I am trying to get webcam integration working with a WPF application. There have been a few questions here about getting a webcam functioning in WPF, in this case for image capture. Many people recommend the VideoCaptureElement from the WPF MediaKit. We are currently using this, however it doesn't appear to be particularly performant, there is high CPU usage, and the application experiences slow down after regular use of the camera.
We are looking into either integrating a Silverlight hosted solution, or an ActiveX webcam control hosted using a WindowsFormsHost. Has anyone successfully used either approach in a WPF application?
We decided to drop WPF MediaKit because it proved not to work on certain cameras (to do with pixel formats), and the project wasn't actively being developed.
Instead, we are now using the Capture class in the Emgu CV project, which works very well. There are lots of articles online about using Emgu CV to perform webcam integration.
Related
My team is diving headfirst into a new project and we are taking the opportunity to bring ourselves up to date with Scrum methodology, new technology etc. Part of this involves trying to automate our QA process, using both Microsoft Test Manager and VS2010 Coded UI tests.
However, we are having problems getting the automated test playback to work with our currently-selected WPF control library, the DevExpress XPF suite. We've been using DevExpress for their WinForms and ASP.NET controls for years now, but this is our first experience with their WPF controls, and with automated UI tests, and the two don't seem to work well together.
In particular, trying to play back a recorded test that interacts with a grid control never works right, and even on simple controls the playback seems to get confused over which editor it should be interacting with. In the action recordings our test lead is generating from MTM I see a lot of this:
Type '5236' in 'PART_Editor' text box
Type '253' in 'PART_Editor' text box
And even worse, inside of the grids:
Click 'FooterPanel' pane
Last action on list item was not recorded because the control does not have any good identification property.
Click 'FooterPanel' pane
Click 'Item: CashEntry, Column ...' custom control
Move 'Item: CashEntry, Column ...' custom control from (141, 10) to 'Item: CashEntry, Column ...' custom control (5, 11)
Type '{NumPad8}{Down}{NumPad5}{NumPad0}{Up}{Down}{Down}' in 'CashEntry' window
Now, I have seen plenty of chatter on DevX's forums about their WinForms controls not supporting MSAA well enough for coded UI tests to work, but I thought that WPF used a different mechanism for automated UI testing that was supposed to work better. So, my questions are:
Is there a way to get the DevX XPF controls to work better with coded/automated UI tests?
If not, is there an alternative XPF control suite that is known to work well with coded/automated UI tests?
I'm specifically interested in a grid-like component with sorting, grouping, etc., a navbar-like component, and custom editors (dates, numbers, etc), all which support a unified system-wide theming.
(Also, if this type of thing is easy enough to do using just native WPF controls and styles, that would be helpful to know as well.)
EDIT: Since there appears to be no WPF control suite that actually works with MTM, we're being forced to use two separate testing tools at the sam time. Per several of the answers here, we're strongly leaning towards TestComplete. Hopefully the situation improves soon.
Don't have much idea about control suite supporting this but We had analyzed a test suite in past which supports objects based automated testing for WPF. Have a look at TestComplete (although it's not free)
Here is an excerpt from there site mentioning control support they provide -
WPF Control Support TestComplete offers rich support for WPF (XAML)
controls and robust automated UI testing of WPF applications.
TestComplete’s high-level test actions, such as item selection or cell
data input, are object-aware rather than coordinate-aware and thus are
more stable and resistant to the UI changes when performing WPF
testing. Flexible object mapping schemes allow testers to map custom
or derived WPF controls to standard types to simplify UI
manipulations. Support for custom WPF controls can also be added
using the TestComplete SDK.
http://smartbear.com/products/qa-tools/automated-testing/testing-wpf-apps/
I've heard very good things about WiPFlash.
In one of our projects we've used Infragistics WPF controls and TestComplete works with it.
Our QS Team also use TestComplete
I found a free utility that is independent of UI libraries.
