Lester's WPF\Silverlight Blog

Visual Studio 2010 SP1 now available

LesterLobo - MSFT — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 16:10:00 GMT

The final version of VS2010 sp1 is now available for download

Download Service Pack 1 (MSDN Subscribers)
Thursday's general availability download is here.

The description\features in the SP1 can be found at this LINK

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Silverlight 5 FireStarter

LesterLobo - MSFT — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 03:06:00 GMT

Today we announced the plans for the next version of Silverlight along with a bunch a demos at the FireStarter event. If you missed it, you can take a look at the recordings

The feature list for SL5 includes

Media improvements
Graphics Improvements
Databinding updates
Performance improvements
Fluid UI capabilities
Text improvements
.... and much more

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WPF Ribbon (October Update Available)

LesterLobo - MSFT — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 20:27:00 GMT

October 2010 update of WPF Ribbon (on codeplex) is now available for download.

The updates include:

· Ribbon Targets .NET 4.0 as well

· Ribbon targeting 4.0 takes advantage of the ClearType in WPF

· Ribbon now works in VS2010 Express editions

· Stylistic fixes

· Rendering fixes

· …

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Xaml Art Assets

LesterLobo - MSFT — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 05:20:00 GMT

One more interesting site: www.xamalot.com ... Was looking around for some interesting xaml artifacts for a sample project and this site had plenty of it.

The clipart is pretty nice (as shown below)... Have fun..

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Porting WPF apps to Silverlight

LesterLobo - MSFT — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 04:42:00 GMT

The other day when browsing through the blogosphere I came across Arik's posts describing the workarounds\tips that he used for porting his 3.5 WPF application to Silverlight. It was a good read since all these tips from different bloggers have been consolidated in 2 posts

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Using RibbonGallery Control

LesterLobo - MSFT — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 06:34:00 GMT

The Ribbon Control is a pretty big control owing to the complexity of the Ribbon design guidelines. You can give it a try by downloading from LINK

While there are several things to blog about, this post will focus on RibbonGallery. The download provides a sample that covers all features by implementing the Office Ribbon. This post will trim the sample to focus specifically on the RibbonGallery usage

To whet our appetite, the dropdown of both the controls are RibbonGallery controls

The gallery can be hosted in the following Ribbon Controls:

§ RibbonMenuButton

§ RibbonSplitButton

§ RibbonComboBox

§ RibbonMenuItem

§ RibbonSplitMenuItem

§ RibbonApplicationMenuItem

§ RibbonApplicationSplitMenuItem

So lets take the first case. The xaml looks like:

<ribbon:RibbonComboBox DataContext="{x:Static data:WordModel.FontFace}">
    <ribbon:RibbonGallery MaxColumnCount="1" >
        <ribbon:RibbonGallery.GalleryItemTemplate>
            <DataTemplate>
                <Grid>
                    <TextBlock Text="{Binding}" FontFamily="{Binding}"/>
                </Grid>
            </DataTemplate>
        </ribbon:RibbonGallery.GalleryItemTemplate>
    </ribbon:RibbonGallery>
</ribbon:RibbonComboBox>

Basically, we need a gallery with just one column (the fontFamily).

In addition, we need to bind the gallery to the itemsSource

<!-- RibbonGallery -->
<Style TargetType="{x:Type ribbon:RibbonGallery}">
    <Setter Property="ItemsSource" Value="{Binding CategoryDataCollection}" />
    <Setter Property="SelectedItem" Value="{Binding SelectedItem}" />
    <Setter Property="Command" Value="{Binding Command}" />
</Style>
 
<!-- RibbonGalleryCategory -->
<Style TargetType="{x:Type ribbon:RibbonGalleryCategory}">
    <Setter Property="Header" Value="{Binding Label}" />
    <Setter Property="ItemsSource" Value="{Binding GalleryItemDataCollection}" />
</Style>

If you look at the drop down, we have 2 categories: Recently Used Fonts and All Fonts

In code, this looks like

GalleryData<FontFamily> galleryData = new GalleryData<FontFamily>();
 
GalleryCategoryData<FontFamily> recentlyUsedCategoryData =

         new GalleryCategoryData<FontFamily>(){  Label = "Recently Used Fonts"  };
galleryData.CategoryDataCollection.Add(recentlyUsedCategoryData);
 
GalleryCategoryData<FontFamily> allFontsCategoryData =

        new GalleryCategoryData<FontFamily>(){ Label = "All Fonts" };
foreach (FontFamily fontFamily in System.Windows.Media.Fonts.SystemFontFamilies)
{
        allFontsCategoryData.GalleryItemDataCollection.Add(fontFamily);
}
galleryData.CategoryDataCollection.Add(allFontsCategoryData);
 
galleryData.Command = new PreviewDelegateCommand<FontFamily>(ChangeFontFace,

CanChangeFontFace, PreviewFontFace, CancelPreviewFontFace);

And this gives you the basic gallery control. You can modify the template of the gallery control and go as complicated as you wish.

