Mix 09: Building Microsoft Silverlight Controls

March 23, 2009

Thank you to everyone to who came to my talk at Mix09! I’m always a bit nervous having talks on the last day of a conference. (After all, you work really hard to pull a session together – and it can kinda be a bummer talking to mostly empty chairs.) But my room was full, and the audience’s vibe felt great from stage. 🙂 If you missed the session, you can watch the video here: Also, as promised, here are links to… Sample source code Deck The final WishExplorer demo uses Wishpot’s 3rd party web service. Wishpot is a great …

Source Code for Silverlight 2 Controls

January 15, 2009

For those of you who didn’t see, Seema Ramchandani (a fellow PM on the Silverlight team) blogged that we released source code for the Silverlight 2 controls. Check it out here!

PDC: Silverlight 2 Control Model Session (PC29)

October 31, 2008

Thank you to everyone who made it to my talk on Thursday! As promised, some links: Session deck Session samples Session recording Also, if you haven’t already, please take the time to fill out the online evaluation. Your comments help me be a better speaker. 🙂

Silverlight @ PDC!

October 27, 2008

Here are some of the Silverlight-focused PDC sessions. Hope to see you there! Session Time Speaker Expression Blend: Tips and Tricks Mon 10/2712:45-1:30pm Pete Blois,Douglas Olson Silverlight, WPF, and the .NET Framework: Sharing Skills and Code Mon 10/273:30 – 4:45PM Ian Ellison-Taylor Silverlight: Building Business Focused Apps Tues 10/283:30 – 4:45pm Jamie Cool Deep Dive: Building an Optimized, Graphics-Intensive Application in Microsoft Silverlight Tues 10/285:15 – 6:30pm SeemaRamchandani Silverlight Controls Roadmap Wed10/2912:00 – 12:45pm Shawn Burke Inside the Olympics: An Architecture and Development Overivew Wed 10/291:15 – 2:30pm Eric Schmidt, Jason Suess Microsoft Silverlight 2: Control Model Thurs 10/3010:15 …

An Early Look – VisualStateManager for WPF

August 8, 2008

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!

FlickrViewr Updated for Beta2

July 10, 2008

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.)

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

June 25, 2008

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 …

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

June 23, 2008

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 …

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

June 18, 2008

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 …

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

June 11, 2008

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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