I am working in Silverlight 4.0 and have created a web application which is intended to be used as a utility for others. I have set up several screens using XAML in particular configurations as the UI, however I imagine that some people would like the option to customize the pages of the application. Is there a way they can do this? The XAML is not in the XAP file, it is compiled into a DLL, so
The answer depends on what kind of customization you want to offer your users. If you want users to be able to rearrange elements of the UI, you would not have them modify XAML. You would want to implement a "web part" interface in which users can move elements of the screen around, similar to Visual Studio. The major control vendors (e.g. Telerik, Intersoft, etc) include a Docking-style control.
Related
We have a legacy application that utilizes VB6, the Flash ActiveX control, and Flash content to display animated movies to users. For plenty of reasons we're looking to migrate away from this. I'm hoping someone out there can answer a few questions about WPF so that we can make a determination about how best to move forward.
First, a little about our current architecture and needs. The Flash content is set up as separate SWF files, where each individual SWF represents a training module with animated content. We have hundreds of these modules. Users run this software in a disconnected fashion where their local machine may or may not have ALL of these SWF files. The current application gives the user the option of downloading the SWF modules as they're needed.
Here's how we're thinking about setting up a new solution using WPF and Blend. We've written a WPF host application that can dynamically show Blend content based on button presses or whatever. And we've created a few test modules in Blend as WPF custom controls. But there are three nagging questions:
Right now we have the custom controls within the main WPF solution, but we need to make these disconnected. I've read several things about using Application.LoadComponent but I don't know if that will work for our solution.
Each of the Blend custom controls contains one or more storyboards that control the animation. As soon as I add one of the custom controls to a container in the WPF app, ALL of the storyboards automatically start "playing". How can I programatically make it so that I start/stop certain storyboards as needed?
Let's say I want to change a text label in one of the custom controls. If we're dynamically loading the custom control, how would I access one of the text labels to make such a change?
Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Loving WPF so far and hoping we can make this work and say goodbye to Flash forever!!!
There is Manage Extensibility Framework, that is a standard approach for dynamic modules.
Anyway, I haven't used it, so I would answer the questions in other way:
1) No, LoadComponent is ised for xaml files, whereas custom control consist of code and xaml. I mean, the custom control that you can add using Add->New Item->Custom Control(WPF). So you should do something like this, with reflection and ContentControl:
Assembly asm = Assembly.LoadFile(#"C:\SomeLibrary.dll");
Type type = asm.GetType("SomeNamespace.SomeControl");
var control = Activator.CreateInstance(type) as Control;
this.myContentControl.Content = control;
2) It isn't fact. You can put the storyboards into Control.Resources and launch them manually.
((Storyboard)control.Resources["myStoryboard"]).Begin(control);
3)
control.FindName("anyname") as TextBlock;
I apologize for my newbie question by why do WPF apps look like web pages?
I am new to gui and still shopping for a book to learn gui programming. The push seems to be in the direction of WPF but all the screenshots of WPF applications that I've seen look like cheap web pages. Frankly I'd be ashamed to sell an app that looked like a web page.
I realize that WPF is built on XML technology but can you not build normal looking WPF apps in Visual Studio (via button("widget")) drag-n-drop? In other words an app that does not look like a web page?
How can WPF be a replacement for WinForms or the like when it doesn't provide the same standard application look?
The default look of WPF applications is admittedly rather simple, but WPF allows unprecedented control over how your application looks.
Here are some examples, all of them WPF applications.
If you are to deveop an application under .net and are able to target .net 3.5 or above, you will want to use wpf. If you don't know much about ui technology and want to work with .net, understanding windows forms is useful but not necessary. You should learn wpf regardless.
2 perks that I have found while using the framework:
- it is very easy to inject branding and custom interactivity into your app. It is then very easy to change these when your sales guy decides the want it blue, not red.
- the way components are organized on screen is relational like a webpage, not coordinate based like windows forms. This is ideal for scenarios when translated strings will change length (English to German for example). Under usual circumstances the ui will resize itself automatically at runtime to make it all fit.
If you just throw in controls and don't change the style of anything, your first wpf applications will look almost identical to native win32 applications. It is very easy to change this, but you will achieve great results regardless of the "look" you choose. Microsoft also provide the tools to create new ui components that look like native buttons. There are a host of other features that will make you grin while learning!
This is not a technical note, but at the moment wpf is a highly sellable skill and looks great on a cv! Companies want great branding in their apps. Wpf helps that happen.
WPF does provide the same appication look wich is the default look. When you drag and drop your controls onto the design surface (just like in windows forms, MFC ...) the controls look as you would expect them to look under the current theme. Chances are that you have seen quite some WPF applications without noticing. Just because they look like any other app.
