Hey WPF devs - as of today you can get the Microsoft Surface 2.0 SDK and write your own surface app. You can even use a Windows 7 touch computer to create and test your app! To start playing and get more info, go to the www.surface.com !

The writers on the WPF Developer Content team own over 30K topics in the MSDN library. But one of the most viewed topics is Getting Started (WPF). I'm trying to make the topic more helpful, relevant, to the point, etc. I updated the page a few months ago and was hoping I'd get some feedback from customers...

I got an email the other day from Ivo Manolov who worked for several years as the test lead for WPF and then for a bit as the PM lead. He's recently moved to a new group, but he summarized what he's learned from his experience leading the WPF team into two blog posts. One on driving projects ( Principles...

The WPF team has put together a new blog where you can go and find out what the people who create WPF are up to. We'll still be here writing the developer content and blogging about that, but if you want to find out what your favorite WPF developer (or tester, PM, architect, etc.) is thinking about,...

At Tech Ed, one of the things we heard over and over is “More code!”  This is not a new comment. We hear it a lot and believe me we are trying to get the code you want (simpler, more complex, full downloadable sample) where you want it. But there are a few tricks to finding code already out there...

I got an email the other day that included a twitter post with a link to this "map" of our documentation samples. It is a pretty fun way to see what all we have available. I don't know who created it but I really like it! Especially since we had a hard time designing our wiki page on code gallery. Check...

Recently I needed to get data from a database by calling a stored procedure. This seemed like it should be easy to do but it ended taking me 2 days to find the right feature that would work. My knowledge of databases is extremely limited and I ended up winding along a not very helpful path. Hopefully...

I finally got some time to dig through all my customer feedback requests and found a glaring problem! The OpenFileDialog class has basically no content on it and so I set about correcting that. It turned out there was a nice little example already living in the Dialog Boxes Overview topic but with no...

One of the exciting new features in .NET 4 is the ability to use Windows 7 Shell features like Jump Lists, Thumbnail Buttons, and progress indicators in Taskbar buttons, with your WPF applications. These features are found in the System.Windows.Shell namespace in .NET 4. However, if you need to target...

The Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Release Candidate is now available along with the documentation online at MSDN. There are a few new things you might want to check out. The Getting Started with WPF walkthrough has been completely updated for this release. You'll find downloadable...

In my last post , I demonstrated how to rotate the text inside a DataGrid header. And I suggested that you might want to actually create angled headers that look something like this. My friend Cheryl, from the Silverlight UE team, and I decided to try this out. To make this work you need to know...

I was talking to Cheryl who writes for the Silverlight User Education team and she was trying to make DataGrid column headers with angled text. She was having trouble getting it to work so we sat down to look at it. We couldn't make it work, but I went back to my office and started working on it in WPF...

Here’s a most excellent demonstration of how to author a custom design experience that’s shared between WPF and Silverlight controls. Karl gives you a detailed, step-by-step walkthrough, complete with Task List breadcrumbs: Walkthrough guidance in the form of Task List hints That’s so clever it blows...

uxlabs@Microsoft has just released Fishbowl, a sample client application for Facebook, complete with source code. Fishbowl requires .NET 3.5 and uses WPF and ClickOnce . If you’re using Windows 7, it also demonstrates new features such as Jump Lists, taskbar previews, and multitouch. You can get more...

In past versions of our Visual Studio and .NET Framework documentation, you may have experienced frustration when you tried to access our WPF sample code. No more. We’ve picked the best samples, hoisted them out of the docs, updated them for Visual Studio 2010, and uploaded them to Code Gallery: WPF...

Docs for .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 , Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) , and Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 are now available at MSDN. You can get information on installing the beta here . Here are some of the latest updates to the WPF documentation that you might want to check out. What's New...

If you want to author custom design-time experiences for your WPF controls, this is a good place to start. We have samples for custom adorners, context menus, property value editors, and advanced scenarios. This code is written for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2, but you should have luck with the Beta...

The third preliminary version of TestApi , the testing API library has been released. TestApi is a library of test and utility APIs that you can use to test WPF, Windows Forms, .Net Framework, and Win32 applications. Check out Ivo's blog post for information on changes and new features in this version...

Including Sketchflow ! Check out the Expression Web site and be sure to download the 60 day trial . Stay in touch with the Blend team by visiting the Expression Web blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/xweb/default.aspx?p=3 . New Blend 3 features: http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/Blend_Features.aspx...

We’re featured over at WindowsClient.NET on the new WPF and Silverlight Designer for Visual Studio 2010 page. There are new walkthroughs and videos for creating your first WPF and Silverlight applications, as well as tutorials for setting up the designer to your liking. Visual Studio 2010 layout And...

At the deadline for Visual Studio 10 Beta 1 content complete, I was madly trying to check in art and code for the DataGrid APIs. I thought I got it all in but failed to click submit to actually finish uploading the code for CellStyle . So if you are interested, here is a little sample code. Using styles...

The second preliminary version of TestApi , the testing API library has been released. TestApi is a library of test and utility APIs that you can use to test WPF, Windows Forms, .Net Framework, and Win32 applications. You can see Ivo's post for more information. You can get the TestApi from http:...

Want fast MSDN docs that are scoped only for beta WPF and can be accessed without an internet connection? Download the WPF CHM . BTW, if your download is slow, it's an 108 MB file coming from my machine at home. Needless to say this is an unfunded project so any comments on the good/bad value of...

I just finished reviewing a document for using the WPF Performance Profiling Tools and I have to say it looks like a lot of fun. I'm ready to start hooking up all my sample apps just to see what happens. I know perf is an issue everyone cares about and if you haven't seen the performance tools before...

You may have seen us blog about the excellent VantagePoint WPF controls from our friends at Mobiform . Happily, I just got a comment from Patrick Barker alerting me to the new VantagePoint Controls for Silverlight , which adds some sleek UI to your Silverlight apps:     Technorati Tags: Silverlight...