karen corby's photography

Silverlight 2 has SHIPPED!

It’s official – we’ve shipped Silverlight 2! ScottGu, our VP, has a great release blog post, which is worth a read. You can get all the new SL2 downloads here: Install Silverlight 2 runtime. Install Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Install Expression Blend 2 SP1 update.  (If you don’t already have Expression Blend 2, you can get a free trial.) On a personal note, it’s been a privilege to work with such a great group of people to put out this product.  I’ve learned a lot, and more importantly, had a lot of fun.  So, a shout out …

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Silverlight at the Olympics

I’m sure many of you have heard by now… Silverlight 2 Beta 2 is powering the NBC Olympics video experience!  At http://nbcolympics.com/video, you can see live event coverage as well as on-demand viewing of already-happened events.  Check it out!  (Be sure to use the “Enhanced” player by clicking “Enlarge Video.”)

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An Early Look – VisualStateManager for WPF

John Gossman, one of the awesome Silverlight and WPF architects, just blogged a prototype of VisualStateManager for WPF.  VisualStateManager will be added in to a future release of the .NET Framework.  For those of you who want an early look, you can now play with John’s VSM implementation.  (This is for prototyping only – it is not a supported feature yet.)  He uses AttachedProperties to hook up VisualStateManager-enabled Templates to WPF controls. You’ll also see my WeatherControl using VSM on WPF!

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FlickrViewr Using DevDave’s AnimatingWrapPanel

DevDave (Dave Relyea) is a dev lead on the Silverlight team.  He just blogged a really slick new animating wrap panel.  Read about it here and try out the sample app below.   There are a bunch of different “interpolations” that you can choose from, including “back”, “elastic”, and “bounce.” I’ve updated my FlickrViewr to use this animating wrap panel with the “elastic” option.  In my totally unbiased opinion, it looks pretty hot.  Though, as Dave pointed out, “elastic” is a bit much for a “real world” application – for a more sane UI, try “back” interpolation.   (See the …

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FlickrViewr Updated for Beta2

Just a note to say I’ve updated my FlickrViewr for Silverlight Beta2.  (All of the controls now use VisualStateManager, too!) Enjoy! (See the original post for more info & source code.)

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Parts & States Model with VisualStateManager (Part 4 of 4)

Here we are – the final post of our Parts & States Model series for Silverlight 2 controls.  Hope you’ve enjoyed the ride so far! Today, we’ll go through some general recommendations on how to use the Parts & States model.  We’ll also take a look ahead:  VisualStateManager on Windows Presentation Foundation and future releases of Silverlight.   (Series Link:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)   Parts & States Model Recommendations 1.  Use the Parts & States Model with Custom Controls and UserControls Like we mentioned in the first post, the Parts & States Model is just …

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Parts & States Model with VisualStateManager (Part 3 of 4)

This is the third post in a four part series on Silverlight 2’s Parts & States control model. Last time, you learned how to reskin an existing control using VisualStateManager.  In this post, you’ll see how to build up a Parts & States-based custom control.  We’ll also explore how you can create more sophisticated visual transitions. (Series Link:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4) VisualStateManager We’ve saw it briefly in the last post, but let’s formally introduce VisualStateManager.  VisualStateManager is the class responsible for control visual state management.  The “visual” modifier in that sentence is important – the …

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Parts & States Model with VisualStateManager (Part 2 of 4)

This is the second post in a four part series about managing parts & states in Silverlight 2 controls. Today, we’ll put into practice the concepts you learned last time and walk through how to reskin a CheckBox.  (If you haven’t already, please be sure to read part 1 of this series.) Note: I’ve shortened the XAML snippets in this post for readability.  You can download the full sample code here. (Series Link:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4) A CheckBox ControlTemplate ControlTemplates define the visuals for a custom control.  The CheckBox ControlTemplate that we’ll be expanding on …

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Parts & States Model with VisualStateManager (Part 1 of 4)

In Silverlight 2, we’ve added significant new support for managing states and transitions inside of controls.  To help explain the Parts & States Model, I’ve put together a 4 part post series that will show how to: Create a control contract using the Parts & States Model Wire the control logic to manipulate states & parts Design a control template with states & parts Playing a starring role in this content will be VisualStateManager, or as we lovingly call it, VSM.  VSM can be used with both UserControls and custom controls… but in this series, we’ll concentrate on its usage …

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Silverlight 2 Beta2

Silverlight Beta2 is officially out in the wild!  All the required download links to get started are here: Silverlight 2 Beta 2 runtime Visual Studio 2008 Silverlight Tools  Expression Blend 2.5 June Preview Deep Zoom Composer   Also, for the feature areas I drive, here are the major Beta2 updates: Networking Wider API set for WebClient Upload methods for streams and strings Set request headers on uploads Threading Updates HttpWebRequest & WebClient are callable on a background thread HttpWebRequest’s delegates are called on a new non-UI thread. Delegates were previously always called on the UI thread. You must invoke back …

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