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Posts tagged Silverlight
Blinking Light Animation in Silverlight using Expression Blend
Jul 31st
Before even anyone of you look at my animation, let me clarify again that I DON’T HAVE DESIGNER’S EYE 
… which basically means if you are looking for some really cool UI then you are at wrong place. With that info. noted I also would like to let you know that though I am not a good designer, I am still a developer and just like any developer, me too can design UI (no matter how terrible it is) …
In this post, I displaying a very simple Blinking Light Silverlight animation created using only Expression Blend 4. I have created all drawings and animation using Expression Blend in just 20 mins for this post, and I must say that I am really impressed with this tool. If I wanted to do the same thing with good ol’ Visual Studio 2010, then it would have taken me at least couple of hours or more. (Or may be less if you are very good at reading XAML). Honestly, I’ve not even used core feature of Blend (which is Storyboard), instead I wrote very simple code to do the job.
As first step, I created two circle like drawings and placed them inside of Grid
Styles in Silverlight – Part 1
Jul 8th
Honestly, I don’t have so called “designer’s eye”. So I am really bad with designing. I think this is the curse that every developer bares … or may be it is a good thing, who knows. So the demo I am showing here is not so eye catching, but this solves the purpose so I am not going crazy with designing.
Just like HTML, Silverlight too has a concept of “Styling”, but it is bit different that what we do in HTML. Just like HTML here in Silverlight also we have different method of styling like inline styles or creating resource or use separate file that contains only styles. But this post is to show only basic concept of styling so I will just show inline code for styles, later on I will post more about other methods of styling.
In Silverlight each object can be styled individually as well as in group (just like HTML). And each style can be highly customized. For example, gradient in button. Or two different object can be used to create some new style, for example textbox with rounded corners.
Installing Silverlight Themes for Expression Blend 4
Jun 7th
If you are working with Silverlight and don’t have good “designer’s eye”, or planning to begin new project or simply want to play around with Silverlight then you might want to try these Silverlight navigation themes from Microsoft. Currently there are four standard themes are available for download from MSFT Site JetPack, Accent Color, Windows 7 and Cosmopolitan, they are highly customizable and free for any use. Basically they have all styles defined for all standard controls and Silverlight Toolkit (which is a must requirement for these themes to work)
Installing these themes to VS 2010 is way too easy. All you need to do is just execute VSIX files included in the package and you are all set. But if you want to use these themes in Blend 4, then it is a bit tricky process. First you need to extract those themes and then copy them to %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Expression\Blend 4\ProjectTemplates\en\CSharp\Silverlight folder. But if you are using x64 bit OS then this path will be %ProgramFiles (x86)%\Microsoft Expression\Blend 4\ProjectTemplates\en\CSharp\Silverlight for you !!! And wait there is more (
, yes me too watch late night TV commercials … ) apparently all of these files have same structure and same template file names so you can’t just copy all of these themes into one single location, since it will overwrite each other and in the end you will be left with only once theme that you copied last !! And there is no explanation of this in official read me document or any where on the net.
Watermarked textbox in Silverlight
Mar 30th
If you have worked with ASP.NET then you probably already familiar with Watermark control, which is available as a part of Ajax Control toolkit on Codeplex. I think it is one of the greatest tool to have as a control because, it lets you set a text in textbox as a watermark. It gives a little edge to your web application. I think same can be told for Silverlight application.
But few days back when I was practicing my Silverlight skills with ScottGu’s tutorial, at one point he was creating watermarked textbox and from his explanation it looked like Silverlight has built in watermark feature !! But I was surprised to see that there is nothing like that ?? Even though that tutorial was originally written for Silverlight 2 and I am using Silverlight 4 this options is still not implemented. Actually at MSDN you can find a page for this option, but funny thing is this feature is supported in only Silverlight 4 and they are advising to not to use it in Silverlight 4 !!! I was like WTF, you can use but you can’t use ?
Integrating Silverlight in Web Site
Feb 16th
I should say I work for really great company. And it is not just because I work there but it is because of their internal user group !! Yes, we have an internal user group and we regularly do meeting where employees do presentation on current / new technologies. Some technologies which we can use in current and future development projects and some are just to let others know what is going on out side of their work place 
… I believe that every company should have user groups like this. It not only gives employees information of new technologies but also creates kind of healthy team environment. And we call it “Techno Lunch” (Yes its Lunch and we order Pizza 
)
I am kind of fresh start in this company, so I have been to just few meetings. In our last meeting I decided to do a little presentation on stuff that I like to do, a web designing. Well, I don’t have designer gene in me so honestly I am terrible with design stuff but I still try to improve my self because I believe that people will only use your application if it looks nice … yes it is fact … if you have superfine application but with terrible UI then it just won’t get attention. On the other hand if your UI is really nice and application sucks … people will still like it (or atleast try it … and then dump it once they find that your application really sucks 
)
Open one XAML page from another XAML page …
Feb 1st
Recently, I was required to dig lot deeper into new Silverlight 4 because of my work. I’ve been playing with previous versions but it was not “that” serious engagement, as it was never part of my “job” … I was just doing it to satisfy my craving for new technologies. But now I am required to learn it more seriously like my life (read as my job) depends on it 
…
As you already know, we can design/develop Silverlight application using either Visual Studio or Expression Studio (or specifically Expression Blend). But based on my experience with Silverlight (which is not much) design and development, I think Expression Blend is good tool to “Design” the application and Visual Studio is excellent tool for “Development” of the application. So, in a way now a days it is always required for developer to have super good understanding of both Expression Blend and Visual Studio (and latest version of Expression Blend is just awesome 
). Something that really bugs me about Silverlight is, it can’t communicate with database directly !! So, you are always required to make it talk with some kind of WCF service which is getting data from database, which can prove a bit difficult if you are amateur developer like me 
…