Bring on the 3rd major release of WPF (3.5 SP1 Beta is ready!)

A “Week of WPF” begins on Channel 9 with the announcement that the third major release of WPF (3.5 SP1) has gone beta! Tim Sneath’s blog entry has fantastic detail about what’s coming in this release and all the download/update details (Silverlighters: see caveat below). Folks attending my “WPF for Line Of Business apps” presentation on Thursday [...]

WPF Commanding - When do Commands re-evaluate their CanExecute method?

I had been merrily using WPF’s built-in support for the Command Pattern for ages (see Commanding Overview, MSDN Docs, and article on implementing the command pattern in WPF, Jeff Druyt)… when suddenly it occured to me that I had no idea what triggered WPF to determine whether or not a command can be executed. Let me [...]

Tip: Don’t forget the WPF Performance Suite

The WPF Performance Suite includes the following tools for profiling WPF applications at runtime: Perforator: for analyzing rendering behavior. Visual Profiler: for profiling the use of WPF services, such as layout and event handling, by elements in the visual tree. Working Set Analyzer: for analyzing the working set characteristics of your application. Event Trace: for analyzing events and generating [...]

Make your own WPF Custom BitmapEffects

Custom WPF Bitmap Effects, authored in a Managed C++ assembly, complete with sample project to help you roll your own. It works, complete with live preview, in Expression Blend. Done by a guy called Rob who has a blog called Run To The Hills. ‘Nuff said. Check it out! p.s. My suggestion to Rob: [...]

“Mate, this is the Future”

I’m currently consulting independently for a team of developers and designers.  The process has been a joy, both for me and for my clients. In part, it has shown me that Blend (2.5) has matured to the point where it delivers on the promise of dramatically improving the developer-designer workflow. I had the good fortune [...]

Toronto DevTeach on WPF - what would be useful for you?

I’m in the lineup to speak at the DevTeach conference, which is taking place in Toronto from May 12-15. My presentation is going to be WPF-centric, but I have deliberately left the abstract flexible. What would you like to hear about WPF at DevTeach from someone who’s been consulting in WPF and Silverlight? Building a WPF [...]

NLarge v1.1.2 (once more, with feeling, multimon and text annotation support)

Barry’s teaching a course this week and noticed that NLarge didn’t support multimon - or rather, it always zoomed in on the primary monitor. So NLarge got another update.  Good thing I don’t sleep! Changelist: Added Multimonitor support - zooms in on the monitor currently containing the mouse pointer. Added Text support - annotate zoomed-in images with [...]

Top 3 of Mix08 (for me)

1. The Cirque du Soleil keynote demo, the most engaging articulation of WPF’s “richer, smarter, more productive line-of-business app” message since Avalon Healthcare. 2. More Microsoft Research innovation sees the light of day in the product groups and for developers at large. Deep Zoom becomes available to developers through Silverlight and demoed by the Hard Rock Cafe, [...]

Mix08 - Keynote Day 2

Just got back from the Steve Ballmer / Guy Kawasaki keynote at this year’s Mix. Is Guy ever not on form? He did a great job asking Steve the tough questions, making it fun, and getting a few candid answers, along with some “PR” answers as well, including Steve’s cautious response to “What about [...]

Download links related to Mix08 Keynote Announcements

Head over to Tim Sneath’s blog for a list of all download links related to the keynote this morning.

And then my battery died. But…

…one the most amazing and unexpected announcements of the whole keynote came for me in a WPF demo towards the end. In an update to WPF that should be available some time this summer, we’re going to get SHADER SUPPORT in WPF. Yes, that kind of shader. WPF team, I love you guys.

Mix08 Keynote - Silverlight & WPF

First let’s get to the obvious Silverlight announcements we “knew” were coming during this keynote: - Silverlight 2.0 Beta is available! - Expression Blend 2.5 (!) March Preview is available! - formal announcement of Silverlight Mobile device support! In my presentation last weekend I was asked about Silverlight adoption stats, which I predicted we’d get during the keynote. [...]

Mix08 Keynote - parting thoughts

I’ve just stepped out from the first Mix Keynote I’ve attended as a consultant rather than a Microsoftie.  There was no real shocker in there, but it was a solid keynote and I am enthused by a couple of exciting announcements Ray Ozzie began by saying he sees Mix08 as one of several milestones on a [...]

Off to Vegas!

Thanks to everyone who came out to my WPF and Silverlight presentation at the Toronto CodeCamp event yesterday. It was great to have a chance to speak with so many interested and enthusiastic people who hung around after the talk. Because the presentation was a riff on my What’s New in WPF 3.5 and Silverlight [...]

CodeCamp and Mix08 - on my blog at robburke.net

Thanks to everyone who came out to my WPF and Silverlight presentation at the Toronto CodeCamp event yesterday. It was great to have a chance to speak with so many interested and enthusiastic people who hung around after the talk. Because the presentation Read More...