Entries Tagged 'Recommended Resources' ↓

Shawn Wildermuth, theADOguy (who should really rename himself the Silverlight guy) is giving a free seminar at the Microsoft office in Dallas on 2/18. Shawn is a very smart cool guy who knows a lot about a lot, and even more about Silverlight, so this should be a great event, and I'm told he's capping it at 32 seats so "don't say I didn't warn yer."

Pragmatic ADO.NET: Data Access for the Internet World (Microsoft .NET Development Series) by Shawn Wildermuth Read more about this title...

Today's Webcast focused on factoring out repeated creation of objects in XAML (and their manipulation in the code behind) by creating objects dynamically using CreateFromXaml (This will be available for viewing as soon as the recording is processed).

The webcast began by showing this application, that uses animation to display changes in data over time.

It then explored the problems with this approach and offered a solution as shown in this video.

During the course of the webcast I mentioned a number of postings that you may want to read:

• A tip of the day covering CreateFromXAML
• Tip of the Day showing that you can retrieve the Silverlight control (plugin) using GetHost()
• Brief Tip of the Day pointing to information about the Silverlight control's content sub-object
• Introductory Video on using Silverlight with Web Services
• More advanced video that uses Silverlight with Web Services, AJAX and JSON

Thanks again.

Do not miss Adam Kinney's excellent tutorial on creating a bar chart in Silverlight 1.0; it is brilliant, and it is a great staring point on working with XAML, JavaScript, JSON data and many other interesting aspects of Silverlight.

Also, while I have you, a quick apology; in my haste to put up today's Tip of the Day I posted a msg. that I would be late; brainlessly forgetting that said message would be sent out via RSS wasting everyone's time and bits. Won't happen again.

Kelly White has updated the Silverlight Tip of the Day Vista Gadget  and added the ability to set the update frequency; so that you are sure to get the Tip of the Day just after it is posted (1 pm GMT -5).

Thank you if you were able to join our Webcast Silverlight For Total Novices. (If you were unable to attend, please keep an eye on the events page for the Recording.)

In the time we had, we could only scratch the surface, but a number of resources were mentioned and I wanted to make sure that I posted links to them so that you can find them easily. While I'm at it I'll add a few other valuable resoruces that were not mentioned.

In imperfect order they include:

1. The best starting point is the Silverlight Site

2. You may want to read my post Silverlight For Total Novices that reviews the steps for downloading what you need and recommends which videos to watch and in what order (This post by Tim Heuer explains why you need the Silverlight tools for Visual Studio 2008 even though you are building 1.0 applications and the tool says it is for 1.1!)

3. A great next stop is the Fire Starter tutorials.

4. The "How Do I" videos on creating shapes, fill, transforms, drag and drop and streaming are all here.

5. If you are interested in what is coming in Silverlight 2.0, Scott Guthrie's announcement is the third item in this blog entry. 

6. Questions and Answers can be found on our forum

Thanks again and best of luck!

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In a great blog listing  today, Tim Sneath discusses Infragistics just released NetAdvantage control set for WPF. In his excellent write up, Tim links to this incredible screenshot from Infragistics of an app that they "very quickly" build with WPF and their controls

Yowza!

This is great news, but being a total Silverlight Geek, I was immediately jealous: hey, where's ours? 

<slap!> One company, one team.  <slap!>

Yeah, but awww....

Well, <whew> I was glad to see that Infragistics is on on the case!  Turns out that they are already building some prerelease 2.0 control prototypes, including this cool gauge,

I'll try to give some exposure to other companies that are also working on control sets for Silverlight 2.0 from time to time.  There are a lot of exciting things cooking.

<corny>

Could be!
Who knows?
There's something due any day;
I will know right away,
Soon as it shows...

Could it be? Yes, it could.
Something's coming, something good,
If I can wait!
Something's coming, I don't know what it is,
But it is
Gonna be great!

lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
© 1956, 1957 Amberson Holdings LLC and Stephen Sondheim. Copyright renewed.
Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company LLC, Publisher.

</corny>