Desktop: WPF

Recently we've been building some cool stuff in WPF with resources and animations. In this post I will share some experience with a bug from our code base I fought recently. The actual code is complex, so here is a simple example that I used when hunting the nasty bug (source code is in the bottom of the page): <Window x:Class="WpfApplication1.Window1"    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"    Title="Window1" Height="300" Width="300">     <Window.Resources>         <Style TargetType="{x:Type Rectangle}" x:Key="RectangleStyle">             <Setter Property="Fill" Value="Blue" />         </Style>     </Window.Resources>     <Grid Name="testGrid" >        ...

Data binding in WPF in general and particularly working with data templates tends to be quite tricky some times. Here I'll present you some more advanced tips for dealing with data templates. To start with, I want to refer to an article I read a while ago. It is about the basics of data templates and I want to use it as a starting point and a foundation to build on. If you are just starting to work with WPF or you have never met with data templates, please read it first to get acquainted with the idea. I'll use ItemsControl for...

Hi everyone. I'm Jordan Dimitrov from the WPF team. I'm planning to post about .Net, first with few post about WPF. My first post is about resources and themes. Recently I had a problem with resources from themes files. I tried to use DynamicResource markup extension in Style in generic.xaml (sample bellow). But it didn't work. I changed DynamicResource extension with StaticResource markup extension and now it works. But WHY DynamicResource doesn't work? Sample XAML In my generic.xaml there are two items - a style for my CustomControl1 and a resource SolidColorBrush with key brush1.     1 <ResourceDictionary     2    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"     3    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"     4    xmlns:local="clr-namespace:WpfApplication1">    ...

As you are probably aware resolution and device independence is one of the fundamental design goals of WPF. In order to achieve the desired effect the framework does not work directly with physical (device-dependent) pixels but abstracts this notion into device-independent measuring units like inches. There are two main benefits that you get from this: Automatic DPI-aware scaling Sub-pixel positioning -- WPF coordinates use floating point numbers that theoretically give you the ability to draw with higher precision than the one provided by the ordinary pixel grid. However, there is one nasty side-effect related to the fact that WPF graphics are anti-aliased by default...

Recently both Paul Stovell and Joseph Cooney blogged about one very interesting topic - "Do people really need grid controls in WPF?". They're saying that people actually don't need grids in WPF and this is what makes their blog posts worth reading. Imagine if they had said the opposite: "People need grid controls for WPF!". It would have been quite boring and wouldn’t have spurred much of a discussion. For many people the idea of not having grids for WPF sounds unconventional but Paul made an interesting parallel to justify his claim "Using grids in WPF is like buying a Ferrari to pick up...