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Is anybody prototyping, playing around with, or using the new WinFX components?
For those that aren't familiar, they're basically the new managed APIs to be introduced in the Vista timeframe, but with backports to XP. They include:
a. Windows Workflow Foundation - for designing business logic into a "workflow" composed of "activities" that the WF runtime will run and track for you.
b. Windows Communication Foundation (aka "Indigo") - for supporting different communication "channels" (MSMQ, remoting, web services, etc.) as configuration changes
c. Windows Presentation Foundation (aka "Avalon") - for designing the next gen of Windows forms apps using XAML. Supposedly, there will also be a WPF Everwhere (WPF/E) that'll run a subset of WPF and .NET BCL in a web browser that was shown off at the MIX conference.
They've all been refreshed to sync up with the Vista May beta, but I haven't had much chance to play with them yet. I'm especially interested in the Workflow scenarios, as I think that could be helpful on an upcoming project...so, anybody using them?
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#2
Posted 31 May 2006 - 05:46 PM
Crane
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I've never even heard of WinFX until now. Are these APIs available for XP right now?
#3
Posted 01 June 2006 - 05:24 AM
brackett
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Crane said:
I've never even heard of WinFX until now. Are these APIs available for XP right now?
They're in Beta right now, but yeah - they're available for both XP and Vista. The required elements are the WinFX Runtime components and the Windows SDK. If you use Visual Studio 2005 (I think it'll work with the Express editions as well) then you should probably grab the Orcas tools and the Workflow extensions.
On a related note, Microsoft also has it's Expression line of products, including Interactive Designer, in Beta. It's positioned as the app to allow graphic types to design XAML interfaces, which would then be imported into Visual Studio for a developer to add functionality.
Again, I really haven't had much of a chance to play with all this stuff yet - but it does sound like Microsoft is serious about transitioning to these managed APIs. I think anyone invested in .NET will need to come to terms with WinFX in the relatively near future.
