# Anyone Programming in WPF?



## Kreij (Nov 13, 2009)

Anyone out there doing anything in Windows Presentation Foundation?
I've worked with it a little, but can't say I really like it. It's powerful and seems to add a lot of functionality that has to be done by hand in Windows Forms programming, but I just don't care for working in XAML.

Anyone been working in WFP? I would like to hear what you think.


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## Kreij (Mar 15, 2010)

Sorry for dredging up an old thread, but I finally took some time to really look into WPF.
Learning XAML is a lot different from using Windows Forms (although not too different from HTML/XHTML) and it takes a bit of getting used to.

The control that you have over the UI presentation makes Windows Forms look like a complete hack. 
Once you start getting the hang of it, it's amazing. The ControlTemplates and Binding ability is fantastic and so integrated into the base framework you can do just about anything to anything else.
Want a Button that contains a fully functional calendar that operates independantly of the OnClick event of the Button? No Problem.
Want a Button that contains functional self-contained Sub-Buttons? Yowza !! Not hard to do.

As always with Microsoft's frameworks, there will be a little grimicing when you try to do certain things.
I had a little problem isolating sub-button events, for my specific needs, without having the framework bubble up the event to the parent button, but a little Googling and off I went.

My advice ... start learning it now if you have not already.

*Disclaimer : No, I don't work for Microsoft. It's that much better than WF.*


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## Kreij (Mar 26, 2010)

WPF stands for Windows Presentation Foundation.
Basically it seperates the UI (which is written in XAML) from it's behavior (VB, C#).
You can find a ton of information by googling "WPF Tutorials" and/or "XAML Tutorials".

I _think_ you will need at least VS2008.
I haven't used VS2005 in a long time and no longer have it loaded to test.


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## dcf-joe (Apr 10, 2010)

Sorry for drudging up an old thread.

We have not gotten into UI programming at my school yet, we are still doing C++ with the command prompt output. My question is, why are there so many different UI making styles for Windows out there? I mean, some of them off the top of my head are the Win32 API, MFC, WPF and .NET???


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## Kreij (Apr 10, 2010)

It's really just a progression over time, Joe, and different implementations for different languages.
Some of the progression was a move to assist in more RAD. 
The current incarnation of WPF is a move to seperate the UI from it's behavior for better team development where the UI designers and the coders are not the same people.
If you are single programmer doing it all, then just pick what you prefer.


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## dcf-joe (Apr 10, 2010)

Roger, I just thought it must be insanely difficulty for the programmer to choose between which one to use.

And, I did read that WPF was supposed to separate the UI from the behaviors. Apparently,  the C# version 4.0 standard is supposed to be ratified soon, or something like that.


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