Okay I'm actually annoyed now.
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To answer your question, if I were still using XAML, I would use Blend with it. It takes a little bit of getting used to, but it's far superior to working with the layout designers in VS.
Thanks! That's that "Blend for Visual Studio" I've heard referenced in the docs eh? Is it already installed with visual studio?
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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To answer your question, if I were still using XAML, I would use Blend with it. It takes a little bit of getting used to, but it's far superior to working with the layout designers in VS.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
if I were still using XAML, I would use Blend with it.
Okay wait, you've intrigued me. What are you doing *now?* for UI stuff? I am not invested in UWP or any of that. I'd be fine with MAUI or whatever. As long as it's modern. Cross platform a huge bonus. Particularly if it will run on phones and use C#.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
if I were still using XAML, I would use Blend with it.
Okay wait, you've intrigued me. What are you doing *now?* for UI stuff? I am not invested in UWP or any of that. I'd be fine with MAUI or whatever. As long as it's modern. Cross platform a huge bonus. Particularly if it will run on phones and use C#.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
So, when I do have to write a pure desktop app, I use AvaloniaUI. It's waaay better than Maui. Most of the time, now, I'm using Blazor. The ability to run both in the browser, and as a PWA for those who want to run it on the desktop.
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Thanks! That's that "Blend for Visual Studio" I've heard referenced in the docs eh? Is it already installed with visual studio?
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
That's the one, and it is installed with VS.
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So, when I do have to write a pure desktop app, I use AvaloniaUI. It's waaay better than Maui. Most of the time, now, I'm using Blazor. The ability to run both in the browser, and as a PWA for those who want to run it on the desktop.
It didn't occur to me to use Blazor on the desktop. I've heard of AvaloniaUI before, but only just. I'll give it a look. Not sure Blazor fits the bill for me, as most of my applications are either utilities, or small companion apps for IoT devices, so there are some considerations. Like for example, In EspMon I had to embed a manifest to make it require elevated privileges on launch so i could collect hardware statistics from the PC. Blazor *might* not be appropriate for such a situation. I'm thinking you answered with a combination of things for a reason, so I'll give each of these things a look. You just threw me a lifeline. I was so at a loss as to where to move on this, and the longer I waited to move away from .NET Framework, the more behind I was going to be by the time I finally took the plunge. You've been a great help. Thank you again.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Edit: I accepted solution 5 just because it was the most detailed. Thank you all who answered and gave me some ideas for moving forward. I didn't want to get hassled for posting this question in the lounge: Winforms is dying and using XAML and the designers for it is like pulling teeth. What now?[^] So I made a programming question. They told me I should have put it in the lounge. New Rule Proposal: Recognize that you, as an average commenter, have no better grasp on where to post things than anyone else, and just accept where the questions lie if there is any room for interpretation. Is that too difficult? Really? It is? Do I need to hand out hobbies? :rolleyes:
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
I absolutely agree with you: I first discovered this when I considered moving from WinForms to WPF - but the designer tools in VS were so piss-poor that I just gave up and stuck to WinForms. Hand coding XAML after the drag'n'drop excellence I was used to? Why? It just made WPF feel "unfinished" and turned me right off the whole idea. It's the 21st Century: we shouldn't have to put up with crap like that.* * Reposted here so I can get ranted at in two places as well ... :-D
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt -
I absolutely agree with you: I first discovered this when I considered moving from WinForms to WPF - but the designer tools in VS were so piss-poor that I just gave up and stuck to WinForms. Hand coding XAML after the drag'n'drop excellence I was used to? Why? It just made WPF feel "unfinished" and turned me right off the whole idea. It's the 21st Century: we shouldn't have to put up with crap like that.* * Reposted here so I can get ranted at in two places as well ... :-D
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
OriginalGriff wrote:
WinForms to WPF
Most of the tools I write must run in a pure Win32/WinPE environment (I can't even rely on .NET). The UI design tools available for this are bad to non-existent, by today's standards.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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I absolutely agree with you: I first discovered this when I considered moving from WinForms to WPF - but the designer tools in VS were so piss-poor that I just gave up and stuck to WinForms. Hand coding XAML after the drag'n'drop excellence I was used to? Why? It just made WPF feel "unfinished" and turned me right off the whole idea. It's the 21st Century: we shouldn't have to put up with crap like that.* * Reposted here so I can get ranted at in two places as well ... :-D
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
I guess my experience of the appallingly-bad HTML produced by the WebForms designer must make me strange: I actually prefer hand-crafting XAML to using the WPF or WinForms designers. :)
