Prism regions make it easy to change the layout of views within an application. A region is a logical placeholder associated with a specific layout control. Displaying a view in a region causes the view to be added to the layout control. But because the region and the layout control are loosely coupled...

The updated version of the Prism Template Pack for Prism 4.0 is now available here ! The Prism 4.0 Template Pack contains Prism shell and module project templates and a quick-start solution template which creates a multi-project solution with a shell and two modules. All templates are available for both...

The Breadcrumb Navigation pattern provides a visual representation of the path the user took as they navigated to a particular state in an application. It provides context so the user can see where they are logically within the application structure, and it allows them to quickly navigate that structure...

The Application Architecture Guide 2 nd Edition is finally available! The complete guide is hosted on MSDN here . We’ve sent the guide off to MS Press for printing, so the printed version should be available from your favorite bookstore soon. Since the final draft of guide was published on CodePlex early...

As promised, I have updated the Prism Quick Start Kit and added a WPF quick-start solution and WPF project templates. You can download the latest release here . In the zip you’ll find four project templates (Shell and Module templates for WPF and Silverlight) and two quick-start solutions, one each for...

Building applications from scratch starting from a blank page or screen in Visual Studio is a frustrating, time consuming and intimidating task. Instead, most developers like to start with a working application that they can modify, tweak and extend to suit their needs. Far too often though, developers...

In my last post – Silverlight Navigation Part 3 – I outlined a mechanism whereby you could navigate to a View and have the application create and wire up the associated ViewModel automatically. I also showed the inverse of this, where you could navigate to a ViewModel and have the application automatically...

We just posted a refresh to the Prism 2.0 bits. You can download the latest release from the same location on MSDN here . The recent release of the GDR update to Silverlight 2.0 (which takes Silverlight from version 2.0.31005 to version 2.0.40115) causes a problem when building the Composite.Silverlight...

WooHoo! Prism 2.0 is done and is now live on MSDN! You can access the Prism 2.0 documentation here , and download the code from here . Prism is a library of patterns that help you build robust, flexible and modular WPF and Silverlight applications. These patterns also support unit testing, separation...

Implementing a Master-Detail style UI with the CollectionViewModel I described in my previous post is pretty easy. With a selector control bound to a CollectionViewModel as shown in my previous post, you just need to add a content control to the View and bind its Content property to the current item...

The ViewModel pattern (more formally called the Model-View-ViewModel pattern, but that’s way too long winded and I’m lazy) is an increasingly popular pattern with WPF and Silverlight developers. This is largely due to its simplicity and flexibility and its inherent support in WPF and Silverlight...

Figuring out the right name for something is one of the hardest things in software development. There is a lot to a name – the name conveys the concept; get the wrong name and you convey the wrong concept, leading to much confusion, developer irritation and mental pain. We’re currently working on...

This last month has been what you might call crazy. Within the space of a couple of weeks we have had no less than 6 major releases in P&P! We're a fairly small team, but we follow an agile process for all of our projects which enables us to scale pretty well and have multiple projects in flight...

Well here I am in sunny LA at the PDC. At least I assume it's sunny, not been outside all day. Been too busy 'capturing the brain power' or something... No doubt by the time I post this you'll have heard something about Azure. Apart from being a rather nice shade of blue it's the name of the new Microsoft...

Woo Hoo! We just released the first drop of Prism 2.0 on our CodePlex site here . For this first iteration we've focused solely on the "multi-targeting" aspects of Prism (UI composition and modularity support will follow soon though). By multi-targeting we mean the ability to build applications...

Those of you who remember ye olde days of yore when .NET 1.0 and 1.1 were the latest and greatest thing may also remember the Patterns and Practices Application Architecture Guide . It was published waaay back in December 2002, and it has consistently been one of our most popular guides overs the years...

Patterns & practices alumni Glenn Block has been busy writing and talking about Prism 1.0 recently: First up, he and Brian Noyes recorded an interview with those nice Dot Net Rock chaps at TechEd which just got posted here . Looking forward to listening to that once it shows up on my Zune... And...

In my last post on the Prism 2.0 project, I alluded to the exactly-what-it-sounds-like "Vision/Scope kick-off meeting". For all Patterns and Practices projects we put together a Vision/Scope deck that we present to the rest of the P&P team (and customers and partners) that describes what...

For the last couple of weeks we've been busy prototyping & spiking, talking to customers and partners and generally gearing up for Prism 2.0. Yesterday we held our internal Vision/Scope kick-off meeting and so I'm happy to report that the Prism 2.0 project is now officially off the launching pad...

I have to say that my last year at Microsoft has been a little strange. Since the Acropolis project, err, took a new direction I've been working on a few different projects which at first glance were all kind-of related but distinctly separate yet, it turns out, all leading to same point in time and...