Why there won’t be a WinRT version of Catel… - Init

<body> <h1>Why there won’t be a WinRT version of Catel…</h1> <div id="AdnTop"><div class="AdnTopLeft" style="float:left"></div><div class="AdnTopRight" style="float:right"></div><div style="clear:both"></div></div><p>So, lots of people came to me asking whether there will be a WinRT version of <a href="http://catel.codeplex.com/" target="_blank">Catel</a>. First, I said we were seriously considering it. But lately the idea of not supporting it became more and more the idea I wanted to follow.</p> <h1>A little history</h1> <p>Instead of going with the flow, let’s first take a look at the history of <a href="http://catel.codeplex.com/" target="_blank">Catel</a> and why it has been created anyway. Mid 2010, I needed a (WPF) MVVM framework that would contain the following features:</p> <ul> <li>Support IDataErrorInfo for the view model so it could contain validation </li> <li>Nested user controls (because I couldn’t create big trees of hierarchy view models) </li> <li>Ease of development </li> </ul> <p>With the latest I mean I didn’t want to go with the hype where everything needed to be “light”, simply because I always found myself writing extension methods and improving code. After I seriously considered <a href="http://cinch.codeplex.com/" target="_blank">Cinch</a>, the moment I decided to write my own was when there was a “view model generator tool”.</p> <p>When I started with MVVM and Xaml, all I did was WPF, which is simply the best implementation of Xaml for me. But, then people started asking: can you support Silverlight as well? Then the hell of missing features began. Lots of interfaces that <a href="http://catel.codeplex.com/" target="_blank">Catel</a> uses to allow property undo-ing such as <em>INotifyPropertyChanging</em> were not supported. It took me about 3 weeks to make sure everything in <a href="http://catel.codeplex.com/" target="_blank">Catel</a> also worked in Silverlight. Most of the time, I simply wrote the WPF features that were missing from Silverlight to allow the same functionality of <a href="http://catel.codeplex.com/" target="_blank">Catel</a> in Silverlight.</p> <p>When WP7 came out, I was already prepared for the upcoming hell, but it wasn’t as bad as the transition from WPF => Silverlight. However, it again took me at least 2 weeks to create all the project and item templates and the Windows Phone specific implementations of the navigation services and tombstoning.</p> <p>When the windows 8 beta came out, I quickly installed it to check out what has changed so I could convert <a href="http://catel.codeplex.com/" target="_blank">Catel</a>. But… it seems there are more, much more changes than I expected. For example, the whole reflection system has been changed.</p> <p>Also, <a href="http://catel.codeplex.com/" target="_blank">Catel</a> supports a <em>WeakEventListener</em> and <em>WeakActions</em> for the <em>MessageMediator</em>, but this is simply not possible in WinRT because important reflection (although public) is not available.</p> <h1>What’s WinRT exactly?</h1> <p>After fighting with WinRT for about 4 weeks, I decided to take a look at the the current state and how much work there was in front of me. Then I realized I already left out the most important features (because I knew they wouldn’t compile anyway out of the box), but I couldn’t even get the Core libraries to compile (such as the <em>WeakEventListener</em>).</p> <p>Then I thought: is <a href="http://catel.codeplex.com/" target="_blank">Catel</a> the way to go for WinRT anyway? And the answer is no. I see WinRT applications as a windows phone application without any specific LoB requirements. For example, checking the weather, checking facebook, etc. If you need a real LoB application, I still recommend to go for WPF or Silverlight which is the way to go.</p> <p>Taking a look at the history of <a href="http://catel.codeplex.com/" target="_blank">Catel</a>, it was originally founded as a LoB framework, not as a framewo </p></body>