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer
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OriginalGriff wrote:
WinForms to WPF
Most of the tools I write must run in a pure Win32/WinPE environment (I can't even rely on .NET). The UI design tools available for this are bad to non-existent, by today's standards.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
Daniel Pfeffer wrote:
The UI design tools available for this are bad to non-existent
I feel your pain. I ended up writing some FL Studio plugins where I was in a similar boat and ended up being sort of corralled into using MFC. I wanted to cry.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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I guess my experience of the appallingly-bad HTML produced by the WebForms designer must make me strange: I actually prefer hand-crafting XAML to using the WPF or WinForms designers. :)
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer
From a workflow perspective, i find i'm fastest when I can use the designer to rough out everything in broad strokes, and then switch to "code" to fine tune it. That to me, is RADable workflow. Otherwise things are just too cumbersome. Maybe I got spoiled by WinForms (and VB6 before it i guess) but I kind of expect that I can use a designer to come up with a reasonable mock of what I intend to develop, and if it can't do that, then the job is not done. I'm looking at you, Microsoft. I just need a way to move forward that isn't terrible. Whether it's UWP, MAUI, AvaloniaUI, or whatever. If it involves hand crafting overly annotated XML or otherwise too much fiddling I'm moving on to the next option, until I run out of options, at which point I'll pick the one I hate the least.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Edit: I accepted solution 5 just because it was the most detailed. Thank you all who answered and gave me some ideas for moving forward. I didn't want to get hassled for posting this question in the lounge: Winforms is dying and using XAML and the designers for it is like pulling teeth. What now?[^] So I made a programming question. They told me I should have put it in the lounge. New Rule Proposal: Recognize that you, as an average commenter, have no better grasp on where to post things than anyone else, and just accept where the questions lie if there is any room for interpretation. Is that too difficult? Really? It is? Do I need to hand out hobbies? :rolleyes:
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Edit: I accepted solution 5 just because it was the most detailed. Thank you all who answered and gave me some ideas for moving forward. I didn't want to get hassled for posting this question in the lounge: Winforms is dying and using XAML and the designers for it is like pulling teeth. What now?[^] So I made a programming question. They told me I should have put it in the lounge. New Rule Proposal: Recognize that you, as an average commenter, have no better grasp on where to post things than anyone else, and just accept where the questions lie if there is any room for interpretation. Is that too difficult? Really? It is? Do I need to hand out hobbies? :rolleyes:
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
I think this is the appropriate forum. But that's just me. Of course, the benefit of Q/A is that someone months from now may have the same question.
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Edit: I accepted solution 5 just because it was the most detailed. Thank you all who answered and gave me some ideas for moving forward. I didn't want to get hassled for posting this question in the lounge: Winforms is dying and using XAML and the designers for it is like pulling teeth. What now?[^] So I made a programming question. They told me I should have put it in the lounge. New Rule Proposal: Recognize that you, as an average commenter, have no better grasp on where to post things than anyone else, and just accept where the questions lie if there is any room for interpretation. Is that too difficult? Really? It is? Do I need to hand out hobbies? :rolleyes:
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
honey the codewitch wrote:
They told me I should have put it in the lounge.
You could have phrased it perhaps a bit more specifically. But to me it looks like a valid question rather than a rant (as suggested.) Other than that, I thought you liked to code to the metal. So why not just create your own.
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honey the codewitch wrote:
They told me I should have put it in the lounge.
You could have phrased it perhaps a bit more specifically. But to me it looks like a valid question rather than a rant (as suggested.) Other than that, I thought you liked to code to the metal. So why not just create your own.
I actually don't like reinventing the wheel. I do enjoy building everything up from scratch when there's nothing already there, or when the things that are there simply aren't up to what I need them to do, but I doubt that's the case here. What's more likely, is I am getting old, and stuck in my ways, and I got into a WinForms rut as the world moved on. It moved on without me and now I need to catch up.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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I actually don't like reinventing the wheel. I do enjoy building everything up from scratch when there's nothing already there, or when the things that are there simply aren't up to what I need them to do, but I doubt that's the case here. What's more likely, is I am getting old, and stuck in my ways, and I got into a WinForms rut as the world moved on. It moved on without me and now I need to catch up.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
honey the codewitch wrote:
the world moved on. It moved on without me and
I'm OK with that.
