As promised….
Mark Rideout, another Silverlight Program Manager, talks about Silverlight 2’s accessibility support. Watch the video here.
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Archive for March, 2008
The cherry blossoms in Seattle started blooming a couple of weeks ago.
The official first day of spring was last Thursday.
QUESTION: What the #*@(#% is it doing snowing???
– Signed, California Girl
(Yes… I did just make you watch snow falling to the ground.)
Every once in a while you capture a moment that’s just too good to be true. While you’re shooting it, you’re both (a) really excited, and (b) feelin’ kinda corny, because the photos look almost posed.
That’s how I felt when I stumbled upon these shots today.
I was reading the FlickrBlog the other day, and saw photos from their 4 year birthday celebration. I loved the walls of 5×7s, and decided to cover my closet doors with a similar collage of my own photos.
For the job, I went to AdoramaPix, which is my favorite photo printing site. (I did a print test from several different places about a year ago, and they won hands down.) Their prints are great, and they run great specials every once in a while.
The actual ordering of prints from Adorama, however, has always been ridiculously painful. Adorama’s photo upload experience *sucked.* The app was buggy & their server was slow.
Happily, now Adorama has Flickr integration: no need to upload my photos twice!
Flickr’s 4th Birthday Celebration:
photo by Ric e Ette.
I’ve gotten a lot requests for the snippet manager I used at my Mix08 session.
So as promised, here it is for everyone who is interested: app, code.
The first incarnation of this application was done by Nick Kramer (Thanks Nick!). I’ve tweaked it and added a WPF frontend.
How do I use it?
- To use a snippet, drag the title of the snippet to the desired target app.
- In order to move the app around, drag the black bottom portion of the window.
- The topmost checkbox and load/close buttons work as you would expect.
If desired, you can start the app from the commandline:
snippetmanager.exe /notontop [snippetsfile] [snippetsfile] …
where /notontop indicates that the snippet manager should start out NOT being topmost.
What is the format of the snippet file?
The format of the snippet file is:
| Line | Meaning |
| /////////////////////////////// | Separates the contents of one snippet from another snippet. |
| // First Snippet Title | Indicates what the “title” for a snippet should be.
(Note: if a snippet does not have a title, the first line of the snippet appears in the snippet manager.) |
| ————————– | Separates sections of snippets and restarts numbering of snippets. |
| partial line:<content> | Should treat <content> as part of an existing line. (i.e. Snippet should not include a line break at its end.) |
| <other> | Any other line is treated as the content of a snippet |
Given the “exactness” of the file format, I’d recommend always copying and editing the sample snippet file.
The sample snippet file (which was used in the above screen shot) is included in the zip and shown below:
1: ///////////////////////////////
2: // First Snippet Title
3: <Style x:Key=”TitleStyle” TargetType=”TextBlock”>
4: <Setter Property=”FontSize” Value=”35″/>
5: </Style>
6: ///////////////////////////////
7: // Second Snippet Title
8: partial line:Style=”{StaticResource TitleStyle}”
9: ///////////////////////////////
10: Snippet content (no title)
11: ///////////////////////////////
12: ————————–
13: ///////////////////////////////
14: // Second Snippet Section
15: <ControlTemplate x:Key=”SubmitButtonTemplate” TargetType=”Button”>
16: <Grid Width=”70″ Height=”20″ Background=”DarkGray”>
17: <TextBlock Foreground=”White” VerticalAlignment=”Center” HorizontalAlignment=”Center” FontSize=”12″ FontFamily=”/fonts/IngebretsenNeato.ttf#Ingebretsen Neato” Text=”Submit”/>
18: </Grid>
19: </ControlTemplate>
At my Mix08 session last week, I showed off a FlickrViewr app that I had written. You can search different user’s photos (or search all public photos by leaving the username blank).
In order to run it on your own, you need to go to flickr and get your own flickr api key.
Special thanks to Pete Blois. I expanded upon his Xml Serialization Flickr library. 
This FlickrViewr application uses:
- Styles
- Control Templates
- UserControls
- Custom Controls
There are also a few re-usable goodies:
- HorizontalWrapPanel
- ContinuousProgress control
- ModalDialog
You can grab these separately here.
Thanks everyone who came to my talk Thursday morning! (And to those brave souls who came to the 5:45pm repeat.)
The session video is now posted on the Mix site.
I’ve also uploaded the sample code and deck, if you’re interested. (I’ll post my flickr viewer app soon in a different post.)
