just wondering what IDE people use for their WPF apps?
I currently have VS2008 + VS2010 (RC) and MS Expression Blend 3 installed on my system. I'm just wondering what is the best way to go about WPF apps?
Could I create in Blend and then edit the source in VS or vice versa?
Ideas would be great and info on how everyone else does it would be great.
Thanks
You may need both VS and Blend if you do more of a UX layer WPF development, which means you create basic control layout in Blend and then do the code-behind(or ViewModel C#/VB.NET) in VS. I usually keep VS on one monitor and blend on the second.
Now come to the version of the above IDEs. Of course the newer version has great power. So Blend4.0(currently in Beta) has better TFS integration so you can do check-in/checkout from Blend itself and also able to do an extend of C# editing also. And VS2010 is really powerfull IDE as compared to VS2008, and you might be able to do a lot of basic XAML editing in VS2010 itself, for some WPF developers who doesn't do much XAML design VS2010 will be the sole tool to do all his needs.
In our shop, we use VS2k8 and blend. we do most of our design in blend. and the coding and some of the design in vs2k8. One drawback of using blend is the lack of integration with VSS or TFS. We are going to be using 2k10 when it goes RTW.
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I have just switched from Java-development (where I used IntelliJ) to an old WinForms application in VB.net. I have decided to use Rider, since I really liked IntelliJ.
From what I understand Raider's WinForm designer does not yet support VB.net-WinForms.
So my question is if there is a plugin that supports WinForms designing in Raider (to avoid having to switch to VS and avoid using 2 different IDEs).
The Winforms designer from Rider does only support C# with WinForms under Windows. It has recently added support for other toolkits, maybe in a cross-platform manner.
The answer to your question is no: and I don't think they are going to include since there is probably not enough demand. You can still use Visual Studio for the designer and go back to Rider when that part is finished.
My personal advice is to avoid use any designer. WinForms is really easy to grasp, and there are tutorials out there that make the task even easier.
One possibility would therefore be to get rid of the designer files and manually modify the code. An important outcome is that the project will be then editable in any IDE, not only Visual Studio or others with compatible plugins.
I'm evaluating Silverlight for a RIA right now. A large amount of the Gui is to be designed by people without programming skills. Visually the application should be very appealing, animations, smooth transitions and so on are a big plus for us. Blend and Silverlight seem to be tailored very well to fit this requirement. However it does need the runtime which is somewhat acceptable for us but also a little disadvantage.
So, do you know an mature Ria-like alternatives (similar ease of development, all-in-one-happy-package without runtime) outside of this ecosystem? I had a look at Qt and the designer but I'm not sure what to make of it in the moment with all the buzz about it and if it is fitting to our needs.
Are there other alternatives you can recommend?
Thanks in advance.
If you're familiar with .NET technologies and looking at Silverlight from that perspective, its may be the way to go in that you will be using the same tools. Silverlight is also cross-platform on desktops.
Adobe Air as far as I can tell can be many things, one or more combininations of flash, flex, javascript, html. This is also cross platform in terms of desktop machines.
Html/jQuery/Javascript is another option, this also enables usage on mobile devices.
There are 3rd party plugins/add-ons and components for most of these technologies that help with both features and the visual aspect of the interface.
There is Adobe AIR, but I'm not familiar with it.
Just so I understand, here is what I hear you saying: you want designers to design the UI and developers to develop the code.
Your problem is that developing for Silverlight requires the Silverlight runtime? I'm not sure I get this, but here are some thoughts:
1) If your designers are running Windows you can install just Expression Studio and Blend should include all you need for them to do their work in Blend.
2) If your designers are NOT running Windows, they can't use Blend. They can still do their design work in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop because those assets can then be imported into Blend. Of course, whoever does the import will need a Windows machine with at least Blend installed: in that sort of scenario we call that person an "integrator", and there are folks out there who specialize in that sort of work.
3) If your developers are going to create Silverlight applications, they will need Windows and .NET developers tools (preferably Visual Studio). To paraphrase what AnthonyWJones said earlier: how can you develop for a platform without having the platform?
In my mind, having Visual Studio and Blend is the "all-in-one happy package", but that's just me. :)
hello
i want to build silverlight application for wince6.0. im not getting whether we have to use vs2008 r expression blend can you tel me which one is suitable to build for wince6.0
Silverlight "sort of" exists for Windows CE (see here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee502198.aspx ) but it's a version programmed via C++ that is, in many substantial ways, different from the Silverlight on a desktop PC, Mac, or Windows Phone 7.
I do not believe there is Blend support for this version of Silverlight, and the Visual Studio support is pretty limited. In fact, the whole framework is rather limited, as it's based on Silverlight 2, which is starting to feel pretty old at this point.
That said, hopefully the above link helps point you to samples and other documentation that can help.
Sorry, Silverlight doesn't support Windows CE 6.0. You can use the .NET Compact Framework instead, but it doesn't get you XAML or the other cool things that you might have been hoping for from Silverlight.
I am at the initial stage of designing a client application. However, being new to WPF and having already gained some experience in Win forms development, time pressures on the project means that there is a risk to going down the WPF route. If time were no pressure, then I would say forget forms and design with WPF. However, I am not lucky enough to have this luxury. Having spent a little time investigating the Composite Application Block for Forms, I have decided that I will definitely develop the application within this framework. However, there are 2 versions of the CAB, 1 for WinForms that targets the .Net 2.0 runtime which has now been retired, and then the WPF version which targets .Net 3.5. Not being a fan of 'retired' code libraries, I would prefer to use the WPF version of CAB. This may be a silly question, but is it possible to use the WPF version of CAB for Win forms application developement? I do envisage at some point in the future moving to towards WPF. If I could use the WPF version of CAB I am hoping that this would make it easier to migrate the forms application to WPF.
It looks like somebody had the same idea that you did.
I found it by reading this thread on the CompositeWPF codeplex forum, discussing this very issue.
You should be able to do this without too many issues. We are currently using CAB to enable us to display SQL Reporting Services reports in WPF (along with a couple other items). It's a pretty simple implementation, but our architecture is WPF-based, not WinForms. As far as we've been able to tell, there wouldn't be much of a problem were it the other way around, and displaying both types of forms is done the same way.
It seems that Microsoft wants Silverlight to take off, yet I cannot find an easy way to develop in it without buying Visual Studio 2008. Has anyone out there found a way to get the silverlight development environment in the express editions of Visual Studio? Any other tools?
Here is a link for ya: HOWTO: Silverlight and Visual Studio Express,
I haven't tried it myself though.
They just released Eclipse tools for Silverlight (eclipse4SL) and I remembered this thread!
Apparently express support will come with the final release
Depending on what you consider "productive", you could work with XAMLPad for a lot of the basic declarative stuff.
The Moonlight project is working on an IDE called Lunar Eclipse, that I think they're eventually going to be integrating into MonoDevelop. Wikipedia says it's in the SVN repository already, but I don't know if there's any code for that which can actually be run effectively yet. I'd think if it's out there it'd be unusably basic if it even compiles... still, something to look into!
I only use Visual Studio as a text editor for xaml and C#. I don't use the designer in Visual Studio at all. You can put together most of your UI with Blend, open your C# files individually with Express. You don't have much intelisense in Visual Studio for the xaml anyway.
As #Brian stated, you can just use Expression blend and create any WPF/Silverlight apps. Especially if you have some Flash background/more interested in the interaction design (UX) I would recommend you to buy expression blend than VS2008.
You can write C# code in notepad and Blend will take care of the compilation.