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Windows workflow foundation animated activity designer source

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As I mentioned in my last post, I have uploaded the Animated Activity Designer for use in your own project. A common question I can anticipate being asked is "Why?". So, here's why I created it and my reason as to why you may want to use something like this.

First off, the reason I wanted to try to created animated activities within the Windows Workflow designer was merely to see if it was possible. I knew that I could override OnPaint so I pretty much already knew it was going to be possible (otherwise I probably wouldn't have gone down the path). The second reason is simply because as a guy that loves cool eye candy in UI's, I just had to do it.

So why would you ever want to create an animated activity? Let's say you create an application that hosts the Windows Workflow Designer. Let's also assume that this application is used by your customers. You present them with the designer surface and within a Toolbox like panel, you have your set of custom activities they can use. If pictures are worth a thousand words, then an animation with 10 frames is worth 10,000 words.

The actual code for this is really simple which is also why it only took a couple of hours to get it up and running. Since it is so easy, I won't waste your time explaining it (but feel free to ping me if you have any questions).

Download the code right here: AnimatedActivityDesigner.zip

To see it in action, open the solution in Visual Studio, build it and then open workflow1.cs in the designer.

Enjoy!

 To see the video better, right click and select Zoom -> Full Screen

P.S. The activities you see in the project and in the video are simply placeholders. They do not actually do anything.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 27, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 31, 2006
    Thanks man!! I'm SO glad I did not need to write one myself.

  • Anonymous
    November 26, 2006
    how to debug a designer attribute

  • Anonymous
    January 19, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 07, 2007
    I have downloaded .net 3,why there are not workflow .DLL? In addition,can this program be run by Visual Studio 2005?

  • Anonymous
    February 21, 2008
    The link is unavailable. Thanks for checking.

  • Anonymous
    August 26, 2008
    Hi, Could you please check the link. Its not working and the video doesnt appear either. thanks

  • Anonymous
    August 29, 2008
    Hi, Could you please check the link. Its not working and the video does not appear either. thanks

  • Anonymous
    January 31, 2009
    whatever this just is incomplete and doesnt work