Developers preferring to work with managed code libraries and leveraging Windows Presentation Foundation are no longer limited to using the Bing Maps Silverlight Control or the Bing Maps AJAX Control v7 in a web control for their projects involving Bing Maps. This because Microsoft has put together a Bing Maps WPF Control, and is already offering a taste to early adopters.
Devs can grab the Beta development milestone of Bing Maps WPF Control from the Microsoft Download Center and test it to see what it offers them.
Chris Pendleton, Lead Program Manager for Bing Maps Developer and B2B APIs for Microsoft notes that “the WPF Control has everything you’d expect from a Bing Maps control including the ability to present information via a WPF native control such as:
• Map Styles: Road, Aerial and Hybrid
• The ability to place shapes on the map via lat/lon – pins, polylines and polygons
• Navigating the map with pan and zoom keyboard controls.”
However, Pendleton underlines that the Redmond company has no interest in dictating a default user experience model. Instead of offering default navigation, pushpins and roll overs, the software giant opted to let developers deal with all aspects of the UX themselves.
Developers using the Bing Maps WPF Control for their projects will be able to take advantage of native support for touch features, especially in combination with Microsoft Surface 2.0.
“We worked closely with the Surface team and have had a constant need to support our WPF developer community with mapping,” Pendleton added.
“The WPF control supports full rotation and inertia with options to turn both off. Plus, infinite scroll maps, touch to lat/lon to pixel conversions (think touch to add a pushpin) and the ability to plug into the Bing Maps REST API for geocoding and routing or the Bing API for search.”
Bing Maps WPF Control Beta is available for download here.
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