Rob Eisenberg has made an intriguing post on a framework he's been developing to provide for LOB WPF applications.

I'm pleased to see such work being undertaken, as I think a common issue for the adoption of WPF is that of architectural guidance.

I'll be looking at this with interest.

Feature list from Rob's post:

• Loose messaging between WPF UI and POCO classes:

  • Use any class as a Presenter/Controller

  • Use any control/event/gesture to send messages to a Presenter.

  • Messages can carry data bound from WPF controls to be used as method parameters on a Presenter.

  • The return value of a Presenter's action can be bound back to the UI.

  • Presenter Actions can be automatically run asynchronously.

  • Presenter Actions can leverage automatic exception handling.

  • Presenter Actions can bubble up to parent presenters if actions are not handled.

• Loose event pub/sub:
• Use attributes or a traditional API to register publishers and subscribers.

• Events can bubble, tunnel or move directly in the even hierarchy.

• Subscribers can run handlers asynchronously or a publisher can specify all subscribers to run asynchronously.

• Use any control/event/gesture to raise application events.  Use databinding to pass 'args' along.

• Platform Abstractions
• Interface based versions of MessageBox, OpenFileDialog and SaveFileDialog

• more abstractions to come...

• Markup Extensions
• Extensions to make all the above easier to declare in Xaml

• ResolveExtension for using the IoC container in Xaml

• Static Gateway
• All services are accessible through a configurable static gateway.

• Testable
• All framework services are interface based.

• Stubs/Fakes and TestConfiguration provided for all services.

• PresenterHost
• Used to host a presenter in markup with runtime view selection.

• Supports animated transitions between views over a presenter.

• Module Based Architecture
• Build your application as pluggable modules.

• Shell Extension Mechanism
• The shell can easily declare extension points.

• Modules can extend the shell through a simple API.

• Shell State Mechanism
• The shell can track the state of various UI elements so they can be persisted across application loads.

• Not limited to Window Size/Position.

• Track module state across loads.

• IoC/DI
• Use Windsor

• Use Spring.net

• Use StructureMap (adapter is not quite complete)