Have you ever seen an online banking front-end that shows powerpoint-style flowcharts of your recent spendings? Or an internet trading solution that builds 3D diagrams in real time? It now becomes possible with the latest Microsoft .NET technology – Windows Presentation Foundation(WPF). What’s more, all of your existing MFC/Win32/WinForms business applications can be now easily transformed to support hardware accelerated visually compelling graphics.
Emerged in 2000 Microsoft .NET Framework has seen major improvements over time like the enhanced CLR, Generics support, new ASP.NET and transactions capabilities in version 2.0. However, the latest revision doesn’t bring any changes to the core of the framework. it is still 2.0. Only it now has 4 new technologies atop. These technologies also known as foundations provide the following advantages for Windows developers:
• Support for workflow-based applications (Workflow Foundation)
• Support for service-oriented applications (Communications Foundation)
• Consistent user control of digital identities (Card Space)
• Unified approach to diverse user interfaces (Presentation Foundation)
In this article we will focus on one of these exiting technologies – Windows Presentation Foundation. Formerly known as Avalon, WPF is a new programming model for creating graphical user interfaces (GUI) for the Windows platform. We believe WPF brings the following benefits to .NET technology outsourcers as well as to end-to-end business solutions buyers who have opted for .NET platform:
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Due to it’s built-in interoperability and the new XAML layer, WPF enables faster development and the transformation of Windows Forms applications. It also bridges the gap between UI designer and developer contributing to faster, more consistent GUI design creation.
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WPF controls can be hosted inside any WinForms application. It gets a bit harder with Win32/MFC-based
applications though, as they aren't build on the CLR. In this case we use mapping between CLR-based code and native Win32
code.
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Direct 3D technology enables the use of enhanced
two-dimensional and three-dimensional vector graphics in mainstream Windows applications.
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WPF hardware graphic acceleration and XAML intermediary layer bring uniform, compelling look & feel to virtually any platform via XBAP or WPF/E.
As businesses become more demanding in terms of how software looks & feels and what business processes can be visualized, there’s a growing need in a single technology that give developers the ability to handle audio, video, animation, vector graphics and web layout in one place. Much like Windows Communication Foundation replaces several diverse technologies with the single environment, WPF brings together UI design and application development.
Unlike Windows Forms, WPF relies on Direct3D for all rendering and use XML-based eXtensible Application Markup
Language (XAML) for declarative user interface specification. Also, Windows Presentation Foundation introduces the new class of applications - XAML browser
applications (XBAP) - that run directly from your web browser in a partially trusted sandbox.
Unlike earlier Microsoft technologies, which rely on GDI+ for graphics, WPF graphics aren't
partitioned off using a separate set of concepts that developers must
understand. Instead, the XAML elements used for graphics can be
combined naturally with those used for anything else in a user
interface.
Xaml serializes CLR object graphs into an Xml representation that is both verbose and human readable. This gives the choice of either editing the markup by hand, or generating it with a specialized graphical tool (much like you can either edit html with powerful Macromedia Dreamweaver or use Windows Notepad). In order to get faster UI load times, XAML is stored inside application’s resources in the form of tokenized binary.
XBAP (XAML Browser Application) is a new Windows technology used for creating rich Internet applications. Running inside Internet Explorer, XAML-based web
application can present the user with a rich WPF-based GUI , including 2D and 3D graphics, animations, on-screen
documents, images and video.
However, the major tradeoff here is that XBAP is Windows only and requires .Net 3 Framework to be installed on your machine. The true multiplatform WPF solution from Microsoft, Silverlight or WPF/Everywhere, supports only a subset of XAML and may be considered as Microsoft's equivalent to Macromedia Flash Player, no more.
WPF/E is a small component (~1MB) that is plugged into the browser. It is cross platform and does not require the installation of .Net 3 Framework.
Summing up, using WPF clearly is the fastest way to develop a rich multiplatform application or enhance your MFC/Win32/WinForms business software with compelling graphics and user-friendly interface. Yet, WPF works best until Microsoft’s products dominate within your IT infrastructure and your clients use such questionable Microsoft’s solutions as Internet Explorer. |
