WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

A new phase for the Acropolis project

Noticias externas — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:13:20 GMT

The Acropolis incubation project has been a great learning experience for us and we have received a lot

Announcing WPF Composite Client

My Technobabble — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:16:30 GMT

We just announced a new deliverable called WPF Composite Client. Due to the wonders of the blogosphere

WPF Composite Client

Blaine Wastell - patterns & practices client architecture guidance — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:21:30 GMT

The Acropolis team just announced that the core Acropolis concepts will be rolled into future .NET Framework

The future of WPF Guidance

Espresso Fueled Agile Development — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:54:01 GMT

There is a lot of new information, all announced today, about the future of Acropolis, CAB, and WPF guidance

A new phase for "Acropolis" Project

Kathy Kam — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:02:35 GMT

Today, our team gave an update on the "Acropolis" project in the Acropolis team blog here . In response

A new phase for "Acropolis" Project

Noticias externas — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:19:20 GMT

Today, our team gave an update on the "Acropolis" project in the Acropolis team blog here

Acropolis is Dead!!! Long Live Acropolis!!!

Woody's Tech Haven — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:33:07 GMT

Acropolis is Dead!!! Long Live Acropolis!!!

WPF Composite Client

Johan Lindfors — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:09:43 GMT

Under MSDN Live så berättade jag och Robert om att Acropolis inte skulle se dagens ljus i den utformning

WPF Composite Client Guidance

Sam Gentile — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:16:47 GMT

Glenn asked me to keep this quiet until today. As Glenn just announced, the patterns & practices

Change of plans for Acropolis and WPF composite client support from Microsoft

Fabrice's weblog — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:22:15 GMT

Back in June, Microsoft announced Acropolis . Now, the Acropolis team and the Patterns & Practices

Acropolis is Dead! Long live Acropolis!

Beyond | IT — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:29:21 GMT

The Acropolis team announced today that Acropolis will not advance from CTP to a supported product. (For

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

malovicn — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 01:52:10 GMT

Today, on Acropolis team blog, they announced that they are moving Acropolis to "some future release" and that the good news is that P&P team announced working on WPF composite guidance...

http://blog.vuscode.com/malovicn/archive/2007/10/29/acropolis-team-blog-acropolis-on-the-bench-p-amp-p-scsf-back-on-the-field.aspx

WPF Composite Client

Maor David - Coding Paradise — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 02:00:46 GMT

After the announcement about the death of Acropolis , Glenn just announced that the patterns & practices

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

DarrelMiller — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 04:42:11 GMT

Some comments on why we chose to move to WPF for a LOB application

http://www.bizcoder.com/index.php/2007/10/29/why-wpf-for-lob-applications/

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Ward Bell — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 04:55:57 GMT

I just exposed my ignorance on this subject in a blog post: http://neverindoubtnet.blogspot.com/2007/10/requiem-for-acropolis-fanfare-for-cab.html

Acropolis와 CAB의 향방과 새 WPF Composite Client

bkchung's WebLog — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 05:22:42 GMT

Acropolis Team Blog : A new phase for the Acropolis project My Technobabble WPF Composite Client, it's

Big Changes for the Acropolis Project

Chris Bowen's Blog — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 05:48:39 GMT

If you're been looking into the Acropolis project for building composite applications, take a look at

Acropolis Out, WPF Composite Client Applications in!

Guy Burstein [MVP] — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 09:46:21 GMT

Acropolis Out, WPF Composite Client Applications in! Back in June 2007, during Teched Orlando, Microsoft

WPF Composite Client

Simon Ince's Blog — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:36:03 GMT

Some top news has been circulating over the past few days or so - Glenn Block has a good summary . Basically

Важные измения в планах проекта Acropolis

Roman Zdebskiy [MSFT] — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 14:26:26 GMT

Наработки проекта будут включены в следующие версии .NET Framework и в "WPF Comp

WPF Composite Client / Acropolis Future

Alex on ASP.NET — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 14:59:48 GMT

WPF Composite Client / Acropolis Future

A New WPF Composite Client and Acropolis Core into .NET Announced

US ISV Developer Evangelism Team — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:46:58 GMT

