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I'm creating an application which allows the user to drag and drop pre-defined things around on a canvas. These things are often simple graphics primatives, rectangles, circles etc. or a combination, or slightly more fancy - wavey boxes and so forth.
A path seems to do the job here but I'd like suggestions on how to define it. I'm using VS2008, Exression Blend and I've been playing around with Expression Design as well. Where these tools overlap confuses me. What's the best tool to create such things?
Regards,
Rob Philpott.
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Yeah I know what you mean ... I've been working with Design and Blend also. As far as I can tell the only way to look at it is Design is for asset creation and Blend is for assimilating them into a bigger picture. The cross over between the two is massive.
That said I think the pen tool in Design (Arguable THE tool for vectors) is a bit more (arbitrarily) powerful.
I think the whole 'devigners' angle that MS is pushing is also completely overrated. None of the designers I know would be happy working with either application. I've been working on a project using the Infragistics controls (very good) and sometime my scrolly finger is knackard whizzing up and down through the properties panel! Most of the concepts in there are completely alien to the average graphic designer.
Sounds to me like you could get away with just using Blend if the shapes are pretty simple. One thing that Design is good for is tracing imported images (.jpg, .bmp) and creating XAML vectors for out put to a Canvas or Resource Directory.
Oh BTW, I've been pouring over your ASIO demo ... nice work ... confuses the **** out of me as I have no C++ experience but I have to get ASIO working in an app I'm working on ... scary!
Jammer
Going where everyone here has gone before! 
My Blog
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Thanks for this Jammer,
Yeah, its seems I'm getting a bit stuck on the WPF stuff. I've read a lot about it all including the books of Nathan and Petzold, both of which are really good but when I come to sit at my computer and try to do something with it I hit a blank. I think I need to retrain my brain to stop thinking in GDI.
The thing I'm trying to do is actually on the follow up to the ASIO article, the software synthesiser which allows you to create and connect together in any way imaginable audio components, and WPF seems to lend itself to this well with its vector graphics to creating a designer. I suspect it would probably take me longer to implement this one part than all the audio stuff though so I need to have a rethink maybe.
I know what you mean about C++, it's been some years since I've done any work in it and going back confused me a great deal especially now there are managed things in the mix. There was a vast amount of trial and error to get the ASIO component working, it by no means just fell together! Drop me a line if I can assist.
Regards,
Rob Philpott.
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Sounds to me (no pun!) that we should actually have a chat. I run a recording studio and the tool i'm building is for musicians as well ... also in WPF ...
I've also been involved in commercial hardware synthesiser design projects ... maybe we can help each other out?
Jammer
Going where everyone here has gone before!
My Blog
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Ah, we share an interest then by the sounds of it! Wow, so do you know some good algorithms for filters and FX then? I'm snowed under with real work at the moment  but when I get the chance I'll drop you a line outlining what I'm trying to do and see if our paths cross.
Regards,
Rob Philpott.
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Sounds great chap ... look forward to hearing more.
Jammer
Going where everyone here has gone before!
My Blog
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Also WPF and GDI are so different its amazing.
I've done VERY little in the way of GDI but what I do know WPF is the easier of the two in ordre to achieve something professional looking quickly.
The real problem I have with WPF at the moment is debugging. Its a nightmare. The interface in my app is steadily growing in complexity with several data grids, a stack of labels, combos, text boxes, buttons, shapes, tab controls etc. etc ... then bam VS informs me of that lovely error:
"Object not set to an instance of an object" in the XAML design view. At the same time Blend rendered the screen without complaint. Turned out to be a dodgy command binding in the XAML, the compiler won't help with that so I ended up systematically pulling elements out of the XAML in order to locate the object that was producing the error ... it feels a bit hairly ripping an interface file apart in order to find a problem.
XAML is very cool tho ... you NEED these tools:
Mole v4
http://karlshifflett.wordpress.com/mole-for-visual-studio/[^]
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms742398.aspx[^]
And lob this into your app.config ...
