APL and WPF Controls

[paulmansour]

Also, my version of Word 2007 has "SaveAs XPS" (and PDF too), so you can create one directly from Word.

[jGoff]

It works! Very neat. Thanks guys.

[Dick Bowman]

This thread seems to have rather fizzled to an end, so is it relightable?

Simon Marsden has recently written about using WPF from APLX on the APL Wiki (http://aplwiki.com/UsingWPF_from_APLX).

I've started thinking about adding a translation to Dyalog as I did for his FTP page, but would welcome anyone beating me to it - especially as some of the APLX code looks unfamiliar.

But there are meta-questions making me wonder whether it's worth the effort. And a feeling that we've been here before - I remember musing on using VB for the presentation and APL for the callbacks many years ago, but it was much easier and quicker to do everything in APL (even allowing for the foregoing of the visual design tool). I don't really want to spend a lot of time going down a WPF road, then find out that Microsoft has labelled it "legacy" and replaced it with a heap of new stuff. There's a lot of learning there (I guess) and I'd appreciate some enumeration of the benefits (doing things "just like they do in other programming languages" doesn't feel like a strong enough argument on its own).

Who has experiences and opinions to share? If I do come up with a mutation of Simon's example I'll post it here and on the APL Wiki - all being well.

[Morten|Dyalog]

WPF is definitely worth looking at. Both Simon Marsden and I will have it as the main theme of our presentations at the BAPLA AGM on Friday (May 21st). I believe that WPF and it's little portable brother "SilverLight" (with "MoonLight on the Max, Linux, Android etc) have the potential to become the preferred mechanism for defining GUIs in Dyalog APL and APL# for the decade to come. In fact, we believe that the technology will allow us to put APL and portable APL GUI applications on just about any desktop, web or mobile platform you care to think of within a couple of years. As they say on the other side of the pond, "I'm very excited about this new technology".

... but you might as well wait until Friday and get the two presentations under your belt before you do too much on your own :-). I am working on examples and will post the code to the WiKi after the presentation.

[Dick Bowman]

I've added a Dyalog-specific appendix to Simon Marsden's "APLX and XAML" page on the APL Wiki, http://aplwiki.com/UsingWPF_from_APLX. Not an entirely trouble-free experience, but no doubt things will get sorted out.

[Dick Bowman]

More follow-up, http://88.97.16.226/apl/APL/Papers/RomanCalc.html describes a little application using WPF/XAML for the GUI. I'm intending to add more as and when. Thanks again to Jason for doing the fiddly bits that make it all work.

[PGilbert]

Find here a video (made in 2008) that introduce WPF and discuss the advantages of it to help decide before making the jump.

Pierre Gilbert