matt.griffith

At Mix06 Microsoft said a CTP of WPF/E should be available in Q3/2006. Well Q3 has come and gone and there is still no CTP. I was begginning to wonder if WPF/E was going to end up just another big cloud of MS FUD.

JCooney wondered the same thing recently:

It's a few days into October, so where is WPF/E? At Mix06 the date for the first CTP was announced as "Q3 2006" or "summer 2006"...So where is it, huh? WPF/E PM bloggers Mike Harsh and Joe Stegman have been very quiet since then...

He pointed to a post from the Firefox team that seems to suggest that WPF/E does exist in some form. That makes me feel a little better, but I'd still like to see some running bits make it public to get a feel for how far away it truly is.

I'm in the process of installing .NET 3 on Vista RC1 and I was looking for a good guide on doing things in the correct order. I should have known that Sam would beat me to it. Sam Gentile has a great guide on getting started with Windows Vista RC1.

In this short screencast I show how you can use IronPython and Snoop together to explore the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).

IronPython is a wonderful dynamic language with full access to the .NET Framework. Snoop is a great WPF debugging tool. Together they can help you climb the steep WPF learning curve.

A flash version of the screencast is available here.

UPDATE: Rob Relyea points out a way for me to simply my code. Instead of doing:

b.Content = TextBlock()
b.Content.Text = "Hi"

I could do this instead:

b.Content = "Hi"

WPF creates the TextBlock for you automatically when you set the Content property to a string. That does work from IronPython. Thanks Rob.

UPDATE: In the comments to Rob's post above he points out that there is a way to refresh the Snoop visual tree (the treeview on the left side of the window). All you have to do is press F5. Very cool.

If you don't have IronPython installed see: HOWTO Screencast: Install IronPython

If you need to know how to build Snoop without Visual Studio see: HOWTO Screencast: Build Snoop without Visual Studio

Snoop is a great Windows Presentation Foundation debugging tool.

The Snoop download includes the source code and the Visual Studio project files needed to build it. But if you don't have Visual Studio installed you can use MSBuild to build Snoop. In this screencast I show you how to do just that.

A flash version of the screencast is available here.

Now that the Windows Presentation Foundation APIs have stabalized it is time for me to start seriously playing with it.

Jon Udell recently posted the screencast of a interview he did with Jim Hugunin. In this screencast Jim demonstrates IronPython. Jim & Jon do a great job explaining why you should install IronPython. Dynamic languages are a great way to explore new APIs. And IronPython is a great way to explore .NET APIs. But there weren't any demonstrations of how easy it is to install IronPython; until now.

In this 5 minute screencast I show you how to install and set up IronPython so you can use it to explore WPF.

A Flash version of the screencast is available here.