WPF applications with VIDE
2014
Since I like VIDE more than Visual Studio, I would continue to use it also on WPF programming with Vulcan.NET.
Unfortunately, VIDE does not support XAML, since it has no XAML editor integrated, and it does not compiles XAML to BAML. At the moment, Chris Pyrgas, the author of VIDE, is searching ways to integrate both a XAML editor and the compiling of XAML to BAML into VIDE.
But fortunately there are methods to accomplish this now. At this moment, I know 3 of them that work, the 4th that would be my favorite one, unfortunatley does not work:
1) don’t use XAML and construct all windows in plain Vulcan code. It gives more flexibility creating the windows, but it seems it willbe more work.
2) create the windows in Visual Studio or Blend, creating C# code. All the other code used for MVVM can be written in Vulcan.NET using VIDE. This was discovered and tested by Frank Maraite who will be able to give also samples.
3) Chris Pyrgas has showed another method: create the windows in Visual Studio as Vulcan.NET projects. Then add the code-behind files as source code files to the VIDE project, and also the VS-compiled resource files as external resources. A sample for this can be requested.
4) this (unfortunately not working) method is called by me “The VO way”, as it uses concepts from Visual Objects. The windows are created in Visual Studio, maybe as based on classes created in VIDE, and compiled to a DLL. Without writing any code, the application itself is written in VIDE, with the VS generated DLL as dependency, and the used windows are inherited from the ones written in Visual Studio. Unfortunately, this method does not work, as the WPF does not support inheriting from a XAML window.