Discovering Caliburn Micro

2010-07-21 15:59 by Roland Auer

A Micro-Framework for WPF, SL and WP7

Some weeks ago, I blogged about Cinch V2. I had the intention to investigate this MVVM-Framework more, but since then, no more articles or docs have unfortunately been published. I decided to continue my quest for the ultimate MVVM-Framework. And so I came along Caliburn Micro (CM).

 

 

Caliburn Logo

Many of us may remember Caliburn V1, which had some (doubtless) ingenious implementations of hardly understandable patterns. In my opinion and for my purpose, it was easier to use as PRISM (aka CAG). And though there were docs and tuts, it was quite hard to keep the overview. After a while .NET 4 was released with some interesting features, and Rob Eisenberg (father of Caliburn) decided to improve Caliburn and work on a second version of his framework. And after his incredible contribution at MIX10, he decided to build a small (2000 LOC!) framework with great features, targetting WPF, Silverlight and WP7, and if that's not enough, it should also be easy to understand.

 

 

Caliburn Micro has key features like Action Message, Action Conventions, Binding Convention, Screens and Conductors, Event Aggregator, Coroutines and much more. If you don't know what these features mean, read Rob's introduction.

 

Currently, a documentation with basic samples is in progress, and the discussion-board on codeplex is quite active. I really love to work with CM, due to its Conventions, Screenmanagement and Action- and Couroutinehandling. That's simply great work of Rob Eisenberg, because it means no work for the developer.

 

Everyone, who searches for a helping hand developing clean applications in WPF/SL/SP7, should consider using Caliburn Micro. That's basically what I wanted to say!

My VS2010-Theme on a MSDN-Blog!

2010-07-04 13:55 by Roland Auer

I like Blend becomes popular!

Nearly two months ago, I blogged about a Visual Studio 2010 color-theme I made. I named the theme "I like Blend". Now guess what it looks like. Anyway, it seems that the theme has become the most popular thing I've ever done in development.

 

Many people have downloaded it since its release, and now, as a great peak, the "I like Blend"-Theme is mentioned in Soma Segar's MSDN-Blog in an article about VS2010 Productivity Improvements.

 

Well, needless to say, I'm kinda proud. Thanks to Soma Segar and Polita Paulus (who asked me for permission)!

 

Additionally, below is a screencap how the theme looks like. I use a slightly modified version of John Papa's "Dark Theme" as editor color style.

 

I like Blend Screen

 

You can download it here! (It's an XML-File, so better right-click and save-as than left-click!)

My VS2010 Theme

2010-05-14 22:22 by Roland Auer

I Like Blend!

Visual Studio 2010 is out for several weeks, and in this version individual styling of the IDE is easier than ever due to the WPF-source of VS2010. So discussions are starting, whether colorful and contrast, desaturated and grayscaled, dark or bright or anything else is best for eyes, endurance, enlightment and thinking in front of the screen.

 

The bottom line is usually "It depends..." and "Everyone on his own...". Well, to deliver my comment to this global discussion, I have to admit that I like the visual style of Expression Blend. So I decided to make my VS look like Blend.

 

Looks like this:

My Blend Theme

 

You need the Visual Studio Color Theme Editor to apply a theme to VS.

 

Download my theme here!