WPF Team Bloggers

Death, Taxes and Latency

2008-07-24T03:55:00Z

By the time Silverlight came around, the problems afflicting web applications all round were well known and somewhat well understood. The burden of dealing with network latency, cancellation and errors should not be thrust on every web developer. Platforms have a unique role in abstracting away these problems. However, beyond band-aid solutions, web platforms haven’t provided any effective remedies. With Silverlight we’ve tried to tackle these head on. I wouldn’t say we’ve solved them, but we’re...(read more)

PDC08

2008-07-23T18:29:00Z

I've participated in several PDC's in the past, mostly as a speaker, but this year I'm helping to do some of the organization. Recently, I've been in a lot of meetings with Mike Swanson , a Technical Evangelist here at Microsoft. Mike is one of the key ring leaders in producing the PDC content. If you were ever interested in how the PDC gets pulled off and some of the thinking that goes into it, check out this video featuring Mike and colleague Jennifer Ritzinger. Read More......(read more)

My Decision Matrix

2008-07-21T03:24:00Z

Have you ever had to make a decision with too many options or factors to consider all at once? Or perhaps you’d like to be more objective about your choices. Or maybe you need to document your decision to make it more defensible later on (“your honor, this chart shows why Grape Nehi is clearly superior to Orange”). Whatever the reason, you may find that a simple decision matrix is all you need. I’ve been using various forms of my decision matrix to make both personal and professional decisions for...(read more)

New Show: Countdown to PDC2008

2008-07-20T05:43:09Z

Jennifer Ritzinger and I have started a new show called Countdown to PDC2008 , and we just published our first episode on Channel 9. We’ve been recording an internal video series (of the same name) for about ten episodes now, and some fellow employees suggested that the format might also work for an external audience. So, we decided to try it, and we’d love your feedback! Specifically, if you have any questions about the conference, or if you’d like to hear about a particular topic on a future show,...(read more)

New Blog Admin

2008-07-18T20:25:00Z

Hi, my name is Chipalo, and I am a program manager on WPF. Unfortunately, Chris is no longer with Microsoft. I wanted to introduce myself because I have taken over his responsibilities and will be maintaining this blog in the future. Read More......(read more)

FlickrViewr Using DevDave’s AnimatingWrapPanel

2008-07-17T18:55:11Z

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 [...] Read More......(read more)

Obscure DVD Recommendations

2008-07-15T04:34:40Z

Okay, "obscure" may be exaggerating a bit; perhaps "less well known" is a better way to describe these DVD picks. Like Helvetica: The Documentary , these aren't your typical Saturday night popcorn popping blockbusters. But if you have an interest in any of these subjects, they're worth checking out. First up is the excellent and extremely comprehensive, BBS: The Documentary by Jason Scott . It took Jason three years and over 200 interviews to assemble the material on the three DVDs included in this...(read more)

Composite Application Guidance for WPF 2008

2008-07-14T16:32:00Z

Its been some time before my last post. Just catching my breath with a new addition to my family. :) The Composite Application Guidance aka PRISM for WPF 2008 has just been released. For those who havent heard of it : "The Composite Application Guidance for WPF can help you split the development of your WPF client application across multiple development teams, each responsible for the development of a piece of the application, and help you seamlessly compose those pieces together into a client application....(read more)

FlickrViewr Updated for Beta2

2008-07-11T01:03:26Z

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.) Read More......(read more)

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

2008-06-25T23:42:23Z

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 [...] Read More......(read more)

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

2008-06-23T18:37:22Z

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. VisualStateManager We’ve [...] Read More......(read more)

PDC2008: A Day in the Life #2

2008-06-23T00:01:00Z

[You can skip to the last two paragraphs if you’d like to offer suggestions] Here we are…one month later with the second post in a series about the PDC2008 Content Owner role. If you don’t know what a Content Owner does, I’d recommend reading PDC2008: A Day in the Life #1 for context. As mentioned in the prior post, one of my responsibilities is to coordinate and drive two meetings each week with many representatives from across Microsoft. The members of this team are critical thinkers who help define,...(read more)

Silverlight Carousel and WPF Training Site Ported To Beta 2

2008-06-20T21:11:00Z

Both Yet Another Carousel (YAC) and the WPF training site (which uses YAC) have been ported to Silverlight Beta 2. Read More......(read more)

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

2008-06-19T06:15:08Z

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 [...] Read More......(read more)

WPF WebBrowser (.NET 3.5 SP1)

2008-06-12T12:28:00Z

One of the new controls is the WebBrowser... aha!! not the Winforms control.. we now have it in WPF. Functions supported by this control are: NavigateToString NavigateToStream Navigate GoBack GoForward In xaml it would look like something like this: < StackPanel Name = " panel " > < WebBrowser Height = " 500 " > </ WebBrowser > </ StackPanel > I put together a simple sample which tries to use this functionality Looks like the above. Nothing fancy :) Also since this is beta...(read more)