Kathy Kam : Silverlight Controls

Silverlight 3 Beta 1 announced!

KathyKam — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:02:00 GMT

Finally... after months of working out Silverlight 3 Beta 1, it is announced!! Now I can freely blog about the features I work on! :)

So what exactly have I been working on? Since Silverlight 2 ships, I became one of the lead PMs on a new team of Silverlight that will focus on helping developers build great RIA applications end to end. My subteam's focus will be on the UI side and we'll deliver controls and application pieces in the Silverlight 3 Toolkit and the Silverlight 3 SDK.

Some of the features my subteam delivered at MIX are:

ChildWindow
DataForm
DataGrid
DataPager
Navigation (Frame, Page, Deeplinking..etc.)
Validation UI (ErrorSummary)

You can see these controls in action in the Silverlight Toolkit Sample. If you have feedback about any of these controls, feel free to contact me directly or post a comment on the Silverlight Toolkit forum. My team will be monitoring the forum closely.

As excited as I am about the set of features above, this is really only half of the end to end experience my team is responsible for. The other half is the .NET Ria Services, which allows developers to quickly access their data between client and server.

The .NET RIA Services is an framework that provides a pattern to write application logic that runs on the mid-tier and controls access to data for queries, changes and custom operations

To discuss about ".NET RIA Services", you can post on the forum here. So... what are you waiting for? Go download the ".NET Ria Services" March 2009 preview!

I can't wait to hear what you think about these features!

How to "template" the Silverlight Calendar to behave like the Vista system calendar [Jason Cooke]

KathyKam — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 02:07:00 GMT

Jason Cooke works as a software tester for the AppFx group at Microsoft, where he's has been responsible for testing the Calendar and DatePicker controls.

One feature that I wanted in the Calendar control for Silverlight 2 was cool transition effects, where changing the visible days/months/years would kick off some neat animation. That feature did not make it in, but I've been working on a hack that uses the Silverlight templating model to add new functionality. You can view the results at http://jrcooke.members.winisp.net/share/SlidingCalendarDemo/default.htm.

By handling the loaded event in the templates for the CalendarButton and CalendarDayButton, an app can graft an additional helper class (in this case SlidingCalendarHelper) on top of the existing Calendar control and change its behaviors.

To get this functionality in your Silverlight application:

(Please note that this code is provided under the Microsoft Public License and is also provided "as is", without warranty of any kind.)

1. Download the SlidingCalendar project from http://jrcooke.members.winisp.net/share/SlidingCalendar.zip.

2. Add the SlidingCalendar project to your solution.

3. In your page, add an event handler like this:

private void CalendarButtonLoaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)

{

double transitionSeconds = 1.0;

bool spin = true;

SlidingCalendar.SlidingCalendarHelper.AddButton(

(DependencyObject)sender, transitionSeconds, spin);

}

4. Retemplate your CalendarButton and CalendarDayButtons so each of their root Grid controls hook up their Loaded event to the CalendarButtonLoaded handler. (If you are already templating your controls, just add in the event handler code.)

5. Test it out!

Change the values of the local variables the method to change how fast the transition occurs and if the buttons spin.

How it works:

When you call SlidingCalendarHelper's AddButton method, it walks up the visual tree to determine which calendar holds the button. The method sets up dummy versions of each day, month, and year button, and puts them in their own grids, to mimic what the real buttons look like. It also binds to the data context of the real buttons, so that the dummy versions to be updated the real values change.

There are two types of transitions supported:

1. Moving from one mode to another (for example, from the month mode to the year mode),

2. Moving from one range of dates to another within a particular mode.

At the start of both types of transitions, the state of the calendar's previous set of buttons is duplicated in dummy buttons, which are moved into the location previously occupied by the real buttons. The real buttons are moved outside of the calendar in a staging position, and the myDoubleAnimation1 animation is started at 0.

As the animation moves from 0 to 1, the dummy buttons are moved out of the way, while the real buttons are brought into their correct location. When moving from one date range to another, the movement is just sliding the buttons around under the calendar. When changing modes, the buttons expand or shrink.

Known Issues

It probably goes without saying, but this code is provided under the Microsoft Public License and is also provided "as is", without warranty of any kind. In particular, I know of a few issues that, being a tester, it is hard for me to ignore:

1. Ideally, the buttons would be clipped to a region completely within the grid region of the calendar. However, when changing from mode to mode, the buttons move over the Calendar header region.

