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I agree that it is difficult to master. At first I thought it was the product of a tortured mind.
I still use forms but slowly the obtuse xaml approach is beginning to make a little sense.
I guess it will be a while before I become an evangelist.
I may not last forever but the mess I leave behind certainly will.
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never saw the appeal of WPF myself when winforms handles everything I need to do. maybe I have some old bias, but when WPF first came out it was sluggish and awkward, where winforms just work. oh sure it doesn't have all the pretty graphical translation capabilities, but winforms has an easier model to work with for us one person shops.
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swampwiz wrote: ...the only thing I can come up with it is that it is designed to work with XAML files & has a new way of doing data binding.
It also exploits advanced 3D graphics capabilities in modern machines.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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I have only used it for my non-work projects however I have found that in learning some WPF and implementing some WPF projects it has improved my understanding of how to 'code' well.
In needing to learn MVVM, MVC etc design patterns it has had a very positive influence on my workday projects which are largely winforms projects.
So WPF may not be the fastest platform on which to develop however it did force me to learn better ways of developing and thinking about IT problems.
For that alone I have found WPF to be helpful - I find it helps me to learn new ways of thinking about or approaching problems and for me that is a good thing.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
modified 21-Jun-15 4:23am.
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Same for me.
However, WPF IS the fastest way to develop UI apps. I always blame the web world because is not (or rarely) taking inspiration from the WPF world.
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GuyThiebaut wrote: In needing to learn MVVM, MVC etc design patterns it has had a very positive influence on my workday projects which are largely winforms projects.
I agree.
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This was actually a boon for Winforms development. Those patterns (MVC, MVVM, MVP) already existed, they just weren't widely used. WPF brought them to the fore of the desktop developer hivemind, and WinForms project development has improved because of it.
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You hit the nail.
- XAML allows screens/pages/windows to be designed declaratively. If you only ever use the designer, Windows Forms and WPF aren't that different, but that's just an illusion facilitated by the Windows Forms Designer.
- With XAML's binding model and MVVM, a lot can be done without writing any "code"; furthermore these tend to be easier to read and understand.
- The WPF UI is hardware accelerated. This is a big one. Windows Forms is slow and doesn't support true transparency. WPF is fast, and supports true alpha transparency.
- WPF is completely styleable. Don't like how the default radio button looks or operates? Override its template. All of the default templates are published, so if you want to tweak one, it's easy.
- WPF is easier to adapt to different screen sizes, not to mention the XAML is 97% compatible between WPF, Windows Store apps, Windows Phone.
I still find Windows Forms faster for quickly putting together business applications, but I find myself being won over by WPF for its flexibility.
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For me its not so much about design patterns or industry trends, it is about capabilities:
Dynamic Layouts In Win Forms you often layed everything out with absolute positions on a "canvas". In WPF one quickly learns to use the dynamic layout capability of different panels so your app works at different resolutions, window sizes etc. and adapts.
Control Customisation You can completely overhaul the look and feel of every control with a little XAML to completely fit your vision - with Win Forms you had to work the properties you had - with WPF can you replace all the parts and it still works, e.g. a ListBox can appear as a Solar System.
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The solar system link was really interesting
This is part of the reason that I like WPF it allows us as developers to do what we want with much less restriction than winforms - also part of the pleasure is in solving the puzzles that crop up when developing WPF(you know something is possible, you just don't at the moment know exactly how you are going to implement the idea).
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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WPF can become the next big thing if some really good developers decide to build some applications that are very GPU intensive. The only other way to create an application that can do realtime graphics rendering and 3D structures with texturing and lighting without WPF is to handle it with Direct X. Until some fantastic apps come out that only guys with wild rigs can run, WPF will not ever get used fully and show its glory. I plan to develop a 3D desktop to take the place of rainmeter, Jarvis and a few others as an all in one interactive desktop as soon as I get the extra time. But for now, bread on the table baby.
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I managed to get this stupid win 8.1 lappie into recovery mode.
How?
The obvious way.
Plug in a VGA monitor lead and turn the power on.
No, seriously. That's what I did, and Windows immediately came up with "Had a problem starting, what do you want to do?" On the lappie screen, of course, not the VGA connected monitor - that stayed blank.
And although windows couldn't fix the start up problem it is at least "refreshing" the PC - which is a reinstall of Win8 without scrubbing the HDD, it seems: you have to reinstall every app after that, but keep your data.
I'll do a disk image when it's powered up ok, and before I install anything.
My dislike for Win8.x grows with every single exposure...
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Deja Vista
New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.1 new web site.
I know the voices in my head are not real but damn they come up with some good ideas!
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No Vista is much better and less buggy than Win8
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Yeah, At least the start menu opens on Vista. And it wasn't actually too bad once they patched the thing up, it's name was just stained forever due to it being a complete flop on launch.
In windows 8.1/10 TP I find that pressing the start menu button sometimes leaves the desire for the start menu to actually open.
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I can't even get the latest build to work on a VM
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Yeah, I managed to get one of the older builds to install into a KVM machine on a linux host under libvirt, but not managed to get it to update as it blue screens. Fairly sure it was something about an unhanded system thread exception.
If you google the BSOD message and google it there was an article somewhere which helped me but I can't find it again. It was to enable a certain CPU instruction inside virtual box which is disabled by default, I'm away from home at the moment at last I checked the power was out so I can't SSH in and try to find what I enabled, enabling it solved the issue but I couldn't figure out how to do it elsewhere.
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I'm trying it in a 2 year old version of VM Ware Player, on a Vista Host.
If I have time I may just drop it on some extra hardware that I have around here and see.
So far what I was able to see it is not anything I would be interested in using besides testing.
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After too many times losing my data I have come to format a system partition and a data partition on all my machines.
Then when I need to do a fresh install I reformat the system partition, install the new OS along with all the applications onto the system partition and the data is still there.
Once you lose your pride the rest is easy.
In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you. – Buddha
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I went through this recently with this wife's all-in-one 8.1 system. Funny how this process used to be easier...usually F8, and you had a few seconds to hit it. Now it seems that the PC only allows access to those options when 'it' decides there is a problem. I imagine with the reinstall, you'll have lots of updates, but at least they shouldn't need to be downloaded. Sounds like you're on the road to recovery!
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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F8 only works at a specific stage in the boot process, only optimizations in the whole boot process and everything else leaves you like a slither of a second to hit F8 at the right time, it still works, providing you can get in there in time.
There was a way to get to it if you managed to boot to a login screen, fairly sure it was either ctrl or shift, holding that and hitting restart would take you to the boot options, but widely useless if you can't even get that far, your left praying the successful boot flag isn't marked due to how far it manages to get before it topples itself.
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Yeah, the boot is now so fast that you have to select shutdown and start with the boot menu option instead of having the system wait to give you that option every time you boot.
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Andy Brummer wrote: every time you boot.
I would rather give W8 the boot.
Marc
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