I am using delphi as my primary development tool.
and recently I found these 2 libraries in KSDEV.com
and i found they are similar to WPF . So i just downloaded them and stated to playing with them until the time to end comes ( i have not checked its license policies yet). I am not a good WPF knowledge person but i found was WPF hard to develop.
But my doubt is , are these 2 libraries can replace WPF in delphi . what are the drawbacks Dxscene and VGscene have or what are the drawbacks WPF have ,
There are only a little articles about them in internet (google gave me millions of results but most of them repeated 2 articles which was published in KSDEV)
VGScene and DXScene can be compaired to WPF for the rendering result.
I think VG/DXScene are less resource consuming, and what I like against WPF, is that they are not XML-based.
You use regular Delphi components to define your UI.
But the learning curve and the documentation is still a bit lacking for VX/DXScene.
I found out to be a bit difficult to create forms with DXScene. VXScene is perhaps a bit easier to create your UI with the mouse.
I think the full power of these libraries will be obtained using code-generated UI.
I don't like the XML root of WPF. It's verbose, and difficult to work with, with real application with a lot of forms. For some projects, the external WPF designer could be necessary.
But don't ask Microsoft why they don't publish WPF-based applications... and they still use unmanaged code...
VgScene and DxScene are really cool libraries! You can make fast and nice looking GUI's with all kind of effects. It also has a grid component now!
But when I tried using them, I encountered some "drawbacks": there is little documentation how to make and what to use for a complex GUI (there are some nice demo's for simple GUI's though). So it has a relative high learning curve (when you only have VCL knowlegde because it is very different).
But besides these things, I think it is worth trying (only if you know how to do it and/or spend some time learning). It has good platform support (via FPC and OpenGL) so you can run it also on MacOs, Linux and iPhone/iPad!
Since they do not depend on WPF, they can be used for cross platform development in Lazarus/CodeTyphon. That is the main advantage for me. Drawback is documentation.
Related
I am a systems analyst focusing on interaction design and usability, normally working on web applications (using my Mac). However, currently I am in a project team working on a legacy application which has a Windows Forms-based front-end.
I try to simplify and clean up the interface but given my web background it's quite frustrating to work within the strict constraints of WinForms and DevExpress 8.3 controls. (WPF would be great but it is not an option: the company has lots of off-shore users logged in remotely to virtual machines. WPF was tested several times and it failed. Windows XP and IE6 are still on all workstations.)
It would be great to see some good examples for elegant UI design for complex forms with lots of input fields in different categories and groups, including read-only sections with meta-data. It should not be fancy, just simple, slick and clean. Do you happen to have some good examples?
It looks like this post might give you some ideas/leads to pursue:
Where are examples of great program UI's built free with Winforms?
I still couldn't find real good ones, only sporadically. The best WinForms examples I found are in Windows XP itself and in other Microsoft products, like IE, Office.
This may be a long shot but have you considered using a metro-style layout (see wp7 et cetera)? I personally think it would be really well suited to forms with large data entry requirements, I mean, you have the spacing that will separate things perfectly for you, and it's all blocky so you know what you're doing.
This is just my opinion, but hope it can help!
With regards to being "restricted" to Windows Forms, I wouldn't see it as this. By creating your own custom controls you can do pretty much anything you want. I've always hand-coded my WF apps and they're always easier (not to mention more fun) to develop than in WPF. I think WPF is the restrictive place, but again that's just me... Haven't used it too heavily at all.
I have been working for some time on a library which performs numeric calculations. It is written in pure native C++, and until now I have been using simple console applications to test its functionality.
The time has come to build a GUI on top of the library - to better display tables of results and also to render them in graphical form.
I was always planning to use WPF to implement the UI and have spent some time researching it, but I am now having second thoughts. My worries about WPF are:
Is it worth coupling my program to the .NET framework just for the sake of the user interface? .NET and WPF seem to add overhead in many forms, including:
Program complexity
Using .NET implies using a second language - and thus writing lots of messy interop code.
Runtime performance
In particular, WPF applications seem very slow to start up.
Deployment
Is .NET framework installation quick and easy? Does it require rebooting the machine?
Rendering quality
This has improved in WPF 4, but display of standard elements still seems poor in some areas.
