Feb 18 2012

Prism 4.1 – February 2012 available for download

Prism provides guidance designed to help you more easily design and build rich, flexible, and easy to maintain Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) desktop applications and Silverlight Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) and Windows Phone 7.1 (“Mango”) applications.

The new version 4.1 released on February 2012 is available for download here.

Read the official announcement by Blaine Wastell: Prism for Silverlight 5 Ships.


Feb 18 2012

The XAML Project is live!

A new project has been recently announced in the “Silverlight Experts” group on Linkedin by fellow group-member Laith Alasad:

The XAML Project contains “Free vector design resources for XAML-based technologies such as Silverlight, Metro, WP7, and WPF. Search and download pure XAML graphics for your web, desktop, and/or mobile applications.

It’s a very useful resource, I’ve already inserted it in my favorites!

Happy XAMLing everyone ;)


Sep 18 2011

The XAML platform is here! Download Windows 8 Developer preview

During the //Build conference in Anaheim the release of Windows 8 Developer preview has been announced: you can download it from this link.

To get started an impressive number of video tutorials is available in the official site of the conference: http://www.buildwindows.com/.

Check out also this great post by Michael for downloading all the Build videos in your pc.

Useful resources are available in the SDK: all the XAML Metro style app samples are available following this link.

It’s possible to install Windows 8 side by side with your operating system using a boot from VHD: I’ve followed the instructions described here by Mister Goodcat and all went smoothly.

The new platform and tools are well described in this “Big Picture” showed during the conference:
Laurent Bugnion, Rene Schulte and Doug Seven have great insights into the new platform and tools here, here and here.

Also available for download:

For those like me (also) interested in WPF, a list of the new features is available here.

I’m pretty excited about all these news and I’m looking forward to all the great applications that will be built using XAML, Windows 8, Silverlight, WPF and Windows Phone!

Happy XAMLing!


Aug 6 2011

Multi-Touch Behaviors updated: Windows Phone “Mango” support, Manipulation / Inertia Processors and more

I’ve just published on CodePlex and the Expression gallery a new release of the Multi-Touch behaviors including these new features:

  • support for Windows Phone 7.1 Beta 2 (refresh) “Mango”;
  • added new property “IgnoredTypes” for excluding particular control types from the manipulations (thanks to Richie for the suggestions, feedback and code samples);
  • the “Manipulation Processor” and “Inertia Processor” are now exposed by the behavior in order to enable personalized manipulations and gestures;
  • new properties: CenterX, CenterY, Rotation, Scale permit to support custom gestures like “DoupleTap” zoom;
  • Silverlight 4 and Windows Phone 7.1 samples updated with a simple ”DoubleTap” zoom example using the new exposed properties.

The source code and samples are available for download here.

Happy Silverlighting!


Mar 6 2011

Prism 4.0 – Useful Resources and Templates (including MEF support)

A quick shoutout to point out that David Hill has just released a new version of the PRISM Template Pack now including both MEF and Unity support.

Other useful resources about PRISM 4.0:

 

Developer’s Guide to Microsoft Prism 4

Now available from O’Reilly

 


Nov 12 2010

TechDays WPC 2010: I’ll be there! Speaking about Silverlight, Multi-Touch and Natural User Interfaces

This year I’ll be presenting about “Silverlight, Multi-Touch and Natural User Interfaces” at the Techdays WPC 2010 conference in Milano on November, 25 2010.

The same day I’ll be also at the MVP booth, if you’re attending the conference come and say Hi! :)

Happy Silverlighting!


May 21 2010

Enabling Multi-touch gestures in WPF using Expression Blend 4 RC and the TranslateZoomRotate behavior

I’ve already blogged about adding multi-touch support to Silverlight applications using Blend behaviors (you can also read my italian language article).

This is a powerful and simple approach which is now available in WPF using Expression Blend 4 RC and the TranslateZoomRotateBehavior.

Let’s try to build a simple example:

1 – Open Expression Blend and create a new WPF project:

 2 – Drag a Rectangle in the MainWindows.xaml:

3 – Let’s add multi-touch gestures and inertia effects to the rectangle selecting the Assets->Behavior tab and dragging the TranslateZoomRotateBehavior inside the rectangle:

4 – Let’s examine the Properties:

It’s possible to set the supported gestures (All, None, TranslateX, TranslateY, Rotate, Scale), the constrainToParentBounds modality, the Minimum, Maximum Scale and the Rotational and Translate Friction associated to the inertia.