2. When changing months or modes before the previous transition finishes, the buttons can sometimes get stuck in an intermediate state.

3. The animations eat up a lot of the CPU. It should be more performant.

4. Dummy buttons don't always look right then the buttons are using a custom template. This indicates that the code for creating the dummy buttons is missing something.

I hope that you find this code useful!

Enjoy your programming,

Jason

It's been crazy the past few months leading up to MIX. I'll have a lot of great stuff to post soon ^_~ . In the mean time, I hope you all enjoyed Jason's post. Thank you Jason!

</Editorial Comment>

Silverlight 2 Controls Source & Unit Test available!

KathyKam — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 06:20:00 GMT

Many of you have been asking us where you can get the source and unit test of all the Silverlight 2 controls. It is now available on Microsoft Download. Enjoy!

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=EB83ED4C-AC85-4DE9-8395-285628EE2254&displaylang=en

Silverlight 2 has RTW! (a week ago)

KathyKam — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 07:33:51 GMT

Yes, I know. I'm a little late to the party. This past few weeks has been crazy, with Silverlight 2 RTW, PDC coming up and I'm going to TechEd EMEA, my blogging has fallen behind. :( But even tho I'm a week behind, I'd like to use this time to thank everyone I've worked with on this awesome product. There was a lot of people involved in shipping this and the process has been stressful, difficult but most of all... FUN!

Anyway, my controls demo has been updated to Silverlight 2 RTW! :) I have actually been working on a separate demo. That needs a little more polishing up first but I'll post it soon enough.

   Silverlight Controls Demo
   Uploaded on October 23
   Created by: Kathy Kam

A sample of twenty-four Silverlight 2 controls that can be viewed live together with the source code used to drive the controls.

By clicking Download It you accept the license

Tim Heuer has also updated the WatermarkTextBox code for RTW. Thanks Tim!

Now it's on to Silverlight 2+ and beyond~~~!!!

WatermarkedTextBox for Silverlight 2 Beta 2

KathyKam — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 04:55:00 GMT

One breaking change you may have noticed between Silverlight 2 Beta 1 and Beta 2 is that WatermarkedTextBox is no longer available in the Silverlight SDK (System.Windows.Controls.Extended.dll).

We decided to remove the control because in a future version of Silverlight, we will be adding a “Watermark” property to TextBox. Given this upcoming change, it does not make sense to have "WatermarkedTextBox" as a separate control, so we decided to remove the control from Silverlight 2.

Because the update to TextBox will not happen until a future version of Silverlight feel free download and use the WatermarkedTextBox source code and unit test in the mean time. By downloading the source and unit tests you accept the license.

Here is an example on how to use it:

For more information on how to use this control, check out our Beta1 documentation in MSDN:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.controls.watermarkedtextbox(VS.95).aspx

In additional to porting the source code & unit test for Beta 1, we also did the following:

Updated the template to use new features in the framework (i.e. VisualStateManager)
Bug fixing: When the control has focus, MouseOver state will no longer be active after moving the mouse away from the cotnrol
Bug fixing: Allow setting BorderBrush correctly

If you run into any problems, let me know! :)

<Editorial Note>
This is also a great example on how to use the new Visual State Manager for Silverlight 2 Beta 2!
Also a special "Thank you" to the WatermarkedTextBox dev Alex Bulankou for porting the source code, updating & fixing the bugs.
</Editorial Note>

Silverlight 2 Beta 2 has shipped!

KathyKam — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 07:52:00 GMT

Just a few hours ago, I was doing my talk based on Silverlight 2 Beta 2 bits and one of my attendee asked about when Beta 2 will be available. I am happy to annouce that it is now available!

Download the bits now on Silverlight.Net!

I have also updated my controls sample for Beta 2. I've made some significant changes and I hope you like it! :)

Silverlight Control Demo Sample
Uploaded on June 4
Created by: Microsoft

A sample of twenty-four Silverlight 2 controls that can be viewed live together with the source code used to drive the controls.

By clicking Download It you accept the license

I'm always interested to hear feedback, so remember to leave a comment and let me know what you think about the controls and the sample!

The links to my sample is broken on Silverlight.NET . I have contacted the owners of the page to see what's wrong. In the mean time, I have uploaded it on my WINISP account and set the links above to it. I'll update this blog once the links are fixed.