<system.diagnostics>
<sources>
<source name="System.Windows.Data"
switchName="SourceSwitch" >
<listeners>
<add name="textListener" />
</listeners>
</source>
</sources>
<switches>
<add name="SourceSwitch" value="All" />
</switches>
<sharedListeners>
<add name="textListener"
type="System.Diagnostics.TextWriterTraceListener"
initializeData="DebugTrace.txt" />
</sharedListeners>
<trace autoflush="true"
indentsize="4"></trace>
</system.diagnostics>
Jammer
Going where everyone here has gone before!
My Blog
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I've been looking through animation tutorials for WPF and they all seem to use the "RoutedEvent" inside an event trigger that is hooked up to the form loading or a button being pressed....
But how would I, say, launch an animation when my SQL query has finished or when a file has finished loading, etc, etc.
Is there just some simple "Do this animation now" command I can call on a story board??
Thanks.
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Hi.
I have a class library with a class that requires a dependanct property to be included. So I've referenced WindowsBase and inserted Using System.Window.
I've used the following code to set up the dependancy property:
<br />
public bool IsChecked<br />
{<br />
get { return (bool)GetValue(IsCheckedProperty); }<br />
set { SetValue(IsCheckedProperty, value); }<br />
}<br />
<br />
public static readonly DependencyProperty IsCheckedProperty =<br />
DependencyProperty.Register("IsChecked", typeof(bool), typeof(EdgeProperty), new UIPropertyMetadata(false));<br />
<br />
I can see that the DependencyProperty class is referenced and all is fine. However, the methods 'GetValue' and 'SetValue' do not exist. I know these are from the DependancyObject class, which is referenced.
Anybody know what's going on?
Cheers,
Chris
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What does your class inherit from?
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Chris,
Using Visual Studio, add a new project to your solution, a WPF Custom Control library.
After you create it, you can delete the Themes folder and the custom control it creates by default.
Now move your class into this project and everything will work fine.
modified 27-Feb-21 21:01pm.
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You need to inherit from DependencyObject not just reference it.
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Cheers guys, that worked.
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Hi,
I hope someone can help me understand what is going on with WPF TreeView binding.
My project has been having some weird issues with treeviews bound to a recursively created collection. The problem is that some nodes haven't had an expander/collapser triangle even though they still have subnodes (they can be doubleclicked to expand/collapse though).
Here are two small pictures of the issue I'm having:
http://www.crankedup.com/misc/wpf-treeview-notriangle.png[^]
http://www.crankedup.com/misc/wpf-treeview-notriangle2.png[^]
The second pic is the expanded version of the first one.
The code that created this is:
TreeNode tn1 = new TreeNode(@"C:\");<br />
TreeNode tn2 = new TreeNode(@"C:\");<br />
TreeNode tn3 = new TreeNode(@"C:\");<br />
<br />
TreeNodeList.Add(tn1);
<br />
tn1.Children.Add(tn2);<br />
tn1.Children.Add(tn3);<br />
<br />
TreeNodeList.Add(tn1);
The treenode class is the standard stuff:
public class TreeNode<br />
{<br />
private string dir = "";<br />
private List<treenode> children = new List<treenode>();<br />
public TreeNode(string directory)<br />
{<br />
dir = directory;<br />
}<br />
public string Dir<br />
{<br />
get { return dir; }<br />
set { dir = value; }<br />
}<br />
public List<treenode> Children<br />
{<br />
get { return children; }<br />
set { children = value; }<br />
}<br />
}
And the XAML binding was taken from examples I've seen on the web:
<Window.Resources><br />
<HierarchicalDataTemplate DataType="{x:Type local:TreeNode}" ItemsSource="{Binding Path=Children}"><br />
<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal"><br />
<Image Source="Graphics\folder.png" /><br />
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Dir}" Margin="5,0" /><br />
</StackPanel><br />
</HierarchicalDataTemplate><br />
</Window.Resources><br />
<br />
<TreeView HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="8,9,0,38" Name="treeView1" Width="188" ItemsSource="{x:Static local:Window1.TreeNodeList}" />
What am I doing wrong here?
modified on Thursday, April 3, 2008 4:50 AM
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Karl, that example is lazing loading a filesystem view into a treeview which is the opposite of what I'm doing.
