The property grid in the WPF designer

[jesarg]

I've used a number of Microsoft IDE's over the years, and (in general) I've managed to get used to the changes that they make, for better or worse. I do not, however, understand why the property grid in the WPF designer is so featureless compared to what it was like in Visual Studio 2005. Let's see here: 1. No events 2. No alphabetizing (yes, it has the search instead of the sort, so I guess it's just -1/2 point on that one) 3. No color chooser or font chooser or any other convenient pop-up. 4. No combo-box for choosing components out of the diagram by name. 5. No direct support for data binding of control properties. I fail to see what Microsoft is trying to accomplish with this gimpy property grid. Does anyone else have any idea?

[TJoe]

Keep in my that WPF has alot more features than Windows Forms (and the like). 1. Routed Events make this a little more difficult because now a given event is not fired on a single object. 2. I also use the "sort alphabetical" option when working in WinForms, so I also miss this one. 3. Again, things are complicated by how WPF works. In WinForms, it would/could serialize out C# code to generate the new Font or Color object. In WPF, it would need to add/modify resources (at many levels) which could be used by many different objects. 4. Another good point. I typically use the XAML view to "select" the object I want, but it takes some getting used to. 5. Data Binding is extremely complex, especially when using Relative Sources, Value Converters, etc. I was equally disappointed when I started using it. But I'm sure they will come up with something better in the future ;-)

Take care, Tom ----------------------------------------------- Check out my blog at http://tjoe.wordpress.com

[jesarg]

Thanks for the response. For number 1, I noticed that I can always type the event into the XAML, so it didn't look like much of a stretch to go one step further and put it in the property grid. Maybe in some cases (that I haven't run across yet) the event can't be manually typed into the XAML. In any case, it requires scrolling through loads of text to see which events are being used now. And for number 4, it would seem like a good idea to give the XAML viewer a combobox to help deal with cases when there are many controls to deal with. I'm sure I can get used to scrolling through the XAML text, too, but it still strikes me as a step backwards in terms of usability. And for number 5, although there may be technical reasons why Microsoft dropped the property grid databinding support, it's a real drawback to moving to WPF, as some tools that my project team has implemented use that feature a lot.

[TJoe]

I agree on all points ;-)

Take care, Tom ----------------------------------------------- Check out my blog at http://tjoe.wordpress.com