Snoop – Firebug for WPF applications

21Jan Code Inside Team Uncategorized One comment

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A colleague of mine told me about a nice tool for WPF developer: Snoop. It’s somehow like Firebug – just for WPF applications.

For those who don’t know firebug: with this tool it is possible to analyze websites and change parameters.

Installation

Snoop itself is an open source project and you can download it on Codeplex or GitHub. The installation is quick and after the start you will see this little list:

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To x-ray WPF applications

With the help of this list you are able to search for current WPF applications or choose an WPF application with the “target”.

Now you will see the object tree – alike firebug – including the characteristics and possible Binding-errors:

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3D view on the surface

An interesting feature is the overview of the surface in 3D. If you take a look on the surface (of this Demo-App)…

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You are going to see this “3D layer model”:

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Nice gimmick but it might be useful for someone.

Powershell support

With a console it is possible to run through the Object-graph and read or change the characteristics – while the application runs.

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Debugging of Binding-errors, eventhandler and more

Binding-errors in WPF are annoying – Snoop is able to show the current DataContext and help you eventually (WPF binding is … complicated). I’m sure there are some more features I forgot to talk about or didn’t use till now:

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Result

Snoop seems like a nice tool to x-ray running WPF applications – but at least it doesn’t reach Firebug or other WebDev Tools.

Here is the Download again.

Thanks again to Marco for the hint Zwinkerndes Smiley

Options?

If some experienced WPF developers know some different tools please be free to share them with us.

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One Response

  1. Here is my part, http://maheshkumar.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/5-essential-wpf-debugging-tools/

    Reply

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