July 22nd, 2009 — Expression Blend, Expression Design, Silverlight, WPF, XAML
The Expression Studio 3 Trial is now available for download. The full version which costs $599 (or $349 upgrade) is available for preorder.
Expression Studio 3 includes:
February 10th, 2009 — Silverlight, WPF, XAML
Karl on WPF has a new release of XAML Power Toys available. In this release:
February 6th, 2009 — Flash, WPF, XAML
Microsoft Semblio is an SDK for developing interactive instructional material in WPF. Content creators can quickly assemble lessons that include various file formats and data from XAML, Office and Flash. The added quiz creation tools make it easy to test a student’s progress.
Visit the Semblio website to view demos and download the SDK.
January 8th, 2009 — Silverlight, XAML
Happy New Year.
The holidays have kept me from updating but I’m about to get back into the groove. In the meantime here are a few links.
Source code for Silverlight controls published
Hosting Silverlight content on a CDN
Via Method ~ of ~ failed
Become a Kaxaml Power User in about 7 Minutes
Via: NerdPlusArt
Microsoft Live Labs is looking for Interns
Via: Live Labs Blog
December 10th, 2008 — Expression Blend, Flash, Flex, Silverlight, WPF, XAML
For me, one of the most difficult aspects of making the jump from Flash to Silverlight/WPF was finding simple, to the point, tutorials to work from.
There are a few great resources out there now but at the time there was little information available, and what was out there assumed you already know a good deal about C# and .NET.
This made it very frustrating to get going because although I was proficient in AS2, I never really made the transition to AS3 before I dove into WPF and C#. Things that I could code up in AS2 in a matter of minutes became stumbling blocks along the way.
Recently a coworker let me borrow the book Foundation Expression Blend 2 by Victor Gaudioso.
If you’re new to WPF, or a Flash Developer making the difficult transition from ActionScript to XAML/C# this book will give you a great head start. Unlike some other books on the subject this one assumes little about your knowledge of WPF and C# and has a lot of simple tutorials that walk you through projects from end to end.
It seems like a lot books in this space are either written for developers or designers. This one hits that sweet spot in the middle and appeals to the technical designer, which is where a lot of Flash developers fall.
If I had found this when I was getting started it would have saved me a lot of time getting up to speed.
On Tuesday XChange International announced Electric Rain’s ZAM 3D, a 3D Modeling application that supports XAML.
Electric Rain ZAM 3Dâ„¢ is a full-featured 3D modelling application that enables easy creation, customisation and animation of 3D interface elements for Windows Vista based applications. Once a 3D scene is created, ZAM 3D automatically generates the XAML (eXtensible Application Markup Language) markup necessary to convert the 3D elements into a Windows Presentation Foundation “WPF” (formally Avalon) 3D scene.
Kirupa Chinnathambi has a well put together article about modifying WPF animations in C# over on his blog. It’s an easy read and will probably be useful for designers just getting their feet wet with C#.
SharpDevelop 3.0, an open source .net IDE, includes WPF and XAML support.
The designer replaces SharpDevelop’s property grid with its own, WPF-based property grid. This property grid will provide support for editing attached properties and data binding in the future.
Unlike the Windows Forms designer, which is included in the .NET Framework and merely hosted by SharpDevelop (which isn’t as easy as it sounds); the WPF designer is written from scratch. Thankfully WPF makes this a lot easier than writing a Windows Forms designer from scratch would be.
November 13th, 2007 — XAML
Kathleen Dollard has put together an interesting article on XAML over at Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine
XAML (and WPF and WF) promise to change how we program. But before you can put it to use, you need a firm understanding of what this technology is and what its strengths are.
September 21st, 2007 — WPF, XAML
Pavan Podila put together a nice overview on how to create balloon popups in WPF.
The source code is available for download here.
