XAML Wonderland

A common dilemma while attending big conferences is choosing which sessions to attend.  Look around you at break time and you’ll see scores of attendees analyzing the conference schedule and making pencil marks next to the talks they find interesting.  Once they’ve settled on a plan they scurry off to the session, grabbing a few [...]

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I’ve mentioned MSDN Code Gallery in the past but let me call it out once again.  Microsoft maintains two sites for sharing content. CodePlex (http://www.codeplex.com/) Codeplex is intended to be the home for your open source code project. As such it sports a number of project level enhancements: a version control system (which supports Team [...]

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Composite Application Guidance (Prism) has been out for over a year and is currently at version 2.0.  There are a handful of articles out on the web showing how to create a simple Prism application. Be aware that many of these refer to version 1.0 of Prism and have outdated advice and syntax.  As always, [...]

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I’ve been posting about Shazzam for over a year  on my WpfWonderland blog.  Now that Shazzam version 1.1 is about to be released I figure that it is time to setup a dedicated blog. http://blog.shazzam-tool.com   News and discussion regarding the Shazzam Pixel Shader Utility. Yes, that’s the goal.  To have a place to describe upcoming [...]

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Shazzam development is moving again Shazzam is changing. There hasn’t been much improvement to Shazzam this year and that’s a shame.  Especially since there is an influx of Silverlight developers exploring the benefits that pixel shaders bring to their projects. Many of you have discovered Shazzam via enthusiastic support from the WPF and  Silverlight community.  [...]

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Creating an ImageBrush in Blend has always been a multi-step process.  Blend 3 makes a few improvements in the steps necessary for creating a ImageBrush.  You can still use the traditional way if you desire. Copy an Image to Clipboard The first step in making making an ImageBrush is to copy a image to the [...]

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Dev102.com has a nice post explaining how to write a Brightness extension method. Excerpt: Suppose you have several objects in your WPF application filled with similar Brushes which differ in brightness only. Like in this image: The nine rectangles use the same RadialGradienBrush but each rectangle is a little darker than previous. You can create [...]

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Pixel Shader Effects are starting to go mainstream.  Now that Silverlight 3, WPF and Expression Blend support Shader Effects I expect to see a blossoming of interesting effects libraries.  A case in point. Charles, over at digitalepiphania.com has an new pixel shader that is worth investigating.   His shader effect converts any XAML visual into a [...]

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Oh to be the first kid in the neighborhood to get that new video game that the rest of your friends covet. What a sweet feeling to learn the secrets of the game, master the arcane moves and beat the game before everyone else. Once you’ve established yourself as the resident expert you’ll soon find [...]

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Part One A common UI metaphor in recent times is the circular wait cursor or progress indicator. This article shows some easy techniques within Expression Blend 2 that simplify creating this modern UI indicator. After showing how to easily layout multiple child elements in a 360-degree pattern, I will show animation techniques for spinning, sizing [...]

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