Links on Silverlight.Net is now fixed! Woohoo!

</Editorial Note>

See you all @ TechEd '08!

KathyKam — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Just bought my tickets and booked my hotel to TechEd '08! Can't wait to see everyone in Orlando again this year!!

Here is my schedule:

Tuesday 6/3: 8:30am to 6:00pm - TLC Booth Dev Area

Thursday 6/5: 8:15am to 2:45pm- TLC Booth Dev Area

Friday 6/6: 11:30pm to 2:45pm - TLC Booth Dev Area

4:30pm to 5:45pm - Chalk Talk

My Chalk talk is titled: "Tips, Tricks, and Techniques for Building a Great Microsoft Silverlight Application"

I will demonstrate how to use all the latest set of controls for Silverlight 2 focusing on the ones that are not available to WPF.
I will give you a set of Tips & Tricks when building Silverlight application with these controls
Demonstrate step by step on how you can style & retemplate these existing controls

I know it is late in the conference, but come join me and learn how to build a great Silverlight 2 application!

MVP Summit 2008

KathyKam — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:24:43 GMT

The 2008 MVP Summit started today. I hope everyone has been enjoying the sessions so far! I am really looking forward to chatting with all my MVPs tomorrow. The MVP summit has always been one of my favourite conference, because all the MVPs are under Microsoft NDAs so we get share and get feedback on brand new plans and technologies that are still "Microsoft Confidential". (Another good thing about it is that I get to go home and sleep in my own bed! :) )

This year, I owned coordinating the "CAD and RIA" track, and we have some awesome sessions lined up, and tomorrow is an exciting day for the "CAD & RIA" MVPs.

First off, we have a keynote by ScottGu to kick off the day. Next we have a bunch of sessions that has lots of brand new content. (i.e. this is not a MIX re-run or a TechEd preview) After a long day of sessions, we end the day with the "CAD & RIA" product group dinner.

This year, we're doing a combined dinner with the ASP.NET MVPs and product group members across WPF, Silverlight, Windows Forms and ASP.NET (like Scott Guthrie, Brad Abrams, Pat Helland and myself just to name a few!) will be hanging out with our MVPs to learn about what they've been up to.

For those of you who'd like to chat about Silverlight controls with me, I'll be spending my entire day at MSCC / Hood tomorrow where all the CAD & RIA sessions are being held. I will be there to answer any questions from MVPs and help connect them to the right Microsoft folks (I am the official Product group person assigned to the "CAD & RIA" MVPs on Tuesday, and TedHu will be there on Wednesday.) I am also doing a session with Karen Corby on the Silverlight controls and will share with you our latest plans and what changes you can expect to see in Silverlight RTW!

So if any MVPs out there would like to learn more about our controls, want to give us feedback or just to chat. You know where to find me! :)

Oh and if you are not an MVP and wish you could come to our MVP summit, there is always next year, but first you'll need to be a MVP. For more information, check it out here. MVP is not an easy Microsoft "award" to get, but it is well worth it!

Silverlight 2 Beta 1 Control Samples

KathyKam — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:54:50 GMT

My sample and its source is now live on http://silverlight.net! It show case a variety of controls we have built for the Silverlight 2 Beta 1. We have quite an good set of controls. It shouldn't surprise my readers to know that we have a DatePicker and a Calendar. :) And yes, I am the PM for those features. So for those of you who are sick of using my Silverlight 1.1 Calendar/DatePicker. Pick up the latest Silverlight 2 Beta 1!

Silverlight Control Demo Sample
Uploaded on March 5
Created by: Kathy Kam

A sample of twenty-four Silverlight 2 controls that can be viewed live together with the source code used to drive the controls.

Check out other samples here:

http://silverlight.net/community/gallerydetail.aspx?cat=5&sort=1#vid1080

Also, as mentioned by ScottGu this morning. You can download the source and unit tests to all the controls here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ea93dd89-3af2-4acb-9cf4-bfe01b3f02d4&displaylang=en

Love to hear what you think! I am excited to see applications people build with these controls. Tell me what you are building!

Mix '08 - Venetian, Las Vegas!

KathyKam — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 20:41:00 GMT

After moths of hardwork, I am sitting here at MIX '08. I've been here a day and I'm absolutely loving the experience. I love the fact that we are not just presenting an array of technology. We are presenting an experience. The "Web" experience. Every technology in every sessions revolves around the theme.

