VS2008/.NET - WPF Designer
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WPF Page designer was unusable in VS2005, with VS2008 it does not crash but it is too slow and practically unusable. I hope that this gets resolved in the final release. But isn't it ironic that tone of the tenets on which the WPF architecture was based was to enable better designers. So far I have not seen a good designer (not even expression blend). Looks like hand coding XAML is the way to go for a long time.
Co-Author ASP.NET AJAX in Action
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WPF Page designer was unusable in VS2005, with VS2008 it does not crash but it is too slow and practically unusable. I hope that this gets resolved in the final release. But isn't it ironic that tone of the tenets on which the WPF architecture was based was to enable better designers. So far I have not seen a good designer (not even expression blend). Looks like hand coding XAML is the way to go for a long time.
Co-Author ASP.NET AJAX in Action
Yeah WPF is essentially a technology to make awesome UIs with little effort, but with the designer support (lack of it) and the need to handcode all the Xaml, thee's not much RAD about WPF as of today!
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
My latest book : C++/CLI in Action / Amazon.com link -
WPF Page designer was unusable in VS2005, with VS2008 it does not crash but it is too slow and practically unusable. I hope that this gets resolved in the final release. But isn't it ironic that tone of the tenets on which the WPF architecture was based was to enable better designers. So far I have not seen a good designer (not even expression blend). Looks like hand coding XAML is the way to go for a long time.
Co-Author ASP.NET AJAX in Action
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
WPF Page designer was unusable in VS2005, with VS2008 it does not crash but it is too slow and practically unusable. I hope that this gets resolved in the final release.
I hear you. I hope it gets taken care of soon. Otherwise I am just sticking with using Expression Blend for the time being...
"Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
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WPF Page designer was unusable in VS2005, with VS2008 it does not crash but it is too slow and practically unusable. I hope that this gets resolved in the final release. But isn't it ironic that tone of the tenets on which the WPF architecture was based was to enable better designers. So far I have not seen a good designer (not even expression blend). Looks like hand coding XAML is the way to go for a long time.
Co-Author ASP.NET AJAX in Action
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
Looks like hand coding XAML is the way to go for a long time.
Which is utterly insane. And inane, for Microsoft to put out a technology that demands a designer, without a designer. And come on, folks. How hard can it be? Look at VG.net[^]. Frank has had an excellent designer for years now, and Microsoft has incredibly larger resources to throw at a WPF designer. And the best they can come out with is a buggy, crashy, slow product? Somebody (or several somebody's) need to be taken out to the yard and shot, IMO. Maybe it's because they outsourced the development to India. (there, that'll get me flamed, mwahahaha) Marc
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WPF Page designer was unusable in VS2005, with VS2008 it does not crash but it is too slow and practically unusable. I hope that this gets resolved in the final release. But isn't it ironic that tone of the tenets on which the WPF architecture was based was to enable better designers. So far I have not seen a good designer (not even expression blend). Looks like hand coding XAML is the way to go for a long time.
Co-Author ASP.NET AJAX in Action
I always write XAML by hand. The XAML generated by Cider and Blend is crap. Lots of magic numbers, ugly formatting, stupid names, etc. The only thing I find Blend useful for is creating complex shapes, like a big Path, and then exporting that into the VS project. I've been writing XAML for long enough now that I don't see it as a productivity inhibitor. I can easily throw together a quick UI in XAML, and end up with "workable" XAML (not the designer-generated muck). Of course, none of this matters in the big picture. For WPF to take off in the dev world we'll need to see some great drag-drop designers out there.
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Without a strive for perfection I would be terribly bored.
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I always write XAML by hand. The XAML generated by Cider and Blend is crap. Lots of magic numbers, ugly formatting, stupid names, etc. The only thing I find Blend useful for is creating complex shapes, like a big Path, and then exporting that into the VS project. I've been writing XAML for long enough now that I don't see it as a productivity inhibitor. I can easily throw together a quick UI in XAML, and end up with "workable" XAML (not the designer-generated muck). Of course, none of this matters in the big picture. For WPF to take off in the dev world we'll need to see some great drag-drop designers out there.
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Without a strive for perfection I would be terribly bored.
Josh Smith wrote:
Lots of magic numbers, ugly formatting, stupid names, etc.
I stopped trying to use Blend for the same reason. For the amount of time it was taking me to get the 'fudging' just right, it is just much easier to do it by hand in the first place.
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Josh Smith wrote:
Lots of magic numbers, ugly formatting, stupid names, etc.
I stopped trying to use Blend for the same reason. For the amount of time it was taking me to get the 'fudging' just right, it is just much easier to do it by hand in the first place.
Patrick Sears wrote:
For the amount of time it was taking me to get the 'fudging' just right, it is just much easier to do it by hand in the first place.
Exactly.
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Without a strive for perfection I would be terribly bored.
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WPF Page designer was unusable in VS2005, with VS2008 it does not crash but it is too slow and practically unusable. I hope that this gets resolved in the final release. But isn't it ironic that tone of the tenets on which the WPF architecture was based was to enable better designers. So far I have not seen a good designer (not even expression blend). Looks like hand coding XAML is the way to go for a long time.
Co-Author ASP.NET AJAX in Action
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
too slow and practically unusable
Odd, I find it much faster than the designer in 2005 (I've never had the IDE crash with the designer open, but the designer fails to interpret some files though). But then again I tend to code in XAML since I find it an "easier" transition from (X)HTML where I'm used to visualizing things in my head. I'd like to try out Blend but haven't got around to downloading it. Might install it into the same VM as VS2008 to give it a whirl.
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Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
Looks like hand coding XAML is the way to go for a long time.
Which is utterly insane. And inane, for Microsoft to put out a technology that demands a designer, without a designer. And come on, folks. How hard can it be? Look at VG.net[^]. Frank has had an excellent designer for years now, and Microsoft has incredibly larger resources to throw at a WPF designer. And the best they can come out with is a buggy, crashy, slow product? Somebody (or several somebody's) need to be taken out to the yard and shot, IMO. Maybe it's because they outsourced the development to India. (there, that'll get me flamed, mwahahaha) Marc
Hi Marc, Often greater resources does not create a better result. Designers are difficult beasts, and from what I can see, the WPF object model was not "designed for designer creation" -- whereas the VG.net object model was designed specifically for that purpose. If you examine the designer infrastructure of the past, and the new designer infrastructure in VS 2008 (Cider), you can see a) the past infrastructure was complex and b) the newer infrastructure is even more complex. We are working on a new designer infrastructure ourself, for a designer outside of Visual Studio, and we have been happy to eliminate a lot of the unnecessary complexity. Frank
check out VG.net: www.vgdotnet.com An animated vector graphics system integrated in VS.net