Tuesday, June 06, 2006 11:25 AM
by
loufranco
WinFX == Managed Code: HA!
UPDATE: Atalasoft DotImage 6.0 uses some of the information discussed here to deliver the industry's first WPF Imaging SDK.
Eric Sink has written a post entitled WPF for Laggards, which gives a great intro to WPF, but I have to point out that this isn't quite right:
Back when .NET was introduced, Microsoft gave us managed
code, a new way of developing for Windows. Now, with WinFX, managed code is no
longer just another way of developing for Windows, but rather, it is THE way of
developing for Windows. WinFX completes the transition started by .NET, the
transition to managed code.
Constructing applications with WPF is done with managed code, but extending the WPF framework (at least in the two ways that I have looked at: Codecs and BitmapEffects) is done with unmanaged code, using COM (more info
here).
GUI Component developers have it a little easier -- they will probably only need to composite WPF controls and shapes and be quite happy using just managed code -- the downside is that unlike an effect, WinForms controls will be pretty useless in WPF, so they will need to do a near total rewrite. I could always apply an effect to an image manually -- extending the framework lets me play nice with XAML, databinding and animations, but any effect code should be usable in WPF even if it does not extend the BitmapEffect framework.
Oh yeah, and like Eric, Atalasoft will be at TechEd next week. We'll be showing what we've been doing with WPF -- hope to see you there.