Some other links…
- All the Mix08 session videos
- Description of the breaking changes between Silverlight Alpha 1.1 and Beta1
And a few more…. (that I shameless stole from Tim. See his post for some installation hints.):
- Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1
- Silverlight 2 Beta 1 Runtime
- Silverlight 2 Tools for Visual Studio 2008 and SDK
- Source Code / Unit Tests for Silverlight 2 Controls
- Expression Studio 2 Beta (contains Blend, Design, Encoder, Media and Web)
- Expression Blend 2.5 March 2008 Preview
- Expression DeepZoom Composer
- ASP.NET MVC Preview 2
Hope everyone enjoyed the rest of their time in Vegas. Sadly, mine was a bit too eventful. I ended up leaving my Mix bag by the pool… Which had my wallet in it. I guess some things really will “stay in Vegas”…
Mix08 has started in Vegas!
Below are some of the Silverlight talks given by members of the Silverlight development team (plus one from some friends who now work at IdentityMine). I highly recommend checking these out if you’re at Mix!
My talk - Building Rich, Dynamic User Interfaces with Silverlight 2 Controls - is on Thursday at 10:15am. I’ve been prepping it and I think it should be good…. but you can help me out by crossing your fingers just in case.
On a side note: The bags that usually are given away at conferences are super ugly. But whoever did the Mix08 bags did a great job. I’m actually going to use mine!
Silverlight sessions from the Silverlight development team:
**Wednesday, March 5**
T13
Working with Data and Web Services in Microsoft Silverlight 2
1:30 PM - 2:45 PM, Delfino 4105
Speaker: Eugene Osovetsky
Learn how easy it is to utilize POX, REST, RSS, ATOM, JSON, and SOAP in your Microsoft Silverlight mashup applications. Also learn how to easily access and display data with Silverlight using LINQ and databinding.
CT01
Building Rich Internet Applications Using Microsoft Silverlight 2, Part 1
March 5 3:00 PM - 4:15 PM, Lando 4201
Speakers: Mike Harsh, Joe Stegman
Learn how to use Microsoft Visual Studio to create applications, how to create UI using XAML markup and code, how to build a custom control, how to retrieve data from a Web service, and how to manipulate data with XML and LINQ. (Part 1 of 2)
CT02
Building Rich Internet Applications Using Microsoft Silverlight 2, Part 2
4:30 PM - 5:45 PM, Lando 4201
Speakers: Mike Harsh, Joe Stegman
Learn how to use Microsoft Visual Studio to create applications, how to create UI using XAML markup and code, how to build a custom control, how to retrieve data from a Web service, and how to manipulate data with XML and LINQ. (Part 2 of 2)
**Thursday, March 6**
BCT05
Integrating Media in Silverlight Applications
8:30 AM - 9:45 AM, San Polo 3501A
Speaker: Ed Maia
Come learn how to incorporate media into Microsoft Silverlight applications including video playback capabilities and programmatic control of the media display. Also learn about the new content protection features of Silverlight, including the proper workflow for implementing content protection and integrity.
T20
Creating Rich, Dynamic User Interfaces with Silverlight 2 Controls
Thursday, March 6 10:15 AM - 11:30 AM, Lando 4204
Speaker: Karen Corby
See how to use the Microsoft Silverlight 2 control model to efficiently design and develop custom controls, style existing controls, create control templates, and package your controls for re-use to develop Rich Internet Applications. Also hear about the capabilities for accessibility.
**Friday, March 7**
BC01
Nerd + Art: Ten Code Snippets to Empower Your Inner Artist
10:00 AM - 11:15 AM, Lando 4201
Speakers: Nathan Dunlap (Identity Mine), Robby Ingebretsen(Identity Mine)
Learn how to increase what a designer can do with Windows Presentation Foundation and Microsoft Silverlight 2 using our designer’s code “toolbox”-10 simple concepts that will give you an edge when making your best ideas a reality. We share the code, teach you how to use it and introduce the concepts behind it.
The New Yorker cartoon caption contests are generally funny. But this week’s, I think, is one of my favorites:
“We’re all out of the blood of your enemies. You’ll have to settle for marmalade.”
Jason Beck
Los Angeles, Calif.
Drawing by Michael Crawford
Also, in last week’s New Yorker, there’s an excellent article on carbon emissions… It calls out how difficult it is to choose the most “carbon friendly” option, especially since “buying local” isn’t always the most environment choice. I highly recommend.