Windows Presentation Composite Client For those ISV's who have been looking forward to a way to combine

A New WPF Composite Client and Acropolis Core into .NET Announced

Noticias externas — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 20:03:11 GMT

Windows Presentation Composite Client For those ISV's who have been looking forward to a way to combine

The future of Acropolis

Willem Meints — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 20:29:05 GMT

Few months back I tried the new client framework Acropolis and was pretty surprised by the features it

WPF and Composite Applications

Geeky Storytelling — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 21:00:46 GMT

Composite Applications became defined when the Patterns & Practices group released the Composite

Whoops Acropolis! - WPF, CAB and such

Allan's Best Week Ever — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 02:03:03 GMT

A story in pictures... ( + ) = http://blogs.msdn.com/acropolis/archive/2007/10/29/An-Acropolis-Update.aspx

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Mathew Upchurch — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 02:06:22 GMT

Okay I have to disagree with LOB apps and WPF. Yes I have a feeling Winforms apps will continue to live on just like VB 6 & COM apps before it. Once the tool support comes (in VS 2008) I really don't see a compelling reason to stay with Winforms. The layout and styling are far superior... why would you want to stay with Winforms? I find the argument to be from a position of denial rather than realistic. Yes if you are designing an App today... you should be doing Winforms... but by the time CAB gets a new release that might actually be worth it... well we maybe on the 2nd or 3rd iteration of CAB. CAB is just too much code bloat and I don't see how that is going to change (I guess I'll have to wait and see for sure but). The issues with CAB are well known and have not been addressed since 2005 (save for the smart client framework... which is essentially a guidance package). The same bloat persists and I don't see the move to change that (I don't buy accropolis as an excuse to not fix the issues). Given the arguments that have been proposed if you are building an app today... use Winforms but no CAB. If future use WPF and maybe (just maybe) at somepoint we will see a version of CAB that doesn't well... suck. (I hate to be so harse as it has some great ideas... just too much bloat).

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Mathew Upchurch — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 02:14:06 GMT

Sorry I wish I could edit my previous post. When I said:

well we maybe on the 2nd or 3rd iteration of CAB

it should be

well maybe on the 2nd or 3rd iteration of WPF...

that should clear it up.

Whoops Acropolis! - WPF, CAB and such

Noticias externas — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 02:21:30 GMT

A story in pictures... ( + ) = http://blogs.msdn.com/acropolis/archive/2007/10/29/An-Acropolis-Update

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Glenn Block — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 04:01:28 GMT

@Matthew

1. The WPF tooling support in VS2008 (Cider) is not going to give you something equal to the developer experience with WinForms. It does not replace the drag & drop / debugging experience that you are accustomed to in the IDE today. Yes the styling is richer, the animations are richer, the graphics are richer. However, the paradigm is entirely different, the ramp up is much greater and the experience is different.

2. Our recommendation for building composite smart client apps today is to use SCSF/CAB. CAB does have it's complexities however we've had overwhelming satisfaction and adoption from .NET customers. That being said it is not the end all. If you are not building applications that contain the patterns / scenarios CAB addresses, i.e. Modularity (multiple teams in isolation), Dependency Injection, Service Location, PubSub, Separation of concerns, etc then CAB may not be right for you.

3. About your issues with CAB, I'd be happy to hear where the complexity / bloat lies, and where your pain points are with using it.

Interesting Discovery: a book on the CAB & SCSF!

A British Geek in Texas Pontificates — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:24:57 GMT

I learned today that there was a book published a few months ago on two of my favourite technologies,

Interesting Discovery: a book on the CAB & SCSF!

Noticias externas — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:46:36 GMT

I learned today that there was a book published a few months ago on two of my favourite technologies

Da Acropolis a WPF Composite Client

Corrado's BLogs — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 19:18:49 GMT

Da Acropolis a WPF Composite Client

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Mathew Upchurch — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 20:15:18 GMT

Okay code bloat and CAB & misc pain points:

1) Extension points are by definition broken. Let me explain... extension points are supposed to provide an abstraction from the shell and the modules to decrease dependancy between them. Unfortunately the opposite happens. Let's say I use an Infragistic's menu in my application. Well all the adapter code really does is create extra code. I still have dependancy from shell and module as they all have to know about the menu control and we all have to be synced on the same control.

