Is WPF ready for primetime?

Like everything Microsoft, I'm skeptical that wpf will work before version 7. So is WPF ready with .NET 3.0?

I dive into the samples, look at video tutorials on it and whip up some XAML with C# backends to see how it all hangs together.

I am in hog heaven, little did I know that the painful side of Microsoft's API was yet to show itself.

On the surface it looks good, really good. In fact I start hearing myself saying "this is going to change windows coding forever" to my geekier friends.

I get a super slick Apple style Flow menu going with some movie posters from www.impawards.com and code them against a couple digital movies I have to see how it all goes.

Damn, its fast to put it together. its slick and couldn't be easier.


Here's a screen shot. Its hard to convey how good it looks in a still image. I set up a moving "lightshow" background that animates while the menu is running. The background movie is set for 720p so there is no graininess at all.




I start with XAML and use Blend to get the animations going. MediaElement is the main workhorse for displaying the movies.

So I've got one damn fine prototype going and I start thinking to myself, hey this thing is doable, in fact it might be trivial to do. Boy was I wrong. more info next blog