PROJECT SIKULI
Sikuli is a visual technology to automate and test graphical user
interfaces (GUI) using images (screenshots). Sikuli includes Sikuli
Script, a visual scripting API for Jython, and Sikuli IDE, an
integrated development environment for writing visual scripts with
screenshots easily. Sikuli Script automates anything you see on the
screen without internal API's support. You can programmatically
control a web page, a Windows/Linux/Mac OS X desktop application, or
even an iphone or android application running in a simulator or via
VNC.
You can also use the VS internal UI test framework: Create a Coded UI Test.
just found this thread...
we had the same problem using DevExpress components,
which weren't findable on playback of CUIT.
But especially with Sikuli script the problem is solveable...at least.
Record test with MS Test Manager
Playback test, to find unreproduceble step
Create Sikuli sequence to 'step over'
Include created Sikuli script at appropriate position in CUIT and start again at Step 2
It really takes time to create tests this way, but at least its possible.
I don't have much knowledge about Windows Phone 7 development. I know there exist two paths for an app development. Silverlight or XNA. Before I start I would like to know for what scenarios Silverlight is the best choice and for what kind of apps it makes more sense to use XNA?
Silverlight is designed around building applications. As such, it includes a retained graphics model (re-drawing is handled for you) and wide range of user interface elements including both interactive controls and controls that perform layout logic.
XNA is designed around building games. As such, it includes an immediate graphics model (you must draw every frame) and game-friendly features like a content pipeline for importing graphics and low level audio support.
There is nothing stopping you using Silverlight for games and XNA for applications, but unless you have a good reason for switching it around you'll find yourself fighting against the framework while trying to do simple things.
Neil Knight mentioned you can use mix them in Mango, though the mix involves using XNA in a Silverlight application and not the other way around.
Microsoft provided a handy chart just for this type of question :)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff402528(v=VS.92).aspx
Use Sliverlight if
You want a XAML-based, event-driven application framework.
You want rapid creation of a Rich Internet Application-style user interface.
You want to use Windows Phone controls.
You want to embed video inside your application.
You want to use an HTML web browser control.
Use XNA if
You want a high-performance game framework.
You want rapid creation of multi-screen 2D and 3D games.
You want to manage art assets such as models, meshes, sprites, textures, effects, terrains, or animations in the XNA Content Pipeline.
Combine Silverlight and XNA if
You want a XAML-based, event-driven application integrated with a high-performance game framework.
You want to create a multi-screen 2D or 3D game that incorporates a Rich Internet Application-style user interface.
You want to use Windows Phone controls along with art assets such as models, meshes, sprites, textures, effects, terrains, or animations in the XNA Content Pipeline.
You want to use Silverlight text rendering, including international text, instead of sprite fonts.
You want the page navigation model of a Silverlight application combined with the rich graphics power of an XNA Framework application.
Silverlight has a rich set of objects for building 2-d interfaces, especially 2-d interfaces composed of text, buttons, images. It's great for displaying data and taking in data.
XNA is meant for building out games or simulations, in particular 3-d, and gives you access to the device at a level somewhat closer to the hardware. XNA lacks the kind of objects that Silverlight does, but you get the flexibility to do more interesting things if you spend the time.
You may find this post useful further.
I want to implement UI for stock charting application. (I already have an engine working which will provide the data for the UI - the engine is in C#).
The app will update charts in real time as stock price change (candlestick charts, bar charts, line charts etc..).
I wanted to know what technology will suit best for my requirement: WinForms or WPF?
If you're doing greenfield application development I would probably suggest WPF to WinForms.