For the second case, we could set the ItemTemplate as below using triggers to get a specific behavior for “Automatic Color”

<ribbon:RibbonGallery.GalleryItemTemplate>
    <DataTemplate>
        <Grid>
            <Rectangle x:Name="Rect" Width="16" Height="16" Fill="{Binding}" />
            <Grid x:Name="AutomaticColorPane" Width="210" Visibility="Collapsed">
                <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                    <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" />
                    <ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
                </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                <Rectangle Width="16" Height="16" StrokeThickness="1" Stroke="Orange" Fill="{Binding}"/>
                <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Text="Automatic Color" Margin="12,0,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" />
            </Grid>
        </Grid>
        <DataTemplate.Triggers>
            <DataTrigger Binding="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource AncestorType={x:Type 
              ribbon:RibbonGalleryCategory}},Path=Header}" Value="Automatic Color">
                <Setter TargetName="Rect" Property="Visibility" Value="Collapsed" />
                <Setter TargetName="AutomaticColorPane" Property="Visibility" Value="Visible" />
            </DataTrigger>
        </DataTemplate.Triggers>
    </DataTemplate>
</ribbon:RibbonGallery.GalleryItemTemplate>

However,by itself you would end up with a control like

So what we need to increase the number of columns and remove the Category Header 
when the value is “Automatic Color”.

<ribbon:RibbonGallery x:Name="FontColorGallery" ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Hidden">
    <ribbon:RibbonGallery.CategoryStyle>
        <Style TargetType="{x:Type ribbon:RibbonGalleryCategory}" BasedOn="{StaticResource 
{x:Type ribbon:RibbonGalleryCategory}}">
            <Setter Property="MinColumnCount" Value="10" />
            <Setter Property="MaxColumnCount" Value="10" />
            <Style.Triggers>
                <Trigger Property="Header" Value="Automatic Color">
                    <Setter Property="HeaderVisibility" Value="Collapsed" />
                    <Setter Property="MinColumnCount" Value="1" />
                    <Setter Property="MaxColumnCount" Value="1" />
                    <Setter Property="IsSharedColumnSizeScope" Value="True" />
                </Trigger>
            </Style.Triggers>
        </Style>
    </ribbon:RibbonGallery.CategoryStyle>
 
Now you get the templated gallery as shown before.

One more thing, you could use gallery in any WPF app – not necessarily in the ribbon. 
Below, you see the RibbonGallery as part of the RichTextBox.

The sample app is attached.

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Zoomable Canvas Control

LesterLobo - MSFT — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:37:00 GMT

Kael has a nice series on the Zoomable Canvas control The usage is something like < ListBox.ItemsPanel > < ItemsPanelTemplate > < ZoomableCanvas Loaded ="ZoomableCanvas_Loaded" RealizationLimit ="1000" RealizationRate ="10" RealizationPriority...(read more)

Xaml Toolkit: Manipulation of Xaml

LesterLobo - MSFT — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:34:00 GMT

One of the interesting things you could easily do with the Xaml Toolkit is manipulation of Xaml. For example, in the case of XamlPadX, if we copy pasted xaml from a WPF application, it wouldnt render because of events, unknown members and so forth. We would need to extract these members in order to make the xaml render. Using the Xaml Toolkit, its pretty simple.

...(read more)

WPF Ribbon Basics

LesterLobo - MSFT — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 12:38:00 GMT

So you have Ribbon, Menu, RibbonTab, and then the Ribbon Group. When you create a new Ribbon application, you get this wireframe ready – so its easy to start.

You got the group – lets populate it. If you look at the Xaml, the Ribbon controls have a SmallImageResource and a LargeImageResource property. This enables the ribbon to use the appropriate image when resizing. Each control can also have rich tooltips by setting the following properties

...(read more)

Ribbon Control Design Time Experience

LesterLobo - MSFT — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 01:19:00 GMT

The Ribbon Control is now available to the public for download. If you havent taken a look yet, would definitely recommend it.

