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Check out the new book “Silverlight 4 User Interface Cookbook” by Vibor Cipan:

This is the overview taken from the publisher site:

The first and only book to focus exclusively on Silverlight UI development.
Have your applications stand out from the crowd with leading, innovative, and friendly user interfaces.
Detailed instructions on how to implement specific user interface patterns together with XAML and C# (where needed) code, and explainations that are easy-to-understand and follow.
Real world projects which you can explore in detail and make modifications as you go.
Written by Vibor Cipan – Microsoft MVP for Expression Blend and WPF, and Silverlight UX specialist.

I’ve just received my copy and I’m looking forward to read it in the next days!

Check out the new book “Microsoft Silverlight 4 and SharePoint 2010 Integration” by Gastón C. Hillar:

This is the overview taken from the publisher site:

A sample chapter is available for download here: Chapter No. 1 – Integrating Silverlight 4 with Share Point 2010

I’ve just received my copy and I’m looking forward to read it in the next days!

I’ve just finished some experiments using the Windows Phone 7 emulator and the “Microsoft Surface Manipulations and Inertia Sample for Microsoft Silverlight” in order to enable Multi-Touch gestures using Blend Behaviors:

This new implementation, now available for download in the Expression Gallery, permits to enable Multi-Touch gestures (the usual translation, rotation, zoom and inertia) on separate User Controls available in the same container.

In this way you can apply distinct Multi-Touch manipulations (inertia included) to single elements using a single code in xaml:

<Grid x:Name="ContentPanel" Grid.Row="1">
  <Canvas>
      <Image Source="Images/Desert.jpg" x:Name="image1">
          <interactivity:Interaction.Behaviors>
               <WP7:MultiTouchManipulationBehavior IsInertiaEnabled="True" IsRotateEnabled="True" IsTranslateEnabled="True" IsScaleEnabled="True" MinimumScaleRadius="1" MaximumScaleRadius="720"/>
          </interactivity:Interaction.Behaviors>
      </Image>

      <Image Source="Images/Jellyfish.jpg" x:Name="image2">
          <interactivity:Interaction.Behaviors>
             <WP7:MultiTouchManipulationBehavior IsInertiaEnabled="True" IsRotateEnabled="True" IsTranslateEnabled="True" IsScaleEnabled="True" MinimumScaleRadius="60" MaximumScaleRadius="360"/>
          </interactivity:Interaction.Behaviors>
      </Image>
  </Canvas>
</Grid>

Alternatively you can use Blend inserting a reference to the project MultiTouch.Behaviors.Silverlight.WP7 and then dragging the MultiTouchManipulationBehavior from the Assets section to the  control to be touch-enabled:

Considerations

This one has been an interesting exercise in porting code written for Silverlight to Windows Phone: I had only to create a Windows Phone 7 project and add to it the code already available for the Silverlight version and all worked well quite quickly.

Limitations

At this time the behavior works only in the fixed Portrait orientation of Windows Phone: if you change to Landscape the manipulation doesn’t work well. I’ll have to investigate further and currently I don’t have a physical device to test (I’d really love to have a device to try it ).

Happy Silverlighting!

Today I’ve finally found some time to make modifications in the “MEF MVVM” project on Codeplex in order to:

• create a new module using WCF RIA Services and dynamically load this it inside the “MEF module container” described in the previous post;
• use the INavigationContentLoader interface and MEF Metadata to share the same container for the various “MEF Modules”;
• use the new Cosmopolitan theme available for Silverlight Navigation applications;
• refactor the code of the ViewModel base class using the one available in the latest Prism drops;
• refactor unit tests inserting an apposite Mock service.

The source code is available for download on Codeplex.

Happy Silverlighting!

It’s now available a great technical whitepaper that highlights the usage of Silverlight Smooth streaming technology to stream live and on demand content for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

This Whitepaper goes into the technical details on how NBC in US inserted midstream ads and monetized the online content.

This is a follow on to the 4 case studies that were published in May 2010 on how NBC USA, CTV Canada, France TV, and NRK Norway  have used Silverlight and Smooth Streaming technologies during the Winter Olympics.

The Technical Whitepaper covers the following topics:

- A Solution Overview;

- Clip Creation and Ad Insertion;

- Rough Cut Editor;

- Inserting Ads, Ad Templates, Ad Logic;

- Ads delivered in VOD;

- Monitoring Ads.

Click here to read the article and… Happy Silverlighting!

The final releases of the Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio and WCF RIA Services are available for download here.

Read the original posts by Scott Guthrie, Tim Heuer, John Papa and don’t forget to take a look at these new themes.

Enjoy!

The new book “Microsoft Silverlight 4 Data and Services Cookbook” by Gill Cleeren and Kevin Dockx is now available: 

This is the overview taken from the publisher site:

I’ve just received my copy and I’m looking forward to read it in the next days!

A sample chapter is available for download here.

Here you can find the sample code and slides (in italian) from my webcast around Silverlight 4 and MEF for the local XEdotNET user group.

The samples contain the following topics:

• Simple composition using the CompositionInitializer;
• Multiple Exports;
• Metadata;
• Custom Attributes;
• Dynamic object creation with ExportFactory;
• Simple MVVM example using MEF;
• MEF, MVVM and PRISM EventAggregator;
• Dynamic XAP loading using DeploymentCatalog;
• MEF, MVVM and Blend Sample Data.

Hope this helps and Happy Silverlighting!

If you are looking for a rich toolbar control for Silverlight, check out this project on CodePlex by Silverlight MVP Braulio Diez and Sebastian Stehle:

http://wintoolbar.codeplex.com/

The new book “Microsoft Silverlight 4 Business Application Development: Beginners Guide” by Cameron Albert and Frank LaVigne is now available:

This is the overview taken from the publisher site:

• An introduction to building enterprise-ready business applications with Silverlight quickly.
• Get hold of the basic tools and skills needed to get started in Silverlight application development.
• Integrate different media types, taking the RIA experience further with Silverlight, and much more!
• Rapidly manage business focused controls, data, and business logic connectivity.
• A suite of business applications will be built over the course of the book and all examples will be geared around real-world useful application developments, enabling .NET developers to focus on getting started in business application development using Silverlight.

I’ve just received my copy and I’m looking forward to read it in the next days!

Update: review on Amazon

I’ve just inserted a review on Amazon, you can read it here:

“A different approach for learning Silverlight

The writing style is clear. The authors guide the reader in learning many topics about Silverlight by using practical examples, starting from the basics and arriving to Rich-Media, Deep Zoom, WCF RIA Services and an introduction to the Expression suite.
The included source code for the WCF RIA examples is not updated for the latest version of the framework, however it can be easily upgraded to work with Silverlight 4 RTW.
It’s not a complete reference to Silverlight 4 but it contains useful samples for real scenarios.”