Pros:
Less code and better separation: with WPF supporting bindings instead of having to write the app following the MVC pattern with the Controller layer being thick, you can create it following the MVVM pattern, having a relatively lightweight ViewModel
Easy to reuse almost all of the code you write and port to Silverlight or Windows Phone 7 later down the way. Porting Windows Forms code to the web or mobile is much more painful
More charting libraries actively developed for WPF: there are a handful of vendors providing and constantly updating their charting libraries for WPF. Vendors include Visiblox Charts (see an example trading application in Silverlight - should be the same in WPF due to ease of porting of code), Telerik RadChart and Infragristics xamChart
Cons:
Speed might be an issue - with GDI you can render tens of thousands of points on screen and animate them seamlessly, this gets slower in WPF. (Though it seems WPF / Silverlight is getting better at this: see the zooming functionality of a Silverlight chart with 6000 points onscreen)
Without knowing more about your requirements, I'd say you'll be fine with either. However, it may be worth knowing that thirdparty control vendors appear to focus more on their xaml controls than their older Winforms ones nowadays.
For example, you might want to use Infragistics's XamDataChart which is quite a bit fancier and has more finance charting features than their older WinChart (I'm sure the same is true for Xceed's and Telerik's equivalents and am not pushing Infragistics in particular.)
The WPF toolkit (http://wpf.codeplex.com/) has charting already built into it, you just need to plug-in the data (which you already have). It has full support for all sorts of graphs, not to mention animations and custom styling.
This question already has answers here:
Closed 10 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
What is the difference between WPF and Silverlight application?
What are the exact differences between WPF and Silverlight?
That's an extremely broad question. My company recently wrote a whitepaper outlining the differences between the two technologies, and it's around 70 pages. Unfortunately, it's not published yet, or I'd give you the link.
EDIT: As promised, here's the link
to the whitepaper on Codeplex:
http://wpfslguidance.codeplex.com/
However, I'll try to summarize.
WPF is a thick Windows client platform that has access to the full .Net Framework. Silverlight is a browser-based technology that has access to a subset of the .Net Framework (called the CoreCLR). So, you'll notice differences using seemingly every day methods and objects within the framework. For instance, the Split() method on the String class has 3 overrides in Silverlight, but 6 in the .Net Framework. You'll see differences like this a lot.
Within WPF, all visually rendering elements derive from the Visual base class. Within Silverlight, they do not; instead, they derive from Control. Both technologies, however, eventual derive from the DependencyObject class up the hierarchy.
WPF, currently, ships or has available more user controls than Silverlight; though this difference is being mitigated through the Silverlight Toolkit and the upcoming release of Silverlight 3.
WPF supports 3 types of routed events (direct, bubbling, and tunneling). Silverlight supports direct and bubbling only.
There's quite a few data-binding differences that will be somewhat mitigated with the next version of Silverlight. Currently, Silverlight doesn't support the binding mode, OneWayToSource, or Explict UpdateSourceTriggers. In addition, Silverlight defaults to OneWay databinding if none is set, while WPF uses the default mode specified by the dependency property.
Silveright doesn't support MultiBinding.
Silverlight supports the XmlDataProvider but not the ObjectDataProvider. WPF supports both.
Silverlight can only make asynchronous network calls. WPF has access to the full .Net networking stack and can make any type of call. Also, currently, Silverlight supports SOAP, but can not handle SOAP fault exceptions natively (this may change in Silverlight 3).
There are huge differences in Cryptography (Silverlight has 20 classes in the namespace, while WPF has access to 107). Basically, Silverlight supports only 4 hashing algorithms and the AES encryption protocol.
Silverlight doesn't yet support: Commanding, Validation, Printing, XPS Documents, Speech, 3D, Freezable objects, or InterOp with the Windows Desktop; all of which are available in WPF.
Silverlight supports browser interop, more media streaming options including timeline markers, and Deep Zoom. WPF doesn't support these features yet.
This is by no means complete as I was trying to reduce a 70-page document into bullet points.
Finally, even with all these differences, Microsoft is trying to close the gap between the two technologies. The Silverlight Toolkit and the WPF Toolkit both address some of the shortcomings of each technology. Silverlight 3 will be adding many features not currently available (such as element-to-element data binding). However, due to the differences in the core libraries, there will always be some Framework differences.
WPF is a Windows desktop technology for developing Windows application in the .Net framework.
