Sometime we need to detect the browser information of the user's computer where our Silverlight application is running. We can do this using the JavaScript but sometime it is useful to detect it from our Silverlight application. So, how to do it? Let us discuss this with a small simple example.
Read this post to know how to detect the browser information using the HtmlPage.BrowserInformation property.
"Why my Visual Studio debugger is not working for my Silverlight application?" - it's not a new question. People ask this several time in different forums. If you search on net, you may probably find the solution. But, in this post I am just sharing the solution once again for my blog readers and anyone on the net who may face similar issue in future.
In this post, I will share you 4 small tips. Just follow the steps from top to bottom and let me know which one resolved your problem. This tip might not be a new thing for you but don't forget to share to others. This could be useful for them.
All most all secured sites like bank websites asks you to close your browser window after you signed out from the web application. This is due to high security which actually removes all session details from the browser cache.
If you want to develop the same behavior in your Silverlight application, how will you do this? This post covers the code to implement the functionality of the same. Read to know more.
If you work in XAML pages, sometime you might noticed that the XAML page freezes for sometime while opening the page in design view. This is very annoying and many time it is responsible to crash the Visual Studio IDE. So what to do?
If you use Expression Blend to design the XAML page or don't want to open the XAML in design view, this small tip will help you to improve the performance of the IDE. Read more to know.
Recently I had started exploring Windows Phone 7 with first Mango update and accumulated a no. of beginners tutorial in my blog. In this post, I am going to share all the chapters of the series as "31 days with WP7" - a must needed guide for a beginner who wants to learn about Windows Phone 7 programming.
Hope, this will be helpful to you to understand the basics before jump start to the application development. This post is on popular demand and I am dedicating this to all my blog readers. Thank you everyone for your support.
Many time we need to change the layout type of any panel present inside the page. This is mainly a designers job but sometime developers need to change them on their requirement. In that case, people need to find out the start and end tag of the panel and change them accordingly. This is little bit a tricky process.
In this post, I am going to share you the easy process to switch between different layout types. If you are a designer or using Expression Blend, you are already familiar with it. But for a newbie, I think it will be a great help.
Last Wednesday (July 6th 2011) we explored a way to create a Circular loader using XAML without writing any line in the code behind file. Lot of you gave a good feedback and discussed various findings on the same.
I did some more investigation to create a different type of circular loader which you can include in your Silverlight, WPF and Windows Phone 7 applications where you are using XAML code. In this article, I will be guiding to create similar kind of Circular loader as shown above. This will be more simple than the previous one. Let's start our discussion and create one loader like this.
On last Saturday (i.e. 9th July 2011) I delivered one hour session on "MVVM from Scratch using Silverlight" in Pune User Group's (PUG) Monthly meet. The session was full of demo and very little with slides.
In this post I will just recap the session for you to know what are the things I discussed there. I will also share the slides here, if you want to go through it offline.
If you are a XAML designer and creating controls for Silverlight, Windows Phone 7 or WPF, you may come in some situation that the custom properties for the controls are not properly organized by the developers. If you come into such situation forward this link to the developers and they may find it useful.
In this article, we will learn how to well organize the custom properties of your control so that, designers can easily search in appropriate location. Read to know more about it.
There are many instance when we have "Browser1" as the default browser in the system and we want our web application to be run inside a different browser (say "Browser2") from the Visual Studio IDE. To do this, we need to open the "Browser2" application and set it as default one, so that, the "Browser2" will start as the application handle from the IDE. After that, you have to revert back the default browser to "Browser1" by doing the same step.
This is really very difficult job. To simplify this thing, there is an Extension for the Visual Studio 2010 IDE. If you download and install that free extension, you will be able to do this very easily. In this post I will share the step and show you how this will improve your productivity.
Sometime we need to show a circular loader in WPF and/or Silverlight. We may need it in Windows Phone 7 too. In simple statement, we need to show a circular loader in various XAML applications like Silverlight, WP7 and WPF.
In this article, we will learn how to create a Circular Loader as shown in the screenshot. I will not use a single line of C# code to create this loader. Everything will be in the XAML file itself to keep the code behind file clean. Read to know more about it step-by-step and after reading this article, you will be able to create and use a circular loader like this. Source code is also available for download at the end of the page. Feel free to use it.
Do you know that, you can now access local files and folders in Silverlight 5? Yes, you heard right. Earlier to Silverlight 5 it was only limited to trusted location like My Documents folder, means it was only possible to read/write in My Documents. Now using Silverlight 5 you can do such operation in any files or folders.
Let's discuss more on this topic. After reading this post, you will be able to read/write to/from any file in local file system. Also you will be able to get information about System Resources. Read to know more.
Yesterday I attended the PUG Event and delivered 1 hour session on Silverlight 5 Beta features. I demonstrated some important features too. Here in this blog post, I am going to share the "What's New in Silverlight 5?" slides. You can view it online and if you want, you can download to view it offline.
Also, I am sharing the demo projects that I used during the session. You can freely download them from the attached links. Earlier I published some articles on these features, sharing their links too so that, you can read them and understand in depth.
If you not yet downloaded the developer tools, Download Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 Beta. Read the complete post to know more about the new features.
Silverlight 5 has another new feature called Ancestor Relative source binding. It was already available in WPF and has been newly introduced in Silverlight 5 beta. Using this, you can now bind to the relative ancestor elements very easily.
Let's discuss it with a small example where we will create a Control Template for a Button and bind it's Tag property to the actual element to display text, instead of setting the Content property. Read to know more.
In my previous post that I did yesterday, I discussed about the Multiple Windows Support in Silverlight 5 Beta and there I mentioned that though it is a wonderful feature but there are some things that I didn't like. Though it is still in beta, so it is currently in development stage and may be the team is working on it.
Let's read the post to know the points those I didn't like or want in the future versions. Those are my personal opinions only and looking forward to see them implemented in future releases of Silverlight 5.
Multiple Window support is one of the important feature in Silverlight 5. Using this you can have additional top level Window on top of your trusted Silverlight Out-of-Browser application. Yes, you read correct. It only works in Out-of-Browser Silverlight application and hence you cannot open it inside a browser.
So, what is this new Window and how to use it in our application? Let's have some discussion on it. After it you will be able to know about it more.
Continuing to our discussion on Silverlight 5 features. In earlier post, we discussed about Text Advancement in Silverlight 5. In this post, we will discuss on another new feature called Binding on Style Setter. This feature is very useful for the XAML designer. If you are a XAML designer, you must be aware of this cool new feature.
Read the complete post where we will discuss how we can bind to a Style Setter.
Silverlight 5 has now support for Multi Column Text. By using this feature you will be able to show your text content in column wise. If you are working for a news publisher company or want to publish your text content in column format, this feature will help you definitely. If you implemented this in your application, your text content will automatically position itself in next column if user resizes the application.
So, want to learn about it? Let's discuss on it with a simple example. Read to know more.
Do you aware of the Line Stacking Strategy of Silverlight TextBlock control? If not, this post will help you to understand it and after that you will be able to use it whenever require.
So, what is this strategy? Was it available in earlier version of Silverlight or a new feature implemented in Silverlight 5? Let us discuss it in depth.