Anyways, if you are also in town and would like to chat. I will be at the "Sandbox and Open Space" area from 3pm to 6pm today.

I'd love to hear what you are buuilding, what you technologies you are looking forward to, and of course... let me know what you think of the controls we have shipped!!

Another preview of the Controls in Silverlight 2!

KathyKam — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 02:08:00 GMT

This morning, my VP ScottGu published a blog about Silverlight 2. I haven't blog much, well one because I am not really allowed to reveal anything interesting and two, I have been totally swamped.

Anyways, from his blog and his demo, you can see a partial list of what controls we'll be delivering at MIX! I am currently working on a demo that is basically a Silverlight Control's version of this page: http://www.asp.net/ajax/ajaxcontroltoolkit/samples/ build entirely in Silverlight.

Rich Controls: Silverlight 2 includes a rich set of built-in controls that developers and designers can use to quickly build applications. This upcoming Beta1 release includes core form controls (TextBox, CheckBox, RadioButton, etc), built-in layout management panels (StackPanel, Grid, Panel, etc), common functionality controls (Slider, ScrollViewer, Calendar, DatePicker, etc), and data manipulation controls (DataGrid, ListBox, etc). The built-in controls support a rich control templating model, which enables developers and designers to collaborate together to build highly polished solutions.

After MIX is annouced, I can go indepth into topics like:
- Using Controls
- Templating Controls
- Databinding Controls
...etc.

This is exciting... and I hope to see all of in at MIX!

What controls do you want in Silverlight v2?

KathyKam — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:17:00 GMT

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I have been pretty busy working on the controls! I want to thank everyone who responded to my previous blog on what controls they want. Here are some of the controls left by my readers:

- DataGrid
- DateTimePicker
- MaskedTextBox
- Databound ListView
- Charting Control
- TreeView
- Layout Controls
- Media Player
- RichTextBox
- FlowDocumentReader

The data left in my blog is very interesting. I'm surprised no one asked for a Button, CheckBox, RadioButton, TextBox..etc. Then again, since we haven't confirmed our initial list of controls. I wonder whether you just expect that to be in the platform.

So.. out of curiosity... I wonder, if you were to list the 10 or 20 controls you expect to be in the platform for the Silverlight v2 release, what would they be? All the controls in WPF? All the controls in Windows Forms? All the controls in ASP.NET?

Silverlight 2.0 Beta coming soon ... (with Rich Controls)

KathyKam — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 10:46:00 GMT

I have been quiet on my blog since my Tech Ed trips and the Acropolis annoucement. Some of you may wonder what I am working on next. As we start rolling some of the core Acropolis ideas into future frameworks, we need to make sure that the future framework itself is a productive and successful framework.

Today, Scott Guthrie (my VP) annouced the Silverlight 2.0 release. In his annoucement, he mentioned:

"Rich Controls: Silverlight will deliver a rich set of controls that make building Rich Internet Applications much easier. The next Silverlight preview release will add support for core form controls (textbox, checkbox, radiobutton, etc), built-in layout management controls (StackPanel, Grid, etc), common functionality controls (TabControl, Slider, ScrollViewer, ProgressBar, etc) and data manipulation controls (DataGrid, etc)."

If you were familiar with what I was working on in Acropolis, it should come at no surprise that I will be working on the set of Rich Controls for Silverlight now. :) I hope to take the customer feedback we got from Acropolis, along with learnings in the AJAX framework and deliver some awesome controls.

In coming months, I hope to be able to share some of my experience in designing, building and shipping these controls with my loyal readers! I bet some of you can already guess which controls I'll be owning. :)

Out of curiosity... What are the top controls do you want to see in Silverlight?

MonthCalendar and Datepicker control for Silverlight

KathyKam — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 04:00:00 GMT

In my spare time, I wrote a MonthCalendar and DatePicker control for Silverlight. It was just a side project for me to learn Silverlight.

My MonthCalendar and DatePicker can be downloaded here. The sample works with Silverlight 1.1 RC Alpha Refresh (Sept 2007) that can be downloaded here.

Please note that the code snippet is provided under the Microsoft Permissive Liceanse, and I provide it "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose.

If you actually use it.. I'll be interested to know where and how! :)