Silverlight is a web technology, that is fully supported by a browser plugin on both Windows and MAC (in a similar fashion to Flash). There is also a plugin for running Silverlight on Linux (Moonlight).
While there are similarities between the functionality provided by both WPF and Silverlight (in terms of user interface components and support for XAML) Silverlight is a much small framework, containing a subset of WPF functionality. Newer versions of Silverlight actually contain some functionality not found in WPF, so it is no longer a true subset.
Things that WPF has that Silverlight doesn't: Full 3d engine based on DirectX, Windows integration such as Windows 7 taskbar thumbnails and system registry availability as well as access to the full .NET Framework including Oracle database support. Also, SL runs in a secure sandbox that prevents access to things such as the entire file system where WPF apps can run full trust with complete system access.
As mentioned above, SL pioneered some technologies such as the VisualStateManager which are making their was secondarily into WPF through the Microsoft supported WPF toolkit.
If you're looking to gauge which technology is right for your project here's a simple way to look at it: If you're writing an app that's meant to run while disconnected from the web, or if you're writing an app that needs access to Windows specific features like the ones listed above then WPF is the way to go. For platform-agnostic, web enabled apps Silverlight is an appropriate choice. Hth.
You could say that it is [VERY] roughly analogous to the difference between Flex and Adobe Air, but that is somewhat misleading.
WPF refers to the set of technologies (exposed via APIs) that .NET Framework 3.0 and above users have access to in order to draw to the screen.
Many of the WPF APIs are available for Silverlight apps.
There are, of course many other APIs besides WPF that are available under Silverlight since SL apps will need to do a lot more than just draw on the screen.
I just installed visio, and the installer almost seemed like it was built in flash.
The buttons kinda glowed when I hovered over them, and when I clicked on 'continue' the form phased out in a cool way.
I'm assuming it was built in WPF.
Anyhow, so are WPF more flash-like (visually speaking).
Do they have new properties where you can make forms phase out nicely/smoothly compared to winforms?
Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft. However, I don't work on Visio, WPF, CLR or Silverlight team. So, the following is my personal take on these technologies. If you want to quote me, don't do it implying it's the official Microsoft position. :-))
Update: Anything I say below about Flash/Flex/AIR might be wrong, as I have not worked with these technologies and what I know about them is based on what I read on the intertubes. :-) If you notice anything wrong, just shout in the comment and I'll correct it.
To the best of my knowledge, the Visio installer is not built with WPF. It's all unmanaged code; it's just people took a lot of care to make it really polished.
WPF is the new UI platform for building standalone applications for the Windows OS. It supports a declarative UI language - XAML, and related CLR types to program against. WPF is a different platform than WinForms, although it is possible to build applications that mix UI built with both. WPF supports a lot of things that WinForms does not, like bitmap effects, animations, control styling and so on and exposes them both in XAML or through code. Also, WPF relies heavily on vector graphics, as opposed to the pixel graphics in WinForms. In short, WPF is quite powerfull and allows building very snazzy UI. (Don't take my word for it, though, as I am biased; go check around for what people are saying about it or buiding with it. :-))
WPF and WinForms do not compete with Flash/Flex. WPF and WinForms are both UI frameworks for building standalone client applications. As far as I know, Flash/Flex are frameworks for building rich internet applications - RIA (though lately people started interpreting this abbreviation as rich interactive applications).
Adobe did come up with AIR about half a year (or maybe a year) ago, which allows building standalone client applications, so you could say that Adobe is trying to position Flash/Flex/AIR to compete with WPF. Of course, that's my take on it and I doubt Adobe's official positiong is anything like that.
If you want to compare particular MS technnologies with Flash/Flex, take a look at Silverlight - it's the MS RIA platform.
Silverlight is related to WPF in the sense that they share XAML and the corresponding CLR types. Silverlight supports only a subset of what WPF offers, though, as it is not targeting Windows OS only and thus is limited by the fact that it has to be portable.