Concern over whether performance and quality will improve in the future
Is it true that WPF is being de-emphasized within Microsoft (in favour of Silverlight)?
My worries are compounded by news of people moving away from WPF having faced similar issues - the most recent and highest-profile being Evernote.
Would you recommend I stick with my original plan and use WPF?
If so, what do you think about the above issues?
If not, what alternative libraries could I use to create a high-quality Windows GUI?
Edit:
Thanks to Reed Copsey for addressing my individual points. The reply suggests that most of the issues I have with WPF can be worked around.
It seems that using WPF will involve more work than would be ideal - including writing interop code and making tweaks to ensure good performance and high quality. Do people generally agree with the statement that, in spite of this, the best way to produce a top-quality UI is with WPF - rather than with any other framework?
I'll try to address these in order. Spoiler: In my opinion, for the most part, the answer is yes.
Is it worth coupling my program to the .NET framework just for the sake of the user interface?
This depends on the interface requirements. Do you users need a good, solid, modern UI? If so, you'll want to use the right tool to deliver that requirement.
.NET and WPF seem to add overhead in many forms, including:
Program complexity
Using .NET implies using a second language - and thus writing lots of messy interop code.
You can use GDI+ via C++/CLI, and handle everything in one language. That being said, part of the reason people use other languages for this is productivity - it's actually very, very fast compared to making a GUI in C++. The interop code via C++/CLI is not very messy at all, at least not if your routines are class-based.
Runtime performance
- In particular, WPF applications seem very slow to start up.
This can be an issue, to some extent. You can do a lot to mitigate it, however - but this will probably always be a bit slower to start than a lean, native codebase since it has to spin up the CLR + libraries.
Deployment
- Is .NET framework installation quick and easy? Does it require rebooting the machine?
Yes on both counts, typically. That being said, most people already have the framework installed (esp. if you target .NET 3.5, but 4.0 is coming along nicely), so it's a non-issue. I always see this as a one-time thing, though - I'd much rather trade a nice user experience for a bit of deployment time, especially when it's a relatively pain-free deployment (.NET's very easy to install, just large and a bit time consuming).
Rendering quality
- This has improved in WPF 4, but display of standard elements still seems poor in some areas.
I'd strongly disagree here. WPF is (esp. in v4), the premier platform for quality user interfaces. It's tough to beat the rendering quality options in WPF -
Concern over whether performance and quality will improve in the future
- Is it true that WPF is being de-emphasized within Microsoft (in favour of Silverlight)?
No. There was even a good talk at the PDC of the future of WPF. Silverlight gets a lot more press, but that's mainly because it's not nearly as mature of technology, so it's changing more quickly. WPF is still their top of the line UI experience, and still getting new features added. It's also the suggested platform for interop with native code - while it's possible in SL using COM, it's not pleasant like in WPF.
Performance, threading issues, and airspace issues seem to be the future improvements in mind, according to the PDC talk. For details, watch "The Future of WPF."
I am beginning to heavily invest in WPF and was wondering what those more knowledgeable than myself thought as to the wisdom of this decision. Is WPF the way forward?
Yes, it is the way forward.
WPF and using XAML for interfaces has completely revolutionised the way in which we develop said interfaces for our customers. The possibilities are endless, the learning curve is large, but with merit.
We can now do things in XAML that we couldn't dream of doing 3 years ago with WinForms - or things that take a few lines of code and an hour of logic that would have previously taken a full week of logic and four class files.
It's definitely the way forward for MS development, however there will always be people using WinForms.
They even developed VS2010 with WPF, that must give it something, right? ;)
Microsoft itself has begun developing its enterprise applications in WPF. They are invested in keeping it going for themselves, no reason to believe that the rug will just get pulled. Also, WPF has the Silverlight subset, which doesn't seem to be losing steam.
XAML is a nice, declarative method of setting up your interfaces with a lot of slick value conversion done for you and the opportunity to add more behind the scenes. It's possible to separate it from WPF, however (although they generally go hand in hand).
I understand that .Net 4 has made some progress toward using the XAML declarative language in Workflow Foundation and in Windows Communication Foundation, which will be interesting, given that those two are already fairly heavily declarative XML driven.
So, XAML is definitely the way forward for MS, especially given that at the core it's nothing more than a way to construct an object graph - any object graph.
