Tips and Tricks

Introduction

I’m sure by now you have heard of Windows Azure. Now before we get started learning about it, let’s take a look at the definition:

The Windows Azure Platform^[2] is a Microsoft cloud platform used to build, host and scale web applications through Microsoft datacenters. Windows Azure Platform is thus classified as platform as a service and forms part of Microsoft's cloud computing strategy, along with their software as a service offering, Microsoft Online Services.

This article is compatible with the latest version of Silverlight.

Introduction

In this article I will try to simulate rain in Silverlight application that can be programmatically configured to meet your expectations. Although Silverlight at the time being is very CPU consuming, rain effect may be a common challenge for a developer or designer.

I believe that there are many computer graphics techniques, such as Particle system, to simulate realistically processes that involve tiny particles interacting with each other.

Also check the second part of this series - "Simulating rain in Silverlight Part 2 - Optimization"!

This article is compatible with the latest version of Silverlight for Windows Phone 7.

This article is Part 3 of “A classic memory game”:

• A classic memory game: Part 1 – Designing the game
• A classic memory game: Part 2 – The game logic, connecting the ViewModel and the View
• A classic memory game: Part 3 – Porting the game to Windows Phone 7

The series is about building the following classic memory game in Silverlight, and porting it to Windows Phone 7. In the first article we started a new MVVM Light project, created the controls and designed the game-states. In the second part we put the logic behind the game, and connected it with the View thus completing the Silverlight version of the game.

This article is compatible with the latest version of Silverlight.

This article is Part 2 of “A classic memory game”:

• A classic memory game: Part 1 – Designing the game 
• A classic memory game: Part 2 – The game logic, connecting the ViewModel and the View
• A classic memory game: Part 3 – Porting the game to Windows Phone 7 

The series is about building the following classic memory game in Silverlight, and porting it to Windows Phone 7. In the first article we started a new MVVM Light project, created the controls and designed the game-states.

This article is compatible with the latest version of Silverlight.

This article is Part 1 of “A classic memory game”:

• A classic memory game: Part 1 – Designing the game
• A classic memory game: Part 2 – The game logic, connecting the ViewModel and the View
• A classic memory game: Part 3 – Porting the game to Windows Phone 7 

Introduction

My wife has started learning Silverlight and because of my Expression Blend skills are still lacking, we have decided to build the following classic memory game so both of us can learn something new. We kept things simple but we respected basic Silverlight principles.

This article is compatible with the latest version of Silverlight for Windows Phone 7.

This article is Part 2 of the series Building a DataGrid Control for Silverlight for Windows Phone:

1. Building a DataGrid Control for Silverlight for Windows Phone - Part 1
2. Building a DataGrid Control for Silverlight for Windows Phone - Part 2

Introduction

In my previous article I introduced three possible ways to build and use a DataGrid Control on the Windows Phone 7 platform. Then I showed how to create a “Windows Phone 7 ready” DataGrid starting from the source code of the control included in the Silverlight toolkit. I used the last edition available for Silverlight 3 since some features of Silverlight 4 are missing in Windows Phone at the moment. This time I will focus on the porting of the AgDataGrid free version by DevExpress.

This article is compatible with the latest version of Silverlight for Windows Phone 7.

This article is compatible with the latest version of Silverlight.

Introduction

Recently I have been working on a project, where a certain task's completion needs to be visually indicated in some graphic way. I settled on creating a style for the ProgressBar control, with a changing background color depending on the current value of the ProgressBar.

 HSV (Hue-Saturation-Value)

From Wikipedia :

"HSL and HSV are the two most common cylindrical-coordinate representations of points in an RGB color model, which rearrange the geometry of RGB in an attempt to be more perceptually relevant than the cartesian representation."

HSV is a different way of representing a color (as opposed to RGB, where R indicates a value from 0 to 255 that "controls the amount of red", G for green and B for Blue). Have a look at the link above for an in-depth discussion.

This article is compatible with the latest version of Silverlight.

This is part 8 of the series “Silverlight in Action”:

1. Visuals staring at the mouse cursor.
2. Floating Visual Elements.
3. Flipping Panels.
4. Flying objects against you.
5. Smoke effect
6. Book Folding effect using Pixel Shader.
7. Navigation in 3D world of 2D objects
8. Animated navigation between Pages.

Here, we’re sharing our experience from the amazing CompletIT web site.

Introduction

In this session, we will cover one quite popular, but still very useful, technique for adding interaction to your web-site - "How to enable animations between pages using the Silverlight Navigation Framework".