2) Build up and tear down. The process of starting Workitems and closing them is painfully slow (mostly due to reflection). Honestly I think the whole workitem == use case medafore needs serious thought as most people don't use it that way. I have yet to see a good implementation using nested workitems or even having multiple views for a workitem. The issue is similar with presenters... If the view - workitem - presenter is a 1 - 1 -1 relationship... why use injection? The guidance package is nice but often times it creates an overly complex code structure that the simple (and often used) parts of the application suffer. Instead of solving the 80 / 20 rule in a LOB app CAB actually works in the reverse. It is a complex structure that caters to complex screens and makes simple screens complex and bloated.

3) Event subscription. There are several bugs in which event subscription actually creates multiple references and ruins weak referenced objects (it basically makes you code back to com days with reference counting).

okay that's enough for now... to the points you've made on cider (vs 2008)...

It is like starting over with Winforms circa vs 2002. That said I still believe it offers a compelling experience well worth the learning curve. Let's face it you will have to face that learning curve at somepoint. For apps being relesed this year I still recommend Winforms... but as we get closer to vs 2008 I tend to say move towards WPF. Yes you don't get all the stuff you take for granted in Winform development today... but once you get over the curve (which really isn't that bad) I think it is a much better place to work in. Nine times out of Ten I have worked on LOB apps most of the time on GUI is spent on layout, which is not one of Winforms strong points. One of the main reason's I've seen so many companies move over to internal web sites for traditional LOB apps has been layout issues. To me WPF addresses this issue as well as opening the door to new ways to present data that have not been possible. Is it a steep learning curve... yep but much less than CAB and more documentation. One of the things I have always faulted CAB for was the fact the documentation was so poor and there really isn't much in the way of guidance. I have toyed with the idea of writing a book on CAB, but I have issues doing it because I find that the best way to use CAB is to use less of it's features rather than more. The real problem with CAB is it is a framework searching for a problem to solve. It's a mammoth solution that tries to solve a relatively small problem (having a truely plugable app) in a very complex way.

About CAB "bloated feeling"

Alex — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 08:44:04 GMT

Glenn,

I disagree with some of the reasons given by Mathew on why CAB feels bloated, but I agree that it feels bloated.

In my opinion, it is not a "mammoth solution that tries to solve a relatively small problem". In my opinion, it is a "mammoth collection of solutions trying to solve a corresponding collection of big and small problems". See the difference?

Anyway, I feel the "bloated" feeling is mostly due to a lack of specific guidance available for each feature. Features are rarely discussed in isolation, and most of the guidance, tutorials, etc. take you through the core collection of features, which is quite a large number. I believe this causes us developers to feel CAB is bloated beacuse feature A is always explained in conjunction with features B, C, D and E. In truth, I believe we could use it independently, but don't realise that until we are close to the top of the CAB learning curve. And with the curve been as steep as it is, that takes a while.

So, in summary, I don't think CAB is bloated. I just think it gives us a bloated feeling until we reach the top of the learning curve and start to be able to understand the concepts and features separately, rather than as this complete solution.

You guys did a good job at separating the multiple features of Enterprise Library. Try to break CAB into smaller pieces as well if you can.

Follow up...

Alex — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 09:09:22 GMT

As a follow up, I just found the following post (dated as 2005, ouch!).

http://blogs.msdn.com/gblock/archive/2007/05/27/is-cab-complex-and-if-so-why.aspx

In this post you state that we can use CAB for the SmartParts etc. without even using WorkItems. That's what I was talking about. I wouldn't know how to do that, so in the end, I would be developing my application with WorkItems.

Do I recommend that people do that? No. At the end, I think we do need to learn how to use WorkItems as well. But just to apply some example of why we get this "bloated feeling".

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Mathew Upchurch — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:49:45 GMT

@Alex

No I hear where your coming from... I feel similarly. I would be interested to use SmartParts apart from Workitems as we have alot of screens that the whole Workitem - Smartpart - presenter medafore is just too much overhead. Yes we do need to know how to use WorkItems... but comeon...

