macosxrumors: Microsoft porting Windows Presentation Foundation to Mac OS X
Quote:
Microsoft announced earlier this week that, along with the release of Vista, it is porting its Windows Presentation Foundation framework to Mac OS X as well as for handheld devices. Microsoft calls the project Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere (or WPFE).
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a user interface toolkit, mainly based on a Microsoft version of XAML language, that will be made available to .Net programmers so as to create powerful user interfaces for Windows Vista.
Porting WPF to the Mac means that Microsoft will also have to bring a big part of its CLR to the platform. We can also expect the company to make extensive use of the technology in future versions of its Mac software.
WPF will probably also help other companies than Microsoft to port their Vista applications to the Mac easier, as usually the biggest part of a standard application?s development is the user interface.
[...]
The full article is
here
Microsoft announced earlier this week that, along with the release of Vista, it is porting its Windows Presentation Foundation framework to Mac OS X as well as for handheld devices. Microsoft calls the project Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere (or WPFE).
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a user interface toolkit, mainly based on a Microsoft version of XAML language, that will be made available to .Net programmers so as to create powerful user interfaces for Windows Vista.
Porting WPF to the Mac means that Microsoft will also have to bring a big part of its CLR to the platform. We can also expect the company to make extensive use of the technology in future versions of its Mac software.
WPF will probably also help other companies than Microsoft to port their Vista applications to the Mac easier, as usually the biggest part of a standard application?s development is the user interface.
[...]
The full article is
here
This could be very important for corporate customers in which two important deployment environments are Java and .NET.
It could mark a new era for the MBU by easing the share of source code between Office for Windows and Office for MacOS X.
Comments
But the port of the user interface layer doesn't mean that everything an application need will be ported... The CLR (the VM and the core classes) will undoubtly be needed but the fate of other parts of the .NET framework in not certain on the Mac.
But it's still a good news for the Mac platform and for the future commitment of the MBU.
And this is a good thing.
Either that's whacked, or I really need more coffee.
What does this actually mean? That apps can be ported from windows and keep their menu bar in the app window and make the port easier?
Worst of all worlds.
There is actually two languages for this:
- XUL developed for the UI of Mozilla/Firefox. David Hyatt (which now works on the Safari team) has worked on this project some years ago.
- XAML developed by Microsoft.
The two specifications are aimed at allowing the deployment of "Rich Client". That's applications that can be hosted on a server (like a Web application) but with a more powerful/complex user interface and more client side logic (more client side logic than AJAX).
In this way it's a important thing that Microsoft port Windows Foundation to the Mac.
Don't forget also the fact that Microsoft tends to go towards ASP application (for application like Office).
So in that regard, you could see Windows Foundation like a way to remotely access remote applications.
An .NET/Windows Foundation application that's run on the local machine won't run. But the user interface of a remote Windows Foundation application could be accessed from your Mac.
So it's important to have it for not been isolated from those applications.
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...threadid=62140