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Michael Crump explains how to create Speech Bubbles in Silverlight without adding any extra .dlls.

Source: Michael Crump's Blog

Right off the bat, I know at least two ways to create the speech bubbles that look just like the ones in comic books. 

        • Using the Callout Shapes included with Blend 4. 
        • Using the free 3rd party control named FreeBubbles (I used this before Blend 4).

Unfortunately, we cannot use either of these as they will both add extra .dll’s to the project.

                                         

If your XAP file caches in your browser and you have to empty your browser cache to resolve it, then you should see this workaround by Michael Crump.

Source: Michael Crump's Blog

I have been struggling with a way to prevent my XAP file from caching inside of a browser for a while now and decided to implement the following solution. 

    1. If the Visual Studio Debugger is attached then add a unique query string to the source param to force the XAP file to be refreshed. 
    2. If the Visual Studio Debugger is not attached then add the source param as Visual Studio generates it. This is also in case I forget to remove the above code in my production environment. 
    3. I want the ASP.NET code to be inline with my .ASPX page. (I do not want a separate code behind .cs page or .vb page attached to the .aspx page.)

Michael Crump demonstrates how to use the SnippetManager in order to better organize your Silverlight snippets.

Source: Michael Crump's Blog

I hate re-writing code. I also hate it when I find a great code snippet on the web and forget to bookmark it or it gets lost in my endless sea of bookmarks. So what do you do to get around this? This is the question that I was asking myself at the end of 2010. How can I get my Silverlight code organized?

My requirements for a snippet manager were: 

    1. Needs to be FREE. 
    2. An easy way to view XAML/C# code behind together in one “view”. 
    3. I wanted the ability to store the code snippets in cloud in case my HDD dies. 
    4. Searchable Keywords to quickly find code snippets.

Michael Crump decided to post the “best of” collection of Silverlight 4/Expression books he read in 2010.

Source: Michael Crump's Blog

I recently stumbled upon a post asking, “What is the best book on Silverlight 4?” In the age of the internet, it can be hard for anyone searching for a good book to actually find it. I have read a few Silverlight 4/Expression books in 2010 and decided to post the “best of” collection. Instead of reading multiple books, you can cut your list down to whatever category that you fit in. With Silverlight 5 coming soon, now is the time to get up to speed with what Silverlight 4 can offer. Be sure to read the full review at the bottom of each section.

Michael Crump has published the fourth and final part of his 'Tips for Silverlight developers' series.

Source: Michael Crump's Blog

What is it? Find out version information about Silverlight and which WebKit it is using by going to http://issilverlightinstalled.com/scriptverify/.

Why do I care? I’ve had those users that its just easier to give them a site and say copy/paste the line that says User Agent in order to troubleshoot a Silverlight problem. I’ve also been debugging my own Silverlight applications and needed an easy way to determine if the plugin is disabled or not.

Michael Crump continues with his tips and tricks for Silverlight developers.

Source: Michael Crump's Blog

I wanted to create a series of blog post that gets right to the point and is aimed specifically at Silverlight Developers. The most important things I want this series to answer is :

• What is it? 
• Why do I care?
• How do I do it?

Read the previous parts of this series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Michael Crump has created a video tutorial that walks you through the creation of an automated test for Silverlight 4 apps.

Source: Michael Crump's Blog

With the release of Visual Studio 2010 Feature Pack 2, Microsoft included the Coded UI Test framework. With this release it is possible to create automated test with just a few mouse clicks. This is a very powerful feature that all Silverlight developers need to learn. Instead of my normal blog post, I have created a video tutorial that walks you through it starting from “File” –> New Project. I hope you enjoy and please leave feedback.

In this post, Michael Crump discusses what you need to know before Silverlight 5 beta ships.

Source: Michael Crump's Blog

First, let me address people saying that it is dead after PDC 2010. I believe that it’s best to see what the market is doing, not the vendor. Below is a list of companies that are developing Silverlight 4 applications shown during the Silverlight Firestarter. Some of the companies have shipped and some haven’t. It’s just great to see the actual company names that are working on Silverlight instead of “people are developing for Silverlight”.

                                            

Michael Crump explains how you can pimp your Silverlight Firestarter.

Source: Michael Crump's Blog

1) Pimp the videos [...]

2) Pimp the Training Material [...]

3) Pimp my Silverlight 5 Knowledge [...]