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Glenn Block — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 22:00:47 GMT

A while ago I posted on the complexity of CAB. Contrary to popular opinion, It's not complex just for complexity sake. However it was built to support some extremely complex UIs. The canonical example that it was modeled off of was the Dell Desktop. This application was originally I think about 40 different systems. The learning curve for new employees was also signficant since each app had it's own nuances. Also the complexities of maintaing such an app were significant.

The soluton was to build ann application that used an architecture similaar to CAB. This greatly reduced the maintenance and signficantly improved the usability. This is one of several types of apps that CAB was built to support. CAB can definitely be overkill if you don't have challenges it was built to address. If you aren't having many teams working on different parts of the system in isolation for example.

Izindaba #16

From the software development trenches — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 00:33:10 GMT

Time for another weekly round-up of developer news that focuses on .NET, agile and general development

Izindaba #16 Reloaded

From the software development trenches — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 00:42:58 GMT

Time for another weekly round-up of developer news that focuses on .NET, agile and general development

WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Paulo Morgado — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 03:45:07 GMT

Glenn Block has announced that, after the announcement that Acropolis won't be out so soon, the Practices

Vem aí o WPF Composite Client!

Paulo Morgado — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 03:57:28 GMT

O Glenn Block anunciou que, após o anûncio de que o Acropolis não vai saír tão cedo, a Equipa de Practices

Acropolis e WPF Composite Client

Il blog del team MSDN Italia — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 13:19:46 GMT

A TechEd US 2007 è stato annunciato Microsoft Code Name “ Acropolis ”: un set di componenti e tool pensato

Acropolis is no more... long live the WPF Composite Client

Eric Nelson - Development for .NET Framework 3.0 for ISVs — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 16:08:43 GMT

Acropolis was a project to make building LOB applications using Windows Forms or WPF much easier than

We're revving SCSF and WCSF for VS2008

My Technobabble — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 04:08:44 GMT

  My blog has been quiet the past few days as I've been busy working on user stories for the new

We're revving SCSF and WCSF for VS2008

Noticias externas — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 04:22:43 GMT

  My blog has been quiet the past few days as I've been busy working on user stories for the

Interesting Read on Silverlight 2.0 and WPF

Conversations with the Communications Sector — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:34:42 GMT

Pete Brown has a great blog post here on Silverlight 2.0 and WPF.  Pete makes some great points

Ezequiel is now joining - @ redmond!!!

Ezequiel Jadib — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 07:17:58 GMT

Yes!! as you read in the title, I'm in Redmond for first time!. I'm very excited with this travel because

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Rachel Roberts — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:26:00 GMT

Having been through a CAB project, by accident, I can easily add CAB should never have been released to the developer community. I am sure MS has learnt a lot, but it has come at a high cost to projects that adopted it.

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Roberts — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:26:15 GMT

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Glenn Block — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 04:55:59 GMT

@Rachel

Thanks for the feedback. What were the specific experiences that drove you to that statement? In the new work we are doing we are adressing many of the concerns we've heard from customers. It would be great to add yours to the list ;)

Regards

Glenn

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Ranjith — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 07:39:26 GMT

We have developed a composite User Interface(UI) framework on top of SCSF which supports WinForms(based on June 2006 SCSF). We have invested a lot of time and energy in developing this framework as we have extended it to support a lot of custom functionalities. Already a lot of apps are in production.

Now we are planning to come out with a framework that supports WPF. My question is

1. Can i migrate my existing framwork based on SCSF to support WPF with less effort?

2. I saw that there is a framework that supports WinForms and WPF interop but it seems like i cannot leverage all the advantages of WPF in this case.

3. Your post says there will be a release of CAB with WPF support. Will this be the right option for us?

4. What about Acropolis? Is it similar to CAB and can i migrate my existing CAB framework to Acropolis?

Please suggest what should be done in this case.

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Ben Zamora — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:39:29 GMT

When you refer to Brown field senarios, I assume an existing CAB application is a good example.

BTW, I can't wait for the upgraded SCSF with 2008 support.

