Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Introduction To XAML

Posted by timothy on from the glue-included dept.

prostoalex writes "It was recently reported that Microsoft will integrate its own XML-based language for application programming into the next edition of Windows (codename Longhorn). This Introduction to XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language) provides an insight into how it's possible to build a Windows application with Microsoft's brand-new XAML language."

8 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. Question by jsse · · Score: 4, Interesting

    XML is meant to be interoperable.

    How well does XAML achieve in this regard?

    1. Re:Question by borgboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's an interesting question, and should be modded up.

      The possibility - hopefully not a minimal one, is that you could develop an editor that based your gui layouts on XAML. Then your .Net presentation rendering - the big sticking point right now between WinForms and Mono GUIs - would be in an interoperable form. Maybe. Looking at the samples in the FA, I don't see any reason XAML couldn't be implemented for any platform hosting the CLR. Or most modern languages running on a gui platform, for that matter.

      Disclaimer - I am NOT a hardcore GUI developer. I could be full of it. Don Box and lots of other folks seem to be pretty excited about XAML.

      --
      meh.
    2. Re:Question by The+Bungi · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Interoperable with what? If you're hoping that MSFT will port this to some other OS, don't hold your breath.

      OTOH, since it's just XML you can theoretically create an implementation of the engine in any platform where you have an XML parser available, which is pretty much any meaningful platform in existence. Just bind it to your GUI/widget set/rendering engine and you're all set.

      I mean, if Mono can create a complete (or almost complete) CLR implementation that runs on Linux I don't see why they or someone else can implement this as well.

  2. Wow! by thecampbeln · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Very cool stuff! This is a very cool way to define the layout of a form, it boils it down very effectively (IMHO). Depending on it's implementation, it could allow for cross platform development (assuming that the target platform had a compatible compiler, of course)... But then again it is Microsoft, to them "cross platform" means Win9x, Win 2k and WinXP (see .NET). This will probably step into the same sort of role that VB (has) filled for so many years - quick and dirty applications development. Course that doesn't mean the concept is shit. This seems to be a very cool (and relativity open) means of defining UI layouts, and all the compiler would need is an XML parser!

    If Microsoft was only a technology company and could leave that whole messy marketing evilness out of it. Microsoft has come up with (or outright "borrowed") some very cool RAD technologies over the years. But god help us if they try to integrate any more then the UI elements into this "programming language" (I was once forced to use an ad-hoc XML-based programming language... it sounded ok until you tried to program in it, implementing logic was weird), but for the UI, wow.

    --
    "1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
    1. Re:Wow! by vudu · · Score: 2, Interesting


      But then again it is Microsoft, to them "cross platform" means Win9x, Win 2k and WinXP (see .NET).

      Sorry... Win9x is no longer supported.

      D'oh.

  3. Dear MS, by Strange+Ranger · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Can we get some of the Windows, Outlook, and IE XAML security measures included with the first longhorn release?

    Or are we going to be reactive only, as usual?

    --

    Operator, give me the number for 911!
  4. OT: Vector Based theme by ScriptGuru · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Looking at the skewed listbox, is Longhorn's theming going to be vector based? Maybe WVG?

    --
    Yet another signature that refers to itself. The irony and humor is dead.
  5. About KDE by rikkus-x · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The idea of using XML to describe a user interface is nothing new, though that's not a criticism of Microsoft.

    I think KDE is a good example of how XML can be used in this way successfully. KDE uses XMLGUI to describe the menus and toolbars of a window, for example, here's Konqueror's menu and toolbar structure.

    KDE also uses XML to describe the 'work' area of windows. The XML is created by Qt designer. Example: kcontrol's mouse configuration dialog.

    Qt designer gives the XML a little more power, allowing you to set up connections between GUI elements within the XML itself. For example, you may specify that you will have a method named, e.g. 'addButtonClicked' and make a connection from your 'add' button to that method inside designer, by drawing a line. This connection will then appear in your code at runtime. All you do is implement the method and wait for it to be called. Examples of this can be seen in the above mouse configuration dialog XML.