WPF is also going to take some strides - for instance, inclusion of the much missed DataGrid (there are excellent commercial alternatives already), and more complex pixel shaders which should push more work to the hardware and increase rendering and startup speed of WPF apps.
As to whether WPF is THE future? Yes, for people who are tied to Windows, who value stylus input and handwriting recognition and who can find space in their development budgets for attractive UI development.
Against Flash, Flex, DHTML in general? I don't know. I'm inclined to think not - most applications don't need the full power of fat client development and don't care that much about pixel shaders et al, happily trading it against the accessibility of web.
Silverlight and XAML are not seamlessly cross compatible, and WPF doesn't transfer automatically to the web. (Yet?) Nevertheless I took the gamble on skilling up, and have found it to be time well spent. If nothing else, it's fantastic for prototyping.
We are evaluating the use of WPF for an upcoming project. We plan to "commercialize" some of our internal tools and could really use some of the effects WPF offers. We also like the idea of the design layer and code layers being independent to allow concurrent work.
Where can I find a simple UI built with WPF (XAML) that I can pull apart?
What is the workflow if the designer is creating the UI and the developers are coding. What does the design staff give the developers (.XAML files? an assembly?)
From Microsoft.
An open source app with relatively simple ui that is well designed is crack.net. I used it to finally understand mvvm.
As for design workflow, that's a harder question to answer for you. You need to figure out what will work for you and your designers. They can work within the same .proj file as your developers and that's very conveinient. But you may want to separate those assemblies for management sake.
As far as workflow goes.
I had worked in a team where we had a dedicated UI designer. Though he had a degree in CS he said that using Blend distracts too much from the UI design. So he still was doing mock-ups and a developer was translating that in Blend+VS+manual XAML tweaks.
Also, despite what is claimed, Blend is most useful as an example-snippet editor to better understand XAML.
On my current WPF project I use Kaxaml mostly, since WPF editor in my installation of VS is painfully slow and in-stable.
The idea is that your designer will produce you XAML and developer will simply add code to that - didn't work for us. And honestly, I don't see how that can work at all. Since there are still many things in UI that need to be tweaked for the presentation layer.
Also, any UI technology can be isolated in a well designed system. And I don't really see any advantages of WPF at that. Especially that MS promotes data-binding so eagerly.
It seems that Silverlight/WPF are the long term future for user interface development with .NET. This is great because as I can see the advantage of reusing XAML skills on both the client and web development sides. But looking at WPF/XAML/Silverlight they seem very large technologies and so where is the best place to get start?
I would like to hear from anyone who has good knowledge of both and can recommend which is a better starting point and why.
Should you learn ASP.NET or Winforms first? ASP or MFC? HTML or VB? C# or VB?
Set aside the idea that there is a logical progression through what has become a highly complex interwoven set of technologies, and take a step back and ask yourself a series of questions:
What are your goals; how do you want to balance profit against enjoyment
Are you short term oriented or in for the long haul
Are you the type of person who likes to get good at something and do it a lot or do you get bored once you fully understand it?
The next and hardest step is to come to accept that any advice you are given is bound to be wrong; and the longer the time horizon the more likely it is to be incorrect. If the advice is for more than six to 12 months, the probability the advice is wildly incorrect approaches 1.
I can only tell you my story, quickly. In 2000 I was happy as a consultant working profitably in C++ on Windows applications, writing about ASP.NET and WinForms. then I saw C# and the world turned upside down. I never went back.
Two years ago I had the same kind of revelation, only an order of magnitude bigger, stronger and with more conviction about Silverlight. Yes, WPF is magnificent, and it may be that I'm all wet about this, but I believe in my gut that Silverlight changes everything. There was no doubt then and there is no doubt today that Silverlight is the most important development platform for Microsoft since .NET (certainly) and possibly since the switch to C++.
In a nutshell, here is why. I don't understand where its limitations are. With most platforms I do: you can do this, but you can't do that. WPF is a pretty good case in point, as was ASP.Net and WinForms and, well really everything until now.
With Silverlight, I don't see the boundaries yet. Silverlight has already leaped off the desktop onto phones, and I don't see any reason for it to stop there. Yes, it is true, it is bound by the browser, but I see that less as a jail cell than as a tank in which Silverlight will be riding over lots of terrain (it must be very late, I should go to bed).
