Useful WPF utilities

Question

What are some useful utilities that help you when writing WPF applications? I know about Snoop for visual debugging of WPF applications at runtime, and Shazzam - a WPF pixel shader effect testing tool.

I'd like to know about other such applications and what are they useful at.

Answer 1

Have a look here and here, a whole bunch are listed. My favourite is still WPFPerf, listed in the first link, which is a WPF Profiler.

Answer 2

Pistachio - WPF Resource Visualizer - lists all resources from your WPF project and shows if and where are they used.

Answer 3

The ones I use:

1. Robby Ingebretsen’s Kaxaml This is a simple editor that is great for off the cuff work and also drop Blend generated Xaml in here to clean it up.

2. The WPF Performance Suite – not sure if this is the latest version, You get a great insight into where your bottle necks are.

3. C/o Karlshiffet: Mole - similar to snoop a debug visualiser addin for VS as well as his

4. Xaml Powertoys which are an excellent bunch of utilities.

5. Reflector of course which shouldn’t need any introduction.

6. Expression Blend 3 which offers a far superior designer.

7. Code snippets for VS to stub out all the DP stuff– I forgot where I got these from exactly but Dr WPF and of course Sacha Barber has some good ones.

8. There are numerous MVVM frameworks many of which have been discussed extensively on SO.

Answer 4

There are whole bunch of tools for WPF, and more and more are popping up as WPF grows in popularity. I have listed a few of the most useful ones below, but it really depends on what you are wanting to achieve.

For instance, for me the Sketchflow plugin in Blend has made such a difference. Also, with VS2010 comming to release next year you will see the integration of VS2010 with WPF being a lot more fluid.

WPF/XAML Specific Utilities

• Microsoft Blend with Sketchflow - Design & Prototype
• Performance Profiling Tools for WPF
• XAMLPadX - Xaml editor
• XAML Power Tools - Plugin for Vs
• Snoop - Simplify Visual Debugging
• Shazzum - Edit Pixel Shading
• Mole - Visualizer With Property Editing
• Kaxaml - Lightweight XAML Editor
• Pistachio - Resource Visualizer
• Zam 3D - 3D XAML Tool
• XAML Exporter for Blender
• Paste2XAML - Convert Clipboard and metafiles into xaml
• Silverlight PAD - Test XAML Content
• StyleSnooper - See the styles for any WPF framework control
• Show me the Template - Exploring Templates of Controls
• WPF XBAP Permission Repair Tool - Repairs Registry for WPF Xaml Browser Apps
• Crack.Net - Similar to Mole or Snoop

I also agree with Andrew, if you are looking at doing a lot of WPF development it is worth giving the MVVM pattern a look at as I feel this is one pattern that does expose a lot of power behind WPF.

Also, if you havent had a look at PRISM, give it some time.

Answer 5

http://marlongrech.wordpress.com/avalon-controls-library/

Check that: it's library of WPF controls including the mask text box that is missing from WPF.

Answer 6

I know this was about WPF, most of the WPF tools I would suggest are allready here, but I noticed some other silverlight reccomendations, for that you can check out silverlightspy, sort of like snoop for silverlight.