Lately we have looking at creating a better forms environment for our work with workflows and SharePoint. XML forms look interesting, but have a number of drawbacks. Recently we have been evaluating WPF/E for use as a Forms package base.

Here are some controls that we have created as part of a science project. The code is very crude, doesn't cover all the conditions, but you get the idea of how it can be done.

Short list of WPF/E (SilverLight) example controls.
ListBox - enhanced using a card shuffle style list. Shows some of the power WPF/E. Mouse over the thumbnails on the left to view animation.
ComboBox - Hard coded number of list items.
TextBox - Javascript code for this control only covers some of the conditions. Required is the ability to cut, paste, highlight and drag. In addition the cursor positioning (which is absolute and relative to the root canvas) needs to take into the account the scaling used, which could be difficult if this control is embedded in other controls each its own scaling factor.

The above controls are stand alone. For production they would need some sort of framework to work within (there are some examples at the Microsoft blog site).

Our conclusion (see foil) is to work with WPF/XBAP sacrificing some universality for speed of implementation. In the meantime we will continue look at putting together some controls and a framework as a continuation of this science project.

Labels: SilverLight, WPF/E

ASP.Net C# C# Coding GuideLines Jetfire Regular Expressions SharePoint Silver Light Visual Studio Web Parts Workflow WPF WPF/E