In any case, for now, learning Silverlight is a gas, there is a lot of material on the Silverlight.net site, and what is the very best thing about learning Silverlight is that if you don't see what you need you can holler at me and I'll make sure you get it pretty quickly.
Enjoy, good luck and the dirty little secret is you'll be fine whichever you choose. It's all just software.
-jesse
Jesse Liberty
"Silverlight Geek"
I'd say go with Silverlight first!
I have programmed with WPF and Silverlight before.
But as Silverlight is a subset of WPF if you go in too deep and try to switch to writing Silverlight applications, you'll be scratching your heads looking for that "tag" you learned to love in WPF but is not available in Silverlight.
When you master the basic things in Silverlight first, the extra mechanism/trigger/whatever features in WPF will simply add to most of what you've already known.
Silverlight in WPF differs at the features level, not just some missing controls or animations. Take the WPF triggers mechanism for example, is not available fully in Silverlight.
So learning the smaller subset first, you can extend that knowledge to the full set later, but if you started at the full set and gets addicted to some of the niceties available, you'll have trouble down the line when someone asks you to port your designed-utilizing-WPF apps to Silverlight.
I'll go against the grain and say learn WPF first.
Here's my reasoning:
Much more resources are available for WPF than Silverlight, such as books, blogs, and msdn documentation
WPF Books
You're not dealing with a Beta, moving target
You don't have to deal with working with only asynchronous calls
Not limited by lack of features such as Merged Dictionaries, Triggers, TileBrushes, etc.
You don't have to worry about re-learning to do things correctly because of lacks of features in SL
Silverlight is a stripped down version of WPF so it should have fewer things to learn inside. On the other hand, the two platforms have different targets (web & rich client) so I guess it depends on what app you're going to build.
If you just want to learn for yourself (no app in the close future) I'd pick Silverlight because it would be less to assimilate. Still, Silverlight is pretty much a moving target, much more than WPF, so you'll have to keep up with some changes from time to time (the joys of being an early adopter :)).
WPF has lots more stuff that you will probably want to use at some point but I would wait for the needs to arise first.
Every industry expert I've heard on podcasts, blogs and interviews recommend learning Silverlight first and then gradually moving to WPF which is a huge UI framework.
Silverlight is light and allows you to work on smaller subset of controls and features such that you get your head around this new UI building paradigm based on,
Templating
DataBinding
Styles
Update: 07/2011
I hate to mention this, but in recent times Microsoft has put more focus on HTML5, Javascript and CSS by bringing forward powers of IE 9 and IE 10, as well as the upcoming Windows 8.
More and more developers and CTOs are skeptical about Silverlight as a LOB application platform as the time passes by, we are suspecting Silverlight will be limited to Windows Phone and niche, domain areas like healthcare of graphics related applications rather than a regular LOB app.
As it seems right now, as of summer 2011, the future might look fragmented with more opportunities for pure web technologies (HTML5, JS and CSS) as opposed to a plugin and OS-specific UI technology.
I would start by learning XAML, by reading a few tutorials and playing around with XAMLPad. This will give you a feel for the basics before actually building an app.
I would start with WPF and doing very simple control familiarizaton samples. You goal should be to learn XAML and Binding. So if you just create some basic WPF window apps will bootstrap your learning speed. Then eventually you can move to silverlight. Yeah as other mentioned here Silverlight is a subset of WPF.
Well, it depends on what you are going to be working on. If you are working on client/server, then I would go with WPF. If you are working in an environment where you can guarantee that .Net is installed on all of the machines, then I would go with WPF as well, because you can use what is called an XBAP, which is a WPF application that is run through the browser.
It's really up to you. However, I would state that silverlight is not RTM yet, and WPF is. WPF has a lot of books out on the subject, where silverlight does not. It may be easier to get the whole Zen of WPF by reading a few of those books, and then dive into which ever one you would like to play with.
Just keep in mind that silverlight has a subset of the controls of WPF, a paired down .Net framework, and does not do synchronous calls. As long as you know that up front, you can start learned the core of the whole foundation and tailor your practical experience later on to whichever technology is best for you.
Some tips at Getting started with Silverlight Development