Skinning Words-

Corrina tells us about the different words used in Skinning. What are they? What do they mean? How are they being used on an everyday basis?

Different Ways–

Corrina talks about the different levels of changing controls. Do you want a movie to play inside of a button? Do you want to change the font of a text control? Do you want to completely change the appearance of a control?

Handoff-

The way that we copy skins between projects isn’t immediately obvious. Corrina tells us how it’s done.

Corrina’s blog
(more…)

Ted Neward rejoins us to talk about web V.next. What do we want it to look like? What rules should we follow when implementing it? What about this competition between Adobe, Sun and Microsoft, is it going to be a good thing?

Ted’s Blog
(more…)

It’s out. You can download and play with the bits, and you can even build commercial applications on the web. However, there are some things you should know.
The Big Changes
Shawn tells us the major changes. What does it mean for developers? What new stuff do we get, and what old stuff has changed?
Gotchas
Shawn guides us through the potential problems with upgrading to Silverlight 2 Beta 2. Listen as he explains his experience and shares tips.
Direction
Learn what’s publicly known about Silverlight’s status. Where are we and where are we heading?

Click here for Shawn’s incredibly popular Silverlight courses:

(more…)

I’ve hit some snags while upgrading my applications. Shawn Wildermuth has also. See his notes here.

Symptom: You use Silverlight.js to custom detect if Silverlight is installed and it reports that Silverlight is not installed when, in fact, it is.

Solution: Update to the Silverlight.js in the SDK-> Tools directory (Thanks, Shawn).

Symptom: You see a build error like: “The name ‘InitializeComponent’ does not exist in the current context” . This happens with other methods/XAML generated members.

Solution: The xaml generated .cs file is not being created. This happens because the build action is set on the XAML file to “SilverlightPage” instead of “Page”. Apparently, this is the new build action name. I got this because I brought some non-upgraded user controls into an already upgraded project. Normally, the Visual Studio upgrade wizard will take care of this.

Symptom: You get the message “Unable to start debugging. The Silverlight managed debugging package isn’t installed.” when trying to debug.

Solution: Run “silverlight_chainer.exe /extract” to get at the files inside. Then run “Silverlight.2.0_Developer.exe” I did this right over the top of the other Silverlight installs, and it seemed to work. See here for how to completely uninstall and re-install components.

Symptom: Silverlight debugging works in the Silverlight project, but it doesn’t in the ASP.Net project. Also, new versions of the Silverlight application aren’t getting copied over to the ASP.Net project.

Solution: The issue is that the Silverlight linkage mechanism has changed in Beta2. On the surface the project upgrade updates the linkage, but in my case, the .xap file was not being copied over. Worse, an existing .xap file was being used, and this was masking the problem. Go to properties for the ASP.Net project, select the “Silverlight Applications” tab, remove the existing linkage and add it again (make sure that Silverlight debugging is enabled and that a new test page isn’t created).

(more…)

Silverlight video and 3D

– Silverlight doesn’t have some of the fancy graphical effects that are in WPF. Ian takes us on a tour of why this is.

XAML everywhere?

– XAML is appearing everywhere in the Microsoft world. Why? What’s great about it? And where are some of the unexpected places we might see it cropping up?

Silverlight’s Future

– Ian takes a look in his crystal ball and gives us a guess as to what the Silverlight situation will be a year from now. In the process, he points out a surprising problem with Silverlight. A “problem” that is also one of Silverlight’s greatest strengths.

(more…)

(more…)

Silverlight is an impressive new technology, but will we regret adopting Silverlight a year from now? Neal Ford of ThoughtWorks makes the case that we will. In this show:

Platform Play

On the surface, Silverlight appears to be fairly open. Neal explains why this isn’t the case and why it is going to matter to businesses.

Testability

Neal makes the argument that Silverlight is not as testable as open-standards based technologies.

Last 10%

Neal thinks that Silverlight won’t be able to implement the last 10% of user needs. And that will leave Silverlight adopters in the lurch.

(more…)

Why Silverlight?

– There are a lot of options out there. Why is Silverlight the right choice? Why isn’t it?

Neurons and Silverlight

– Old movies had a simple trick for freaking people out. Ian explains how this worked and how we can do the opposite in our Silverlight applications.

Where are the WPF applications?

- WPF has been out for a while now. But where are all of the WPF applications? Does this mean trouble for Silverlight? Ian guides us through these questions.
(more…)

Interaction Design

– It is so critical in Silverlight, but how do you get started?  Can anyone do it?  Billy helps us out with these questions.

XBAP in place of Silverlight

– Sometimes Silverlight isn’t a viable alternative (after all it’s in Beta).  There is a trick, though, that you can use: deploy as an XBAP application initially and then (when Silverlight 2 is released) role that code into Silverlight.  However, it is a tricky process.  Billy’s doing it in his consulting business, and he tells us some of the things to consider.

Billy’s upcoming WPF book

– Billy tells us about his book and how it’s different than the other books that are out there.

(more…)