Is WPF/E only about a better media player or flash?

I kind of new to the concept of WPF/E. I seen some WPF examples that are more applicative but the only demos I see for WPF/E is on playing movies and doing animation stuff.

Does WPF/E have any applicative support such as listviews and tree views or should I stick to frameworks like visual webgui to do my web application ?

As for this moment WPF/E looks to me like a Microsofts version for flash. I do love the concept of able to work from JavaScript with the WPF/E elements but it is just a better way to do flash?

It is a  subset of WPF.  I belive it will support vector graphics, images, video, animation, text, and basic controls.  However, it will not support 3D, rich documents support (XPS), extensibility, or hardware acceleration.

Really you should just download the WPF/E beta & some samples (its free).

I have downloaded the WPF/E but all samples I seen is for animation and videos and I still do not see how it diffrent from flash. Can you direct me to a more applicative sample. Such as record management or contact management or any thing like this?

Ramanjit wrote:

Can you direct me to a more applicative sample. Such as record management or contact management or any thing like this?

Those examples should be made with WPF as an application, not inside a webbrowser.
I'm sure you can find some videos about it on msdn.

I was taking on WPF/E not WPF, there is a great difference as I can use WPF/E everywhere and WPF requires vista.

Ramanjit wrote:

WPF requires vista.

.. or XP

Ramanjit wrote:

I was taking on WPF/E not WPF, there is a great difference as I can use WPF/E everywhere and WPF requires vista.

As far as I am able to understand it:

There is also the Xaml Browser Application (XBAP) which brings the full power of WPF to the browser, but you need to have the .NET 3.0 framework and IE installed.

WPF/E is a subset of WPF with support for multiple(/cross platform?) browsers.

Also read: http://blogs.msdn.com/mharsh/archive/2006/12/06/what-is-wpf-e-really.aspx

And then there is the AJAX extension for ASP.NET which would currectly bring more towards building rich applications.

So than WPF/E would be more towards rich media experience and some form of AJAX extension towards richer web applications.

While WPF/E is probaly being extended more and more, it will probaly some day contains your needed controls. But while it has more focus towards rich media it will probaly not be your best choice for building web applications where you don't need vector image or video stuff.
Then I gues you are better of using AJAX extension, either from Microsoft themself or some 3rd party.

But I can be wrong, since I neither have all the time in the world to follow all this new things. Maby there is some compare chart somewhere?

I think that one way it beats flash is that there is no monolithic binary that you have to buy an expensive editor to create.

Anyone can create WPF/E pages with any text editor.

Jorgie

Ramanjit wrote:



I have downloaded the WPF/E but all samples I seen is for animation and videos and I still do not see how it diffrent from flash. Can you direct me to a more applicative sample. Such as record management or contact management or any thing like this?

Take a look at this apresentation that happened last weekend here, at Microsoft London. Click on the first video and go to the London Underground Team example. Great example of this technology.

http://gaia.world-television.com/ms/20070119/

Ramanjit wrote:

I kind of new to the concept of WPF/E. I seen some WPF examples that are more applicative but the only demos I see for WPF/E is on playing movies and doing animation stuff.

Does WPF/E have any applicative support such as listviews and tree views or should I stick to frameworks like visual webgui to do my web application ?

As for this moment WPF/E looks to me like a Microsofts version for flash. I do love the concept of able to work from JavaScript with the WPF/E elements but it is just a better way to do flash?

It's a fair set of questions, so let me see what I can do to answer them.

Is WPF/E Microsoft's 'version of Flash' -- I would have to say the answer is 'No'. While there is certainly an overlap between what can be done in Flash and what can be done in WPF/E, the latter is part of a larger ecosystem of development APIs and runtimes that work nicely together.

WPF/E, at it's heart is a scriptable, programmable renderer of XAML. It can work nicely in conjunction with AJAX, ASP.NET or any other Web development technologies.

On the question of application development components such as list views and tree views, then the answer to this is also 'no'. At least at present. The control model in WPF/E is limited. But it is also an early CTP. More controls _may_ be added in over time, but, before assuming what should and shouldn't be there, it's good to step back and think about it a little.

WPF/E is all about empowering the next generation of the Web Experience. With that in mind, it is build on XAML, allowing for great flexibility of design. Traditional client applications are designed with conformance in mind ('make it look like Office!'), but Web ones tend towards uniqueness. Therefore, a control model, bringing about conformity, might be a waste of time and download space. Instead, designers can implement their own UI in XAML and devs wire it up. Not as productive as having off-the-shelf-controls that are built into the system, but, perhaps it is better that way? And because XAML is just XML there's nothing to stop an ecosystem of controls to be designed and built on XAML by third parties.

There are a number of new demos in the pipeline, including one that I've developed that shows how ASP.NET, AJAX and WPF/E fit together nicely to deliver a rich front end for a weather application. It'll either show up on my blog (blogs.msdn.com/webnext) or in MSDN Magazine. Watch this space

Laurence
(WPF/E Evangelist, Microsoft)

Thanks for the detailed post that really helped me understand what goes were.