Expression Blend 3 SketchFlow is for Prototypes
Monday, September 14, 2009
With the recent release of Silverlight 3 we also got a new version of Expression Blend. This new version, Expression Blend 3, includes an exciting new feature called “SketchFlow”. Introduction There are three main aspects involved in SketchFlow: Sketch Styles, SketchFlow Map, and the SketchFlow Project. In this blog entry I’ll look at each of these aspects and how they can help us build a prototype of an application. First, however, let’s look at a brief overview of when this is useful…
You Cannot MouseLeftButtonDown if you have no Mouse
Thursday, February 26, 2009
I’m in the middle of a fairly large scale code review and I wanted to stop and alert everyone to a common mistake I am seeing in a lot of code that I read. You should use the Click event in about 99.99% of the cases that most people are using the MouseLeftButtonDown event. The reason for this is that if you have no mouse, there is no left button, and if there is no left mouse button it cannot go down.…
Server Unleashed Gets Upgraded with Hyper-V
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
I’ve been so busy lately trying to get the SQL Server Energy site out in about 15 languages that I forgot to post that last night I updated the Server Unleashed site with the new Hyper-V goodies. Of course it doesn’t talk about my favorite new product, Windows Hyper-V Server , but it’s a pretty good site, and one that has withstood the test of time so far. The code base I thought is pretty over-engineered.…
First Full SilverSpine Implementation
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Today we soft launched the first site that is using the full implementation of SilverSpine. The SQL Server Energy site has gone live. Over the next couple of weeks we will be launching this same site in 15 languages all using the same exact codebase, but the content back (the SilverSpine) will have translated code. This is truly an exciting time. The site will look similar if you have Silverlight 2 (beta 2) installed or if you don’t have Silverlight at all.…
Silverlight 2 RC0 is Now Live!
Saturday, September 27, 2008
A year and a half ago we got a taste of a new technology. This was a technology designed to leverage developers knowledge of .NET on the client side browser. Some call it Microsoft’s answer to Flash, but mostly everyone just calls it Silverlight. Today we’ve reached a milestone in this long and sometimes rocky road to having a small .NET CLR running cross platform in the browser. Today, Silverlight 2 RC0 went live.…
Silverlight 2 Beta 2 - Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Saturday, September 27, 2008
RTW for Silverlight is still off in the near future. The RC0 build of Silverlight is mainly for developers, but you have a very important web site launching in 22 languages over the next couple of weeks. The ad campaign can’t wait for the RTW of Silverlight 2. What on Earth are you to do? Well as I see it you really have a few options. Wait for RTW to switch to a newer build.…
Now Loading - A Public Service Announcement
Saturday, July 26, 2008
This is a web page. The browser says that it is done. There’s nothing obvious going on with the screen and for all that I know the page just won’t render. However, if you look really closely at the top left, in browser default font there is a number that is counting up. Eventually it reaches 100 and the site finally appears, but considering I have a truly blazing Internet connection I don’t usually expect to wait 30 seconds to see anything on a site.…
KB955011 Silverlight Update
Friday, July 18, 2008
Some of you may have noticed that there is a new critical update on Windows Update. This update brings Silverlight 2 Beta 2 up to a new build described in KB955011 . This update improves stability, media streaming, and the auto-update component. Most importantly for a lot of people is that this build improves support for Firefox 3. Up till now, I’ve received a lot of questions from people about Silverlight on Firefox 3.…
Silverlight.js V1 to V2 Change in Functionality
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
I’m sure there are a lot of changes in functionality in the Silverlight.js file from version 1 to version 2 beta 2. One of the ones I’m most excited about is that version 2 will automatically refresh the page after you’ve installed Silverlight so you don’t need to ask the user to restart their browser However, today I was updating the Server Unleashed site with the new Silverlight.js file and I found a breaking change that I hadn’t seen documented anywhere.…
WebClient Does not Send HTTP Headers By Default
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Something to keep in mind as you are coding your Silverlight 2 Beta 2 applications is that the WebClient does not send any HTTP Headers by default. If you need some headers you must explicitly add them. For example, if you have a form you wrote in Silverlight and you need to post that data off to a web service or a POX page what you need to do is add something like this right after you initialize your WebClient (in this case the WebClient is called request):…