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I guess my experience of the appallingly-bad HTML produced by the WebForms designer must make me strange: I actually prefer hand-crafting XAML to using the WPF or WinForms designers. :)
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer
I must be strange, too. I like hand-crafting the XAML. I feel I get better control of layout that way than with designers.
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I must be strange, too. I like hand-crafting the XAML. I feel I get better control of layout that way than with designers.
I preferred the roundtrippable code editing of winforms days. I'd use drag and drop to get all of the basics in place, and then drop to code to hand tweak and fine tune everything. I don't like the xaml because it's more verbose, and Microsoft puts a lot more eyes and hands on their "code-time" tools and features than their "xml time" tools and features, meaning i can drop whole lines of code often just by smashing tab a few times. All in all it's just faster, and I get as much control as I would using other mechanisms. Exactly as automatic as I want it at any given point, but at no point is it REQURIED to be.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote:
The UI design tools available for this are bad to non-existent
I feel your pain. I ended up writing some FL Studio plugins where I was in a similar boat and ended up being sort of corralled into using MFC. I wanted to cry.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
This is just pretty sad. MFC actually just sits in the corner and gets the job done. It's not flashy. But at the time, it was the only thing Microsoft had above win32 (and coding at that level for a UI was just stupid). I was coming from XWindows/Motif, etc and those were finished UI libraries, UIL (father to XAML). Then someone let the marketing people and project managers and senior people at MS have a free supply of heroin, meth, crack, cocaine, etc. and the entire elephanting organization just went off the rails. I've looked at Winforms (I think maybe a path from mfc) but Wpf and xaml just no. It's simply incomplete, too complicated and unfinished. I lived in the CE world as was about to migrate to .net - because universal and all that - then MS tossed us under the bus. They've never recovered. I would challenge any MS senior person to put together a 1 page strategy to explain what MS intends to do in the UI space. This is why the rise of the html interface exists.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
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This is just pretty sad. MFC actually just sits in the corner and gets the job done. It's not flashy. But at the time, it was the only thing Microsoft had above win32 (and coding at that level for a UI was just stupid). I was coming from XWindows/Motif, etc and those were finished UI libraries, UIL (father to XAML). Then someone let the marketing people and project managers and senior people at MS have a free supply of heroin, meth, crack, cocaine, etc. and the entire elephanting organization just went off the rails. I've looked at Winforms (I think maybe a path from mfc) but Wpf and xaml just no. It's simply incomplete, too complicated and unfinished. I lived in the CE world as was about to migrate to .net - because universal and all that - then MS tossed us under the bus. They've never recovered. I would challenge any MS senior person to put together a 1 page strategy to explain what MS intends to do in the UI space. This is why the rise of the html interface exists.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Wasn't really an appropriate laughcry emoji to respond with.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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I preferred the roundtrippable code editing of winforms days. I'd use drag and drop to get all of the basics in place, and then drop to code to hand tweak and fine tune everything. I don't like the xaml because it's more verbose, and Microsoft puts a lot more eyes and hands on their "code-time" tools and features than their "xml time" tools and features, meaning i can drop whole lines of code often just by smashing tab a few times. All in all it's just faster, and I get as much control as I would using other mechanisms. Exactly as automatic as I want it at any given point, but at no point is it REQURIED to be.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
Windows Forms (drag and drop) and XAML require different mental models. I felt Windows Forms "was it" until I needed "more". The WPF (XAML) "pain" went away with use and it became "perfect". UWP is more, and has even more to teach. Which is an attraction in itself. 60 FPS animations when you don't want to commit to Unity or Unreal Engine. And that's in XAML; or hand coded (me). I can XAML faster than I can drag or drop ... want 24 pixel padding all around? Padding="24" (on the parent) ... no dragging or positioning of child elements. Change your mind? I don't have to "see it" to see it. One can flip between XAML or "design view" if you need to see what you're crafting, but I rarely do. Usually only to see if any images I'm using are being "picked" up. And then, there's the (live) "visual tree inspector", etc.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
