MoXAML 2.0 Released.

Well – it’s taken me quite a while, but I’ve finally finished the new version of MoXAML Power Toys. This has been quite an undertaking, and has been the most fun I’ve had coding in quite a while. Anyway, what’s new in MoXAML?

AppWizard

As I’ve already intimated, there’s a new AppWizard in MoXAML. This command allows you to add a status bar, toolbar and menu to your application.

Calling the AppWizard

The AppWizard brings up a dialog where you choose whether or not you want to see a toolbar, a menu or a statusbar. If you choose to add a toolbar or menu, you even get standard icons added into your project. The CommandBindings and App.Resources are set up for you, and the relevant user controls are added into your main window. The statusbar hooks up to the Caps Lock, Scroll Lock, Insert and Num Lock keys to reflect the state of them. It also adds in a date and time which updates every second. I love WPF.

Behind the scenes, some of the code injected into your application is C#, but being a nice chap I’ve added a converter in there which translates the C# to VB.NET before it gets added to your project if it detects that your project is VB.NET.

I’ve tested this as well as I can, but I’d appreciate feedback on how you find it.

DependencyProperty

I’d like to thank Jeremy Robertson, aka Hero, for this one. A couple of weeks back he emailed me to say that he’d come up with an addition to MoXAML, and he sent me the code for the DependencyProperty command. In his own words:

“It’s similar to PropertyManager, except it works on Dependency Properties.
Highlight a group of dependency properties, run the tool, and it will put CLR properties for each dependency property on the clipboard.”

Thanks for that Jeremy – it’s much appreciated.

Downloads

Downloads available here.

Next steps

Well, the next step for me is to produce detailed instructions on how to use MoXAML and XAML Power Toys together to produce a Silverlight application. It’s pretty powerful stuff, and I owe a great debt of gratitude to Karl Shifflett for XAML Power Toys. When you see the combination in action, you can see why we’re doing this.

Beyond that, I’m going to be revisiting the commenting code as per Logan’s requests, and I’m also going to be adding in a new command to convert code from one language to another. Another feature on my wishlist that I’ll be looking at soon is selecting a keyword in your source or XAML and then it will search Google, Live, and so on, to get you help on the keyword.

As always, keep your comments coming in and thanks for your feedback so far.