wpfdynamicstoryboardcustom-controlsvb6-migration

Suggestions for replacing legacy VB6/Flash application with WPF/Blend application


We have a legacy application that utilizes VB6, the Flash ActiveX control, and Flash content to display animated movies to users. For plenty of reasons we're looking to migrate away from this. I'm hoping someone out there can answer a few questions about WPF so that we can make a determination about how best to move forward.

First, a little about our current architecture and needs. The Flash content is set up as separate SWF files, where each individual SWF represents a training module with animated content. We have hundreds of these modules. Users run this software in a disconnected fashion where their local machine may or may not have ALL of these SWF files. The current application gives the user the option of downloading the SWF modules as they're needed.

Here's how we're thinking about setting up a new solution using WPF and Blend. We've written a WPF host application that can dynamically show Blend content based on button presses or whatever. And we've created a few test modules in Blend as WPF custom controls. But there are three nagging questions:

  1. Right now we have the custom controls within the main WPF solution, but we need to make these disconnected. I've read several things about using Application.LoadComponent but I don't know if that will work for our solution.

  2. Each of the Blend custom controls contains one or more storyboards that control the animation. As soon as I add one of the custom controls to a container in the WPF app, ALL of the storyboards automatically start "playing". How can I programatically make it so that I start/stop certain storyboards as needed?

  3. Let's say I want to change a text label in one of the custom controls. If we're dynamically loading the custom control, how would I access one of the text labels to make such a change?

Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Loving WPF so far and hoping we can make this work and say goodbye to Flash forever!!!


Solution

  • There is Manage Extensibility Framework, that is a standard approach for dynamic modules.

    Anyway, I haven't used it, so I would answer the questions in other way:

    1) No, LoadComponent is ised for xaml files, whereas custom control consist of code and xaml. I mean, the custom control that you can add using Add->New Item->Custom Control(WPF). So you should do something like this, with reflection and ContentControl:

    Assembly asm = Assembly.LoadFile(@"C:\SomeLibrary.dll"); 
    Type type = asm.GetType("SomeNamespace.SomeControl"); 
    var control = Activator.CreateInstance(type) as Control;
    this.myContentControl.Content = control;
    

    2) It isn't fact. You can put the storyboards into Control.Resources and launch them manually.

    ((Storyboard)control.Resources["myStoryboard"]).Begin(control);
    

    3)

    control.FindName("anyname") as TextBlock;