Prism (WPF Composite Client) Codeplex Site Launched

Ezequiel Jadib — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:49:02 GMT

Last week we launched the Codeplex site for Prism. There you will find all the information related to

Prism (WPF Composite Client) Codeplex Site Launched

Ezequiel Jadib — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:51:04 GMT

Last week we launched the Codeplex site for Prism. There you will find all the information related to

Web Service Software Factory : Modeling Edition - Nova versão já disponível.

Arquitetura de Soluções — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 03:34:00 GMT

Olá pessoal, tudo certo? Ainda sobre Fábricas de Software e Guias de Automação, vale acompanhar o que

Web Service Software Factory : Modeling Edition - Nova versão já disponível.

Noticias externas — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 04:27:05 GMT

Olá pessoal, tudo certo? Ainda sobre Fábricas de Software e Guias de Automação, vale acompanhar o que

WPF Composite Client from Patterns & Practices

Noticias externas — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 09:54:51 GMT

For those of you who don't know about the Smart Client Software Factory and Composite Application

"Prism" launches on CodePlex

My Technobabble — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 03:54:30 GMT

Some time ago we announced that patterns & practices was going to be delivering a new set of guidance

"Prism" launches on CodePlex

Noticias externas — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 04:04:31 GMT

Some time ago we announced that patterns & practices was going to be delivering a new set of guidance

'Prism' launches on CodePlex

Glenn Block — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:16:56 GMT

Some time ago we announced that patterns & practices was going to be delivering a new set of guidance

Acropolis is Dead!!! Long Live Acropolis!!!

CloudSocket — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 12:20:57 GMT

Acropolis is Dead!!! Long Live Acropolis!!!

WPF for Business Applications, ready for the average user?

Community Blogs — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:02:07 GMT

We're starting a new project and naturally we looked at leveraging the latest .NET framework features

WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

A new phase for the Acropolis project

Announcing WPF Composite Client

WPF Composite Client

The future of WPF Guidance

A new phase for "Acropolis" Project

A new phase for "Acropolis" Project

Acropolis is Dead!!! Long Live Acropolis!!!

WPF Composite Client

WPF Composite Client Guidance

Change of plans for Acropolis and WPF composite client support from Microsoft

Acropolis is Dead! Long live Acropolis!

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

WPF Composite Client

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Acropolis와 CAB의 향방과 새 WPF Composite Client

Big Changes for the Acropolis Project

Acropolis Out, WPF Composite Client Applications in!

WPF Composite Client

Важные измения в планах проекта Acropolis

WPF Composite Client / Acropolis Future

A New WPF Composite Client and Acropolis Core into .NET Announced

A New WPF Composite Client and Acropolis Core into .NET Announced

The future of Acropolis

WPF and Composite Applications

Whoops Acropolis! - WPF, CAB and such

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Whoops Acropolis! - WPF, CAB and such

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Interesting Discovery: a *book* on the CAB & SCSF!

Interesting Discovery: a *book* on the CAB & SCSF!

Da Acropolis a WPF Composite Client

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

About CAB "bloated feeling"

Follow up...

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Izindaba #16

Izindaba #16 Reloaded

WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Vem aí o WPF Composite Client!

Acropolis e WPF Composite Client

Acropolis is no more... long live the WPF Composite Client

We're revving SCSF and WCSF for VS2008

We're revving SCSF and WCSF for VS2008

Interesting Read on Silverlight 2.0 and WPF

Ezequiel is now joining - @ redmond!!!

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

re: WPF Composite Client, it's coming!

Prism (WPF Composite Client) Codeplex Site Launched

Prism (WPF Composite Client) Codeplex Site Launched

Web Service Software Factory : Modeling Edition - Nova versão já disponível.

Web Service Software Factory : Modeling Edition - Nova versão já disponível.

WPF Composite Client from Patterns & Practices

"Prism" launches on CodePlex

"Prism" launches on CodePlex

'Prism' launches on CodePlex

Acropolis is Dead!!! Long Live Acropolis!!!

WPF for Business Applications, ready for the average user?

Interesting Discovery: a book on the CAB & SCSF!

Interesting Discovery: a book on the CAB & SCSF!