This is more a question about the treeview expander/collapser than about the task shown in the screenshots. Please take another quick look at this code, ignoring the C:\.
TreeNode tn1 = new TreeNode(@"C:\");<br />
TreeNode tn2 = new TreeNode(@"C:\");<br />
TreeNode tn3 = new TreeNode(@"C:\");<br />
<br />
TreeNodeList.Add(tn1);
<br />
tn1.Children.Add(tn2);<br />
tn1.Children.Add(tn3);<br />
<br />
TreeNodeList.Add(tn1);
The first Add(tn1) produces an item with no expander. The 2nd does.
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artwallacex wrote: TreeNodeList.Add(tn1); // Produces item with no expander!
I think this is because there are no child TreeNodes and WPF is working correctly. After adding a child, the expander shows up.
modified 27-Feb-21 21:01pm.
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But there are two child treenodes created by:
tn1.Children.Add(tn2);
tn1.Children.Add(tn3);
They show up in the UI and if you doubleclick on the parent they will be displayed. The problem is the collapser is not drawn but the child elements are there.
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TreeNodeList.Add(tn1);
tn1.Children.Add(tn2);
tn1.Children.Add(tn3);
TreeNodeList.Add(tn1);
The first line of code TreeNodeList.Add(tn1); // Produces item with no expander! has no children at that point in time.
The second line does.
modified 27-Feb-21 21:01pm.
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So you're saying that the databinding is not supposed to take care of that? The child nodes must be added before the parent item is added to the list?
And again, running this code:
TreeNodeList.Add(tn1); // Produces item with no expander!
tn1.Children.Add(tn2);
tn1.Children.Add(tn3);
without the 2nd Add will still show all of the child elements, just without the expander. Double clicking the parent item will draw the child elements and the parent & children will produce events just like the others in the list.
modified on Thursday, April 3, 2008 12:27 PM
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I think the problem is, I'm not looking at the same code you are.
Can you post all the code?
modified 27-Feb-21 21:01pm.
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Sure, here's the solution in a 100k zip file.
http://www.crankedup.com/misc/wpf-treeview-notriangle.zip[^]
When you launch it, press the "Fake" button.
It now calls this code:
TreeNode tn1 = new TreeNode("1");<br />
TreeNode tn2 = new TreeNode("2");<br />
TreeNode tn3 = new TreeNode("3");<br />
TreeNode tn4 = new TreeNode("4");<br />
TreeNode tn5 = new TreeNode("5");<br />
<br />
TreeNodeList.Add(tn1);<br />
<br />
tn1.Children.Add(tn2);<br />
tn1.Children.Add(tn3);<br />
<br />
tn2.Children.Add(tn4);<br />
tn2.Children.Add(tn5);
And produces this screenshot (I've expanded all the nodes in the shot):
http://www.crankedup.com/misc/wpf-treeview-notriangle3.png[^]
PS- Thanks for taking a little time to look at this.
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Moved the adding of tn1 to the bottom and it works great.
private void button3_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
DirectoryInfo junkDir = new DirectoryInfo(@"C:\");
TreeNode tn1 = new TreeNode("1");
TreeNode tn2 = new TreeNode("2");
TreeNode tn3 = new TreeNode("3");
TreeNode tn4 = new TreeNode("4");
TreeNode tn5 = new TreeNode("5");
tn1.Children.Add(tn2);
tn1.Children.Add(tn3);
tn2.Children.Add(tn4);
tn2.Children.Add(tn5);
TreeNodeList.Add(tn1);
}
modified 27-Feb-21 21:01pm.
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