A neat thing about this release is that it includes a design time plugin to VS. So out of the box you have a template in VS, when creating a new project

...(read more)

Running Xaml FXCop rules in FXCop GUI

LesterLobo - MSFT — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 01:18:00 GMT

So one of the uses of the XamlToolkit is to write FXCop rules for XAML. We provide the Microsoft.Tools.Xaml.FxCop.dll which has some inbuilt XAML rules that you can try out. You could also write new ones by referencing this dll. One of the queries...(read more)

Xaml Fxcop Rules Using Xaml Toolkit

LesterLobo - MSFT — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 01:46:00 GMT

One of the nice things that you can do with it is write XAML FXCop rules. Now there has been a common ask of getting FXCop running on Xaml. Currently VS doesnt support this; but now you have the functionality at your tooltips. The toolkit has a Microsoft.Xaml.Tools.FxCop.dll which provides the base structure for your rules. So you could easily extend the inbuilt set of rules with that of your own.

...(read more)

Announcing CTP of XAML Toolkit

LesterLobo - MSFT — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 02:18:00 GMT

We are happy to announce the release of the second CTP of the XAMLToolkit. Where do i get it: LINK The toolkit comprises of: A XAML DOM Fxcop rule authoring support for XAML SilverlightSchemaContext that enables System.Xaml to parse...(read more)

Announcing CTP of XAML Toolkit

LesterLobo - MSFT — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 02:13:00 GMT

XAML Compliance Suite V1

LesterLobo - MSFT — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 13:28:00 GMT

Generally, when theres an open spec format, theres usually a set of tests that ensure that the spec is being followed right. As as example, the Acid tests help in deterning the support of web standards in different web browsers. So when it came to XAML, we (Xaml team) decided that we should have a basic set of tests that can be used to determine whether the parser implementation is compliant with the XAML spec. You can find the latest XAML spec at (LINK)

So here we have it, V1 of the XAML Compliance suite of tests. The suite consists of two parts: a custom type library and a collection of xaml files that use those types. The types are self verifiable - so using the library would need users to have a simple function that exercises their parser with the xaml files. A simple loader for the System.Xaml parser is included in the project as a sample. Since the types are CLR based they can easily be used with other parsers without needing a dependency on WPF.

The sample loader has the following usage:

Usage: SystemXamlLoader.exe XamlFileRepositoryPath TypesDll LogOnlyFailures
        XamlFileRepositoryPath: Path to directory of test xaml files
        TypesDll: Dll containing custom types to load.
        LogOnlyFailures: True|False. Defaults to True

E.g: SystemXamlLoader.exe Xaml Xaml.Test.dll false

The zipped up suite is attached

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BeeEye (Bing Image Viewer)

LesterLobo - MSFT — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 10:56:00 GMT

BeeEye is a Bing Image viewer application. Its got a very Blendish look and feel and was a quick project for our intern, Aykut Bal.

Its Multitouch enabled and also has some facebook integration. The search history keep track of previous image searches along with the thumbnails. It also showcases the jumplist feature in Win7.

you can find the app\code at LINK .. Give it a try...

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TestAPI V0.5 Released

LesterLobo - MSFT — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 12:54:00 GMT

TestAPI - It is a library of test and utility APIs that enables developers and testers to create testing tools and automated tests for .NET and Win32 applications. TestApi provides a set of common test building blocks -- types, data-structures and algorithms -- in a simple, layered, componentized and documented stack.

Its now the 5th version. In this release, we have put in a lot of fixes and updated things.

- New Theme Changing API - enables testing on different OS themese

- Sub image comparison support

- Revamped variation generation API

- Fixes\updates to command line parsing, tests, string generation, .....

Please do send feedback. Features are driven based on user feedback :)

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VS 2010 power tools available for download

LesterLobo - MSFT — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:29:00 GMT

VS 2010 power tools are out.. You can download it from HERE

its got a bunch of tools like

Customizing Tab Behavior
HTML copy
Highlight current line to easily identify the caret
Ctrl+Click to go to definition
Align Assignments
...

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Perf Tools for WPF (.NET 4)

LesterLobo - MSFT — Tue, 25 May 2010 01:30:00 GMT

You can now download the perf tools for WPF in .NET4. These tools can be use for profiling both 3.5 and 4.0 applications.

The tools come as part of the Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4 (Windows SDK 7.1) download.

