendar, Chart, Grid

Xceed: DataGrid

identity mine

Blendables: Zoombox, ElementSnapshot, Carousel, ChromelessWindow, DragAndDrop, Pie Chart, OS Check, Timeline Panel, Binding MarkupExtensions, NumbericRangeToObjectConverter

Mindscape: ProperityGrid

neodynamic: BarCode

Syncfusion: Docking, Office 2007 Ribbon, GroupBar and Char

Orbifold: diagramming tool (free and commercial versions)

Kevin's Bag-o-Tricks: tons of UI controls and samples

.NET Framework 3.5 Namespace poster Updated

BradA — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 02:43:31 GMT

A while back I blogged about the .NET Framework 3.5 Namespace poster... We made a few tweaks and updated it, including making it available in more formats.

Download Links:

Full XPS
Split XPS
PDF
Tiled PDF

Enjoy!

User Experience in the Enterprise: Lawson's flash ship manufacturing and distribution application

BradA — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 08:34:24 GMT

Well, we are not even out of January yet and there is at least a hint of one of my 2008 prediction coming true. Frog Design is helping Lawson get User Experience to Reach the Enterprise. Check out the details on the case study and read more about how Frog Design brings WPF sexy to the enterprise masses.

I'd love to hear about any other examples you run across!

Software Development Predictions for 2008

BradA — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:06:27 GMT

Happy New Year!

Not too long ago, I was asked for my predictions for the IT-Technology in 2008... You can find the full article here, but I thought I'd include my thoughts on my blog.

Where's i-Technology Headed in 2008?

I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments

1. User Experience Reaches the Enterprise. In 2008 we will see several major enterprises start efforts to build UX centric applications that increase worker productivity, reduced transaction costs and increase pull through as the UX meme of the consumer facing world leaks into the enterprise. The days of the battleship gray, forms of data application as the king of the enterprise are numbered because of an imperative towards richer visualization of complex and interconnected data. While there will always be a need for the traditional sort of application, by the end of 2008, it is no longer the only element of the corporate landscape.

2. Testability Becomes a Requirement for Software Development Frameworks. No longer satisfied with simple reductions in costs for initial development, a growing community demand frameworks and tools that facilitate sustainable and agile practices. 2008 is the year that frameworks and tools take notice and start to deliver solutions that are testable out of the box. Technologies such as Test Driven Development, MVC/MVP patterns, and frameworks that support mocking become mainstream. After seeing this year’s cool demos at software development industry conferences a common question will be: “...And how do you test that?” Let’s hope the presenters have an answer.

3. The Companion Applications Become Practical. While RIA and AJAX application categories continue to grow, many consumer facing web applications and enterprise applications developers realize there is a need for desktop exploitive applications as well as reach web applications that work everywhere. What meaningful application wouldn’t benefit from a pairing like that of Outlook and Outlook Web Access? In the past it has been prohibitively expensive to build these applications, but with the circa 2008 technology such as .NET Framework 3.5 and Silverlight, it is finally becoming practical to have a single codebase that fully exploits the desktop and offers a rich web experience.

VS 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 RTM

BradA — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:20:17 GMT

We made it, just in time for your turkey-day fun! You can go out and download VS 2008 Express (for FREE) right now and .NET Framework 3.5...

Here is just a few things I love about this release... Please add your own:

1. VS 2008 fully supports multi-targeting... meaning you can use the new tool to work on your existing web applications and VS2005 projects

2. AJAX Development is first class. The ASP.NET AJAX functionality is built into the framework and the IDE fully support JavaScript debugging and JavaScript Intellisense

3. Linq, Linq and Linq... Data access gets way easier with the LINQ support in VS 2008, C#, VB and the platform.

4. Visual design experience in VS for building WPF based applications

5. Debug into the .NET Framework source code

I'd love to see your list... what do you think is great about VS 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5??