Will making WPF forms in VS2010 be easier than it is now?

Question

Will making WPF forms in VS2010 be easier than it is now? I’m just a beginner and I’m finding just learning C# itself is a ton of info to get my head around. But I’ve seen some projects done with WPF and they look awesome. Is it worth my time to start looking into WPF now, or wait till VS2010 where, if I understand correctly, there are better tools for working with it? Thanks

Answer 1

Visual Studio will provided better tools to work with WPF, see here for details.

Answer 2

Even given its improvements, VS 2010 will not suddenly become the holy grail of WPF application creation. You're better off learning the fundamentals (binding, templates, commands, etc) of .NET 3.0/3.5 now. I'd also recommend downloading the trial of Expression Blend if you're interested in the visual aspects of WPF. While you can certainly do most everything coding XAML by hand, Blend makes it much quicker.

Answer 3

We certainly hope you will find the new Visual Studio 2010 WPF and Silverlight designer helps make working with Forms easier than it was in Visual Studio 2008.

Check out this link for some useful resources on the new designer: http://blogs.msdn.com/wpfsldesigner/pages/faq-for-wpf-and-silverlight-designer-in-visual-studio-2010.aspx

Let us know what you think!

Mark Wilson-Thomas Program Manager, WPF & Silverlight Designer, Visual Studio