So, what's up with the Expression suite?

29 minutes ago, DCMonkey wrote

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Easy to make something that looks like a ribbon control perhaps. But it is it easy to get all the behaviors right?

Not that hard. I wouldn't expect every user to do it himself, but if there's an open source implementation around that isn't good enough, someone could always create another one.

Could have even been in the SDK.

@brian.shapiro: I should have made that clear. I'm anticipating that eventually WinRT will extend to the desktop, and will become the development platform for Windows.

@kettch: That's what they said about WinForms, and then WPF, and now WinRT. Then it will be WinNext, WinNext2, 3, 4, ... until there are so many platforms that Microsoft has lost sight of compatiblity and basically turns into a retailer releasing version after version only two weeks apart. Pretty soon I feel companies are going to get really tired of re-writing their applications.

8 hours ago, brian.shapiro wrote

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It doesn't seem like it would be a hard thing to create your own Ribbon control either, since WPF is pretty flexible. I'm not sure why it was officially added.

If you cannot see what is wrong with your statement, then it is certain you work on projects that don't meet their deadlines and are vastly over budget, or programming is a part time job.

8 hours ago, brian.shapiro wrote

*snip*

Not that hard. I wouldn't expect every user to do it himself, but if there's an open source implementation around that isn't good enough, someone could always create another one.

Could have even been in the SDK.

When you start developing mission critical systems, where bugs are simply unacceptable, then the benefits of reliable, tested and proven components reducing the surface area of bugs mean that this really is a puerile approach to development.

I seems you are quite happy to keep re-inventing wheels, even if they are square ones.

9 hours ago, DeadX07 wrote

@kettch: That's what they said about WinForms, and then WPF, and now WinRT. Then it will be WinNext, WinNext2, 3, 4, ... until there are so many platforms that Microsoft has lost sight of compatiblity and basically turns into a retailer releasing version after version only two weeks apart. Pretty soon I feel companies are going to get really tired of re-writing their applications.

I think is it clear to everyone that there are too many plaforms, the problem is how to get rid of some of them (at least the most obsolete ones) given the amount of legacy software that cannot be easily rewritten and the need to innovate.

WinRT seems evolutionary enough from WPF that it would probably not be the most difficult part of the evolution. I am more worried about applications using WinForms not going away for a very long time.

14 hours ago, kettch wrote

@spivonious: I think we'll see WinRT slowly replace Win32 and .NET. I've finally gotten a chance to do some WinRT development that doesn't involve playing around with samples. A C# application sure looks a lot like .NET and WPF/Silverlight to me. It's a bit different, but it hasn't been painful. The future looks pretty good from here, and it certainly hasn't given me a reason to whine about technology "X" being dead.

Thant is why I would expect an Expression 5 (Blend and Web) for WinRT and HTML5. As others have pointed out Blend already supports Windows Phone 8 apps. I don't agree with Veusvius that VS 2012 should be the only tool for WinRT or HTML5 development, particularly from a designer perspective, at least not as it is now.

The only problem with WinRT right now is that you need to be running Windows 8 to use it. Windows 7 is extremely popular, but only a bit over half of all machines are running it. It will be at least 3-4 years before making a WPF app doesn't make sense.

And I expect a desktop WinRT too. Hopefully before Windows 9.

8 hours ago, vesuvius wrote

*snip*

When you start developing mission critical systems, where bugs are simply unacceptable, then the benefits of reliable, tested and proven components reducing the surface area of bugs mean that this really is a puerile approach to development.

I seems you are quite happy to keep re-inventing wheels, even if they are square ones.

Microsoft could have included it in the SDK if enough developers thought it was important to do that, I see no reason to bake it into the framework. Microsoft has a history of keeping the actual controls in the framework to a minimum.

You don't have to use a ribbon either...

21 seconds ago, brian.shapiro wrote

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You don't have to use a ribbon either...

Yeah the only thing you have to do in life is die. Microsoft should trademark that.

6 minutes ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

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Yeah the only thing you have to do in life is die. Microsoft should trademark that.

Then they'd come up with usage guidelines.

Seriously though, any Ribbon control is something I expect to be able to modify a bit , the Office ribbon for example works a little different than the ribbons in Windows apps. I'm not even sure how much flexibility you can work into the control template. But I guess we'll see.

The WPF ribbon can be styled and templated like other WPF controls.

8 hours ago, giovanni wrote

*snip* I don't agree with Veusvius that VS 2012 should be the only tool for WinRT or HTML5 development.

I'm not quite sure where I say that, I feel misinterpreted

2 hours ago, brian.shapiro wrote

*snip*

Microsoft could have included it in the SDK if enough developers thought it was important to do that, I see no reason to bake it into the framework. Microsoft has a history of keeping the actual controls in the framework to a minimum.

You don't have to use a ribbon either...

They did include it in the WPF toolkit and on MSDN. The reason it has been included as a control in Visual Studio is that not too long ago Microsoft were saying that the Ribbon was the best thing since sliced bread, and was a pretty big inclusion in Windows 7 with Paint, Wordpad and even the Live essentials suite using it. It is juts a shame they resolved not to develop it further in the 2 years (nearly) since it has a Visual Studio release.In fact it was the Scenic Ribbon that started the thinking behind WinRT where you could have XAML and C++ code.

@You don't have to use a ribbon either...

I have worked on some projects where this has been a fantastic control, but even DevExpress's efforts lacked features that are in the Office Ribbon, especially the App menu, and galleries and so on. When you get controls like this, Parity is everything!

If I was looking to create an app with a Ribbon, Parity with the latest Office means that users would be able to use both their Office version and my app with consistency in the UI, I would not start using the Visual Studio 2012 RTM version, knowing that by the time the project was complete, Office 2013 would be out, and my UI would already be outdated.

I also suggest you use the Ribbon in Office 2013, where suggestions that you can just template the controls show just how much you are underestimating how much work this would entail, and how some features would just not be possible.

These suggestions are from "cloud cuckoo land", if I am honest!

17 hours ago, vesuvius wrote

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I'm not quite sure where I say that, I feel misinterpreted

 

Maybe I am misunderstanding, but earlier you said that:

In WPF the XAML was about users creating their own differentiated and customized XAML, but in Windows 8, they have done a lot of the hard work for you, adding a boatload of animations, effects, and styles that you can use. This - effectively - removes the need for designers in 80% of application developers use cases, and since blend is written in WPF, that now is also no longer supported.

So I assumed you meant there is no need to the Expression suite outside of WPF, which, I tend to agree with you, will probably not be promoted as much as WinRT in the future.