Quick update to reflect the changes in the year since I've written the answer :-)
With Silverlight 3 shipped, SL and WPF are getting even closer and sharing bigger set of supported features. In addition, most of the new XAML controls are built for platform at the same time. Thus, SL/WPF are getting to a point of singularity...
Also, SL 3 supports out-of-browser applications. In that sense, SL is not only starting to compete with Flash/Flex, but it is also encroaching on AIR's turf.
And no, I still don't work on the WPF or Silverlight team. :-)
WPF is being used as a replacement for WinForms, and as a competitor to Flash in the form of Silverlight. WPF consists of an entirely new object model that sits on top of DirectX (at least the desktop version). You can create WPF windows, controls, etc, entirely using C# or another .Net language just like you can render WinForms. However, Microsoft has also created a markup language called XAML (eXensible Application Markup Language). Nodes in an XAML document (XML) map to objects in a similar fashion to the way ASP.Net maps to web controls. XAML typically exists in a .Net project alongside a code-behind style C# file (or VB.Net or whatever). The C# file interacts with the objects generated by the XAML. This is fairly consistent with the "graphics via markup, logic via code" model that Microsoft and others are pushing.
One of the overlooked features when discussing WPF is the completely awesome data-binding that Microsoft wrote for WPF. The new data binding framework is a quantum leap beyond Windows Forms 2.0 data-binding. Microsoft added a couple of new interfaces that make it much easier to make an object or collection emit data-biding events properly. They also provided a very rich set of data-binding classes. You can bind anything to just about anything else. You can bind one-way data to control, control to data, two-way control to data and back, control to control, etc.
Back on the graphics side of the house, WPF makes it fairly easy to make an existing control look like anything. WP lets you compose your own template for what a class of buttons should look like, or one button, or all buttons. Or radio buttons. Or labels. You get my drift. Imagine if CSS included the ability to define what an input button would look like using other HTML controls.
They also provide a number of layout controls. You can continue to use exact positioning like in WinForms, or you can leverage of variety of techniques to make your window act more like a web page that grows and shrinks with resizing, etc.
The downsides: It is too easy to create spectacular effects that crawl on slower machines. Some of the graphics do not take advantage of hardware of graphics cards, though Microsoft has incrementally improved support for this. I believe when 3.0 first came out drop shadows were rendered purely using software. I think 3.5 or 3.5 SP1 changed it so that WPF would utilize graphics hardware for the task. Microsoft has said they will continue to enhance WPF in this fashion.
WPF is .Net 3.0 and above, which runs on XP SP2, Vista, and Servers 03 & 08. So don't plan on deploying WPF to a customer with Win2k desktops.
Summary: If you are doing desktop programming in .Net, you should be doing it in WPF unless you are targeting Win2k. You can avoid the downsides of WPF, and there are many upsides. Microsoft will probably throw away WinForms in some future release, or at very least you will stop seeing new features, etc.
As far as Silverlight goes, the betas for SL 2.0 look good. I think that Silverlight will require some wide-spread adoption. Microsoft has already tried to get this going. The NBC Olypmics site used Silverlight, and Major League Baseball uses it for its MLB.tv product. As soon as Silverlight gets a good install base I think you will see the Microsoft side of the development world starting swinging away from Flash and to Silverlight.
Edit after using Silverlight 3 and MVVM:
I have moved away from WPF and am doing a lot of Silverlight 3 development. But I think my comments here will still apply to the WPF developer.
I have been using the MVVM pattern in my app (think MVC with a twist). The Microsoft Patterns and Practices team has released a set of libraries known as Prism that supports various aspects of MVVM. There are WPF and Silverlight versions. Take a look at MVVM and Prism if you are going to be doing WPF or Silverlight development.
You can do a lot of flash w/ Winforms, or with custom components. But if you want out-of-the-box bang-whizz availability, WPF is the way to go.
Yeah, I think the intention is to be flash-like, it seems to me that MS has set its sights on taking down Adobe.
The way I see it: WPF is to Flash as WinForms is to Flex. WPF has more emphasis on vectors and states than on programming.