If you havent yet tried it, please do so. The install also deploys a chm file which documents the tool usage

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WPF Shell Integration Library

LesterLobo - MSFT — Mon, 10 May 2010 13:29:00 GMT

One of the common complaints I have heard is that it is difficult to have a glass chrome like windows. Yeah, you could set the style to None, but then you would need to have code handling window behaviors like resize, close.... No more.. two of our devs (Adam Smith\Joe Castro) have written the WPF Shell integration library which allows you to do this very easily.. You can get the code\binaries from this link

"The custom chrome feature allows applications control over the outer frame of the window so that WPF content can be drawn over the title bar. This allows applications to integrate with Aero glass to emulate the Office 2007/2010 look and feel, or to completely replace the frame with its own content without having to manage all the system behaviors that get lost when using WindowStyle.None"

Code usage looks something like the below

<Setter.Value>

<shell:WindowChrome GlassFrameThickness="-1" />

</Setter.Value>

</Setter>

<Setter.Value>

<Grid>

<Button shell:WindowChrome.IsHitTestVisibleInChrome="True" Background="Transparent" ...

Code for the above sample is attached. Please note that the shell dll is not included. You will need to download the binary from the msdn site.

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SL Timeline control for Sharepoint

LesterLobo - MSFT — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:16:00 GMT

The other day I wanted to have a timeline control in Sharepoint so that I could easily know where each project is in its lifecycle. Yeah, you could easily use Visio or some other diagramming tool but it does take effort. So a timeline control would be nice. In Sharepoint 2010, you can host a Silverlight webpart - so there you go, we need a timeline control in Silverlight. Searching on the web, I found one by Jose Paul and with a bit of tweaking and some code to connect to Sharepoint, got it working.

As seen above, you can scroll through horizontally and zoom as well. Mouse hover pops up a tooltip with the start\end dates..

The control connects to the sharepoint site and searches for the list "TimeLine". It then gets the Field values for "Title,Start Date, End Date, Project"... Different projects (enum) have a color code associated.P1,P2,etc are project names

You would need to populate the list in Sharepoint which is easy. Whats easier is that you can export the list to Excel, update the list in Excel and sync it back to Sharepoint... The control will automatically pick up the data. Isnt that much better than using the diagramming tools :)..

The code is attached. You would need to update the code to customize to your projects,timelines, and the sharepoint site. Also, to compile you would require the sharepoint dlls which you can copy from the sharepoint server which hosts the sharepoint site.

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VS 2010 \ .NET 4 now available

LesterLobo - MSFT — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:09:00 GMT

It's finally out... yoohoo...

Live keynote: Link

Download: Link

With VS 2010, you will be able to target platforms such as Azure, Windows Phone 7, Windows 7, Sharepoint, Office, Windows Server 2008 R2.

Note that Silverlight 4 will be released later this week. Once released, you will be able to download an update that will allow users to target Silverlight 4 in development.

This is an awesome release... Get your hands on it and have fun coding..

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Windows Phone 7 Dev tools now available

LesterLobo - MSFT — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:25:00 GMT

At MIX today, Windows Phone 7 Development tools were announced to the public. You can download these from here: http://www.microsoft.com/express/phone/

Windows Phone Developer Tools includes:

·         Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone

·         Windows Phone Emulator

·         Silverlight for Windows Phone

·         XNA Game Studio 4.0 CTP

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Request for Feedback (WPF VNext)

LesterLobo - MSFT — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:13:00 GMT

So have you tried out .NET 4. If not, do give it a try. We have a bunch of new WPF features in .NET 4 and it was covered as part of the WPF features series. Now that we are close to release, whats next. This is where your feedback is invaluable. We listened to your feedback from 3.5 and incorporated several suggestions into .NET 4. Now its again time to ask for feedback to drive the direction for the next release. We would love to hear your comments\opinions on the following areas

· What are the features you would like to see in vnext of WPF? You can also vote for your features here.

· How can we improve the curve in learning WPF? Are there things we can simplify?

· Feedback on tooling support (IDE, Loc, Designers, perf tools,..)

· What do you think of the community support for WPF developers? Can we do better?

· I have seen some posts expressing reservations adopting WPF (e.g. especially when coming from a Winforms background). In general, what hiccups\reservations (if any) do you (your team) have adopting WPF?

· Any learnings\experiences adopting\using WPF

· Any random feedback not covered by the above J

Send in your feedback. We are all ears J

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XAML Power toys add-in for VS2010

LesterLobo - MSFT — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:26:00 GMT

If you have been using XAML Power toys addin in VS2008, you would be happy to know that Karl has now got it ready for VS2010..Its got some nifty features like the ViewModel creator which automates the VM creation :)...

You can download it from here

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