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 [...]

Silverlight 2 Greasepole Game Engine

If you’re authoring multimedia applications in Silverlight, you might be interested in how each of the core game engine services for Legend of the Greasepole is now implemented for the Silverlight 2 Beta. From C/C++ to a Provider Model-Based .NET Engine When was the last time you looked at code you wrote almost a decade ago? [...]

Silverlight 2 Beta Performance

The Silverlight 2 Beta runs rings around the Silverlight 2 Alpha. However, the lack of hardware acceleration is very noticable (and relevant to an Image-oriented application like Legend of the Greasepole) when running at higher resolutions. For a little perspective: In 1998, the first version of Legend of the Greasepole was released. Platform: Windows PC (95, 98, [...]

Legend of the Greasepole, Silverlight 2 Beta Edition

The Legend of the Greasepole is a game that began its life on July 1st, 1996, when a group of Engineering students from Queen’s University in Canada decided they’d create a way to re-live their unexplainable annual tradition from the comfort of their long-suffering computers. After last year’s XNA port, the release of the Silverlight 2 [...]

.NET Visualized: Treemap and Dependency Matrix

In case you haven’t seen this, check out MVP Patrick Smacchia’s visualizations of the .NET Framework, including an NDepend analysis of the number of Types, a Treemap view, and a dependency matrix for the entire framework. The dependency matrix is, IMO, impressively sparse. Also interesting but perhaps not surprising is that PresentationFramework represents the largest [...]

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, [...]