Re: Which gui framework do you suggest?
"Giovanni Dicanio" <giovanniDOTdicanio@REMOVEMEgmail.com> wrote in message
news:eEzb6PyQJHA.4992@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
If you want to build deluxe user interfaces in "Hoolywood movies style",
then WPF is a great tool. But, frankly speaking, I think that the job of
building deluxe UIs is more a job of a designer than that of a programmer.
The designer can use Expression Blend to design the deluxe UI, and then we
as programmer can import that WPF UI in VS2008 and do the coding.
But for lots of apps, I think that what MFC and WinForms offer is fine.
I agree, I spent 10 months developing a WPF app, and while the architecture
makes it possible to do some things like adjust the templates of every
control primitive, it is not fun tweaking XAML. The tools need several
years to mature. I'm grateful for the chance to learn WPF, but I think
WinForms is the sweetest bang for the buck.
David Ching recently posted here about a book for VS2008 (I think it was
by Ivor Horton, something like "Beginning Visual C++ 2008", but I'm not
sure, and you may want to search the newsgroup for that).
Yes, if you search Amazon for Ivor Horton C++, you will find it. It
compares building apps with C++/CLI and MFC.
I think that both QT and wxWidgets lack the rich ecosystem of components
and community that you can find for MFC.
If you don't want to be cross-platform, I would not consider them.
I agree the lack of 3rd party components for QT and wxWidgets is a problem.
The ones that are available are ugly in comparison with the native ones.
But other than that, QT is a winner. I looked at wxWidgets but decided
against it since there was not nearly as good support or tools available as
for QT. Basically all the MFC programmers that I know who have looked at QT
prefer it by far to MFC, and therefore it is a good alternative even if
cross platform is not a consideration. I believe QT is what MFC would have
been, if MS had not abandoned it 10 years ago. (I still consider MFC to be
abandoned even with the additional bloated new ribbon and other controls,
due to MS steadfast refusal to update the core.) Such as: QT has concepts
of properties and delegates even if the syntax is not as elegant as C#. And
for tools, it has a plugin for Visual Studio 2005/2008 including a visual
resource editor. I am investing significant resource into QT these days.
-- David