Building a Metro UI with WPF - moodmosaic (Nikos Baxevanis) Have you ever used the Zune software? I guess so, but I haven't until version 4.7.1404.0 came out. This version comes with significant changes: Windows Phone 7 support and integration with Windows Live Essentials 2011 among other. When I first run the software I got amazed by the user interface (UI). I told to myself, "this must not be WPF, no way!". Since the UI is not built with WPF then what kind of technology did the Zune team used? Great, so Zune software is a managed application, or better, if it's an unmanaged application at least it hosts the CLR in it's process. Followed by a quick view with Reflector: As you can see, the root namespace is Microsoft.Iris . Is it possible to build a similar UI with WPF? The first difficulties came when setting the WindowStyle enumeration to None. The image above is not what we want. How can we move the window? By adding a Shape (ex. a Rectangle ) and registering on it's PreviewMouseDown event: // Is this a double-click? How can we resize the window?
Announcing the WebsiteSpark Program I’m excited to announce a new program – WebsiteSpark – that Microsoft is launching today. WebsiteSpark is designed for independent web developers and web development companies that build web applications and web sites on behalf of others. It enables you to get software, support and business resources from Microsoft at no cost for three years, and enables you to expand your business and build great web solutions using ASP.NET, Silverlight, SharePoint and PHP, and the open source applications built on top of them. What does the program provide? WebSiteSpark provides software licenses that you can use for three years at no cost. 3 licenses of Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition 1 license of Expression Studio 3 (which includes Expression Blend, Sketchflow, and Web) 2 licenses of Expression Web 3 4 processor licenses of Windows Web Server 2008 R2 4 processor licenses of SQL Server 2008 Web Edition DotNetPanel control panel (enabling easy remote/hosted management of your servers) Scott
XAML Dialog Control: Enabling MVVM and Dialogs in WPF Download sample - 42.12 KB Introduction Wouldn't it be great if you could use dialogs like any other control in XAML? That is, drop in a <Dialog> element and have a modal dialog window appear? This would let Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) programs show dialogs without touching the XAML's code behind; a feat not currently possible with Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). Background True proponents of MVVM believe that MVVM applications should have no substantial code behind for XAML files. Using the Code The dialog control is defined in the "DialogControl" folder of the sample code. xmlns:dialog="clr-namespace:MVVMDialogSample.DialogControl" Then add the Dialog as a child control. After adding the control to your XAML, a window may appear. Run the code and a window will appear with the content "Hello World!". Much more interesting is to set or bind the Content property to a complex object. Then, set a trigger on the Dialog which shows the dialog only when it has Content. Points of Interest
Expression Community The proliferation of rich interactive web applications across the cloud and mobile devices continues to create new opportunities for creative design and development. As these technologies evolve, Microsoft is committed to providing best-in-class tools for building modern applications. In support of these industry trends Microsoft is consolidating our lead design and development offerings — Expression and Visual Studio — to offer all of our customers a unified solution that brings together the best of Web and modern development patterns. Blend will continue to ship as a standalone tool with Visual Studio 2012, as part of a consolidated designer/developer offering. Blend for Visual Studio 2012 provides a rich design-centric environment for building Windows Store apps and Windows Phone apps. Expression Blend With Visual Studio 2012 we introduced Blend for Visual Studio, providing advanced design-centric capabilities for Windows Store apps and Windows Phone apps. Expression Web
Showing Dialogs When Using the MVVM Pattern Download source - 187 KB Contents Introduction This article will address one of the problems a developer might run into when using the MVVM pattern, namely opening dialogs from ViewModels. There already exist some solutions exploring this area, but none of them seem to be widely accepted among the MVVM community. My Interpretation of MVVM I am possibly sticking my neck out here, but I would like to state some of my own interpretations of the MVVM pattern: The fundamental core is the separation of UI and logic. The Dialog Service The concept of letting services handle relations between the ViewModel and View seems to be the most accepted solution. The actual implementation of IDialogServiceis is DialogService. The design is pretty straightforward. The View is now remembered by the dialog service. Showing a Dialog from a ViewModel There exist two overloads for using the ShowDialog method. What Now? I would like to hear your thoughts about the idea. History 5 October 2010: Code update.
Training | Microsoft Expression Blend | Microsoft® Expression® The proliferation of rich interactive web applications across the cloud and mobile devices continues to create new opportunities for creative design and development. As these technologies evolve, Microsoft is committed to providing best-in-class tools for building modern applications. In support of these industry trends Microsoft is consolidating our lead design and development offerings — Expression and Visual Studio — to offer all of our customers a unified solution that brings together the best of Web and modern development patterns. Blend continues to ship as a standalone tool with Visual Studio 2013, as part of a consolidated designer/developer offering. Blend for Visual Studio 2013 provides a rich design-centric environment for building applications for the Windows Store, Windows Phone, WPF, and Silverlight. Expression Blend Try Visual Studio 2013 Expression Web The web is now about applications as well as traditional web sites, and this requires a new set of tools. Expression Design
Creating Inner Shadow Effects for WPF and Silverlight Introduction If you've ever been tasked with converting a Photoshop design into a WPF UI, you'll probably have tried the Expression Blend Photoshop Import feature. So you'll know that whilst it does a pretty good job of importing simple Photoshop files, it struggles when asked to convert the little flourishes with which designers like to top off their masterpieces. Like Inner shadows. In this article, I'll show you a couple of ways of creating inner shadow effects in WPF, one of which also works for Silverlight. Pleased to meet you, Mr. If you've not met an inner shadow before, allow me to introduce you. Here’s a grey rectangle: And here's a grey rectangle with an inner shadow: Subtle, isn’t it? Clip Regions and Opacity Masks Question is, how can we create an inner shadow in WPF? Clip regions and Opacity Masks both achieve a similar effect, though in different ways. Opacity Masks are like stencils which WPF lays over the top of your element. Inner Shadows Using ClipToBounds Acknowledgements
Windows Presentation Foundation Pixel Shader Effects Library Fluent ViewModel Configuration for WPF (MVVM) Step 1: Define the view model The view model is the contract between the controller and the view. This should have the properties that may be bound to from the view, including any commands (ICommand). Example public interface IDemoViewModel { string Title { get; set; } string Text { get; set; } long Counter { get; set; } IList<string> List { get; set; } ICommand Command { get; set; } } Step 2: Define the controller service The controller service hosts the command behavior for the view model. public interface IViewModelController { void Command(IDemoViewModel demoViewModel); void Initialize(IDemoViewModel demoViewModel); } Step 3: Configure the view model The view model configuration controls how the view model behaves at runtime. This includes: Step 4: Configure the validator This step is optional. public class DemoViewModelValidator : ValidationConfiguration<IDemoViewModel> { public DemoViewModelValidator() { RuleFor(x => x.Text) .NotNull() .NotEmpty(); } } Step 5: Build the controller service