The reason you might see more WPF based applications that have some sort of custom look and feel to them is simple because it is so much easier to do what ever you like to your GUI than in any other GUI framework on any platform. This is both blessing and curse. While you being absolutely flexible it is easy to do absolutely horrible stuff.
user440267, I believe that the most application in WPF are built using normal Windows. But there is an option which we don't create a window, instead we create a page, which behave like you think.
I'm attempting to host an ActiveX control in a WPF app. After attempting to use existing info on the web and here, I've hit a dead-end.
I need to use an ActiveX control provided to communicate with a UV power meter. They provide an application that registers and uses the control and even includes some useful demo apps. I stripped out the OCX file and put it here if needed. You won't have the power meter to talk to, but the app and demos will still load the ActiveX control successfully.
I created a simple Windows Forms application. I was able to bring the ActiveX control into the toolbar, drop it into my form, and everything is fine. The demo apps they provide do this as well.
However, getting this to work in a WPF environment is another story. The control can't be added to the toolbox and "dragged" into the app.
So far I've tried two techniques:
Technique found here. I am able to add a reference to the control, but then I enter namespace hell. The xmlns:ax namespace it suggests making cannot find the information. Here's my attempt based on what the object viewer tells me: xmlns:ax="clr-namespace:OphirUsbXLib;assembly=Interop.OphirUsbXLib"
Technique found here. This is essentially to create a new project that creates a library based on Windows Forms, which contains the ActiveX control (yikes). I am able to add the Windows Forms Host, but I cannot get access to the ActiveX control within. I can make the control public, but I still cannot call methods etc. This doesn't look like the right solution.
In short, I have an ActiveX control that works beautifully in Forms, but is a real bitch to get working in WPF.
Any insight is appreciated!
In this situation I would consider making a WinForms usercontrol which wraps the ActiveX control you are trying to use.
You could make public properties and methods which expose each of the required properties and methods on the ActiveX control, and then host this WinForms UC on the in a WPF WinFormsHost control.
I have already done something similar to this, in reverse, hosting a WPF UserControl in a WinForms UserControl, then hosting that on a VB6 Form in a legacy application.
I come from mainly a web development background (ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, XHTML, CSS etc) but have been tasked with creating/designing a Silverlight application. The application is utilising Bing Maps control for Silverlight, this will be contained in a user control and will be the 'main' screen in the system.
There will be numerous other user controls on the form that will be used to choose/filter/sort/order the data on the map. I think of it like Visual Studio: the Bing Maps will be like the code editor window and the other controls will be like Solutions Explorer, Find Results etc. (although a lot less of them!)
I have read up and I'm comfortable with the data side (RIA-Services) of the application. I've (kinda) got my head around databinding and using a view model to present data and keep the code behind file lite.
What I do need some help on is UI design/navigation framework, specifically 2 aspects:
How do I best implement a fluid design so that the various user controls which filter the map data can be resized/pinned/unpinned (for example, like the Solution Explorer in VS)? I made a test using a Grid with a GridSplitter control, is this the best way? Would it be best to create a Grid/Gridsplitter with Navigation Frames inside the grid to load the content?
Since I have multiple user controls that basically use the same set of data, should I set the dataContext at the highest possible level (e.g. if using a grid with multiple frames, at the Grid level?).
Any help, tips, links etc. will be very much appreciated!
Microsoft has created a great community site for helping people get started with both design and Silverlight here: http://www.microsoft.com/design/toolbox/
It may be far more than what you need for your current project, but it definitely will give you the training you need to master Design with Silverlight.
I want to know about general methods to dynamically load content into your silverlight application.
More specifically, I want to create something like a widget-based application, where all GUI objects are small independent widgets. I want to provide a static chrome, like a frame, hosting the actual widget, that is loaded from an extern source like a website or is uploaded by the user and is shown in this frame.
The questions are:
What does the widget author specifically have to provide, in order for me to load his widget application into my application? I imagine I have to query the provided DLL for something like a ViewModel and its DataTemplate, a UserControl or even a XAP File. What would be the best way? The external widget should also implement a certain interface, so that the outer application can call methods like Loaded and Unloaded on it.
Small code samples would be appreciated.
What about security? How do I prevent the inner widget application to access my outer application. I think the widget app could go up the control tree or access the DataContext of my frame control, hosting the application. Is this an issue? If so, how to solve it?
Thanks in advance!
Andrej
You can dynamically load controls from dlls that your widget authors could provide, MS's Mike Taulty's done a walkthrough.
Microsoft also have Prism which allows you to break up your silverlight code in a modular fashion. I haven't tried it yet to see if it's suitable for loading individual controls, but my impressions of what I've read about it seem to indicate it has a framework for doing that.
As for security, they would have access to the rest of the application, so perhaps this isn't suitable.