Let’s select the constrainToParentBounds check box and run the project using the Project->Run Project menu:

Cool, Multi-touch and inertia effects are now enabled for the rectangle without writing a line of code!

And this is the generated xaml:

<Window
	xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/ 2006/xaml/presentation"
	xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/ 2006/xaml"
	xmlns:i="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/ 2010/interactivity"
	xmlns:ei="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/ 2010/interactions"
	x:Class="WpfApplication1.MainWindow"
	x:Name="Window"
	Title="MainWindow"
	UseLayoutRounding="True"
	Width="640" Height="480">

	<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot">
		<Rectangle Margin="149,106,133,191" Stroke="Black">
			<i:Interaction.Behaviors>
				<ei:TranslateZoomRotateBehavior ConstrainToParentBounds="True"/>
			</i:Interaction.Behaviors>
			<Rectangle.Fill>
				<LinearGradientBrush EndPoint="0.5,1" StartPoint="0.5,0">
					<GradientStop Color="Black" Offset="0"/>
					<GradientStop Color="#FF8F98CA" Offset="1"/>
				</LinearGradientBrush>
			</Rectangle.Fill>
		</Rectangle>
	</Grid>
</Window>

The source code of the project is available for download here.


Apr 12 2010

Microsoft Surface Toolkit for Windows Touch Beta available for download

The Microsoft Surface Toolkit for Windows Touch Beta is a set of controls, APIs, templates, sample applications and documentation currently available for Surface developers.

With the .NET Framework 4.0, Windows Presentation Framework 4.0 (WPF), and this toolkit, Windows Touch developers can quickly and consistently create advanced multitouch applications for Windows Touch PCs.

This toolkit also provides a jump-start for Surface application developers to prepare for the next version of Microsoft Surface. Use it to take advantage of the innovative Surface technology and user interface to develop your own rich and intuitive multitouch experiences for a variety of Windows Touch devices.”

Links:

Enjoy!


Jan 7 2010

A Silverlight / Expression Blend behavior to add Multi-Touch Manipulation and Inertia

I’ve updated the behavior available in the Expression Community gallery adding Multi-Touch manipulation (translation, rotation and zoom) and inertia effects using code from the Surface Manipulations and Inertia Sample for Microsoft Silverlight.

To enable Multi-Touch in your code simply download the behavior from here, add the project “MultiTouch.Behaviors.Silverlight” to a Visual Studio solution and then enable the gestures in XAML:

<UserControl x:Class="SilverlightMultiTouch.MainPage"
...
xmlns:interactivity="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Interactivity; assembly=System.Windows.Interactivity"
xmlns:behaviors="clr-namespace:MultiTouch.Behaviors.Silverlight; assembly=MultiTouch.Behaviors.Silverlight"
...
>

<Canvas>
  <Image Source="Images/Desert.jpg">
     <interactivity:Interaction.Behaviors>
         <behaviors:MultiTouchManipulationBehavior InertiaEnabled="True" TouchRotateEnabled="True" TouchTranslateEnabled="True" TouchScaleEnabled="True"/>
     </interactivity:Interaction.Behaviors>
  </Image>

  <Image Source="Images/Jellyfish.jpg">
     <interactivity:Interaction.Behaviors>
         <behaviors:MultiTouchManipulationBehavior InertiaEnabled="True" TouchRotateEnabled="True" TouchTranslateEnabled="True" TouchScaleEnabled="True"/>
     </interactivity:Interaction.Behaviors>
  </Image>
</Canvas>

The MultiTouchManipulationBehavior also contains some dependency properties (TouchRotateEnabled, TouchTranslateEnabled, TouchScaleEnabled and InertiaEnabled) to enable the corresponding gestures.

The example contains Multi-Touch manipulations applied to some Image controls and a Smooth streaming player of the Silverlight Media Framework.

I’ve also posted to CodePlex a sample using WPF 4 based on the article “Introduction to WPF 4 Multitouch“ by Jaime Rodriguez.

Hope this helps and Happy Silverlighting!


Oct 19 2009

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and updated Silverlight Toolkit available

Lot of news this week!

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 are now available for download here, Jeff Beehler has posted some useful info about this “go live” release.

The new Silverlight Toolkit October 2009 Release is also available on Codeplex featuring Visual Studio 2010 support and various improvements on existing components (like drag-and-drop for items controls).

Read these posts by Tim Heuer and Jeff Wilcox for more details and enjoy!