July 2007 - Posts

posted Monday, July 30, 2007 2:23 PM by mtaulty :: 3 Comments

Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Refresh - Name Things :-)

If you're writing code that dynamically generates "things" (Storyboards and so on) with the V1.1 Alpha Refresh then don't forget to give them a name (i.e. from a XAML perspective this is typically what you set with "x:Name" (using the convention of x Read More
posted Monday, July 30, 2007 4:26 AM by mtaulty :: 0 Comments

VS 2008 Beta 2 - LINQ to SQL

I had my first play with LINQ to SQL in VS 2008 Beta 2 today. Things that I "noticed" that were new (i.e. this is not a definitive list, purely what I spotted) when I created code using the LINQ to SQL designer. My derived context now has a Database Read More
posted Sunday, July 29, 2007 1:50 PM by mtaulty :: 1 Comments

Toolset.Refresh

Just uninstalling my VS 2008 Beta 1 and installing; VS 2008 Beta 2 Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Refresh Expression Blend 2, August Preview Silverlight Tools Alpha for Visual Studio 2008 Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Refresh SDK Read More
posted Friday, July 27, 2007 8:50 AM by mtaulty :: 0 Comments

Silverlight V1.1: Trying to build a simple drag-and-drop capability

I wanted a very simple kind of drag and drop ability in Silverlight V1.1 and I struggled to build it. Basic procedure might be to build a Canvas that does something like; Capture mouse down on a FrameworkElement Watch for mouse drag. As the mouse drags, Read More
posted Friday, July 27, 2007 6:59 AM by mtaulty :: 0 Comments

Silverlight V1.1: Scrolling Picture List Box

I built a very basic listbox control that will display pictures. It looks like this; and will scroll through a list of items. I define it in XAML like; <ctl:PictureListBox Width="600" Height="200" Canvas.Left="20" Canvas.Top="140" RadiusX="10" RadiusY="10"> Read More
posted Friday, July 27, 2007 1:42 AM by mtaulty :: 0 Comments

Neil's IEeee VSTS Project on CodePlex

I noticed that Neil has uploaded a new version of his IEeee browser plug-in that lets you easily submit defects about a web-site into Visual Studio Team System straight from the browser itself. He's also got some new Work Item Controls for grabbing Read More
posted Thursday, July 26, 2007 3:37 PM by mtaulty :: 0 Comments

Dream Job?

Sounds pretty cool to me Read More
posted Thursday, July 26, 2007 2:57 PM by mtaulty :: 1 Comments

VS 2008 Beta 2

Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 is done. The details are up here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-gb/vstudio/default.aspx I've been working with Beta 1 since that came out and I've found it to be pretty solid so I have high hopes for Beta 2 and it looks like Read More
posted Thursday, July 26, 2007 2:16 AM by mtaulty :: 0 Comments

Silverlight V1.1: Loaded fires more than once

This is possibly "by design" (i.e. I don't know) but I've noticed that if I reparent a Silverlight control from one Canvas to another then its Loaded event fires for a second time when it is reparented. So, with a user control such as; public class UserControl1 Read More
posted Wednesday, July 25, 2007 5:18 PM by mtaulty :: 0 Comments

Silverlight V1.1 - Changing the XAML Page

When your Silverlight control loads, it loads up some XAML. It's most likely that this comes from a file specified by the source parameter. For instance;function createSilverlight() { Sys.Silverlight.createObjectEx({ source: "Page1.xaml", Read More
posted Wednesday, July 25, 2007 3:04 PM by mtaulty :: 0 Comments

Silverlight V1.1 "Tab Like" Control Thingy :-)

I built this little control for Silverlight today so I thought I'd share (note, it doesn't have to be orange). Essentially, it's like a tab control but the "tabs" on the left hand side slide across to the right (and vice versa) to reveal content as Read More
posted Wednesday, July 25, 2007 2:52 PM by mtaulty :: 0 Comments

Alex Homer and the Enterprise Library

Phil kindly invited me along to the Manchester Vbug meeting tonight where Alex Homer was delivering a session on using the Enterprise Library with ASP.NET. Alex did a great job and I found the whole thing really interesting. I haven't really Read More
posted Tuesday, July 24, 2007 5:11 PM by mtaulty :: 1 Comments

Silverlight V1.1 - More on the Dodgy Topic of Controls, Resources and So On

Following up on this post, I took this a little further in that I added support for loading resources from either multiple separate files or from embedded resources within the assembly and took away the requirement to make an explicit call as I had previously Read More
posted Tuesday, July 24, 2007 12:37 PM by mtaulty :: 2 Comments

Silverlight V1.1 - More about controls and complex content

Because of this, it seems to me that it's a bit tricky to build controls :-) Also, it seems that it's a bit tricky to marry up designers and developers. For example, say you want to build the FancyColouredPathControl control. So, you stick a new control Read More
posted Tuesday, July 24, 2007 8:58 AM by mtaulty :: 1 Comments

Silverlight V1.1, Controls and "Complex Content"

If you're building controls with V1.1 then take care about trying to set their value. For example, you might build a control Foo with a property of type string called Label. Then, when you use this in XAML you'll be able to do;<myNS:Foo Label="Hello"/> Read More
posted Tuesday, July 24, 2007 7:55 AM by mtaulty :: 2 Comments

Silverlight V1.1, Pages, Controls, Children, etc.

I'm not sure that I can write this up properly enough to explain it but I'll have a go. Additionally, I'm not sure that I understand it well enough but perhaps someone can correct it for me. In the current Silverlight V1.1 bits for Visual Studio when Read More
posted Sunday, July 22, 2007 3:43 PM by mtaulty :: 2 Comments

Silverlight 1.1. Clearing Isolated Storage

I was looking to use the storeadm.exe command line tool to clear out my isolated storage for Silverlight but it didn't seem to list the storage that I was using. Not sure whether that's by design or just a bug but I found (from Process Explorer) that Read More
posted Thursday, July 19, 2007 4:39 PM by mtaulty :: 2 Comments

Silverlight 1.1 Alpha, Templated Controls, Content Controls, Layout etc.

I've been building some bits with Silverlight V1.1 and there's a few things that keep cropping up in doing it. The first is the idea of absolute layout. When WPF first came on the scene you'd often hear people saying that Canvas and its absolute layout Read More
posted Tuesday, July 17, 2007 2:18 AM by mtaulty :: 0 Comments

LINQ to SQL and (micro) Performance

Also been catching up on Rico Mariani's notes on improvements to LINQ to SQL performance between the May CTP of last year and the next version which will be beta 2. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5   These are with references off to Matt Warren's blog Read More
posted Tuesday, July 17, 2007 2:03 AM by mtaulty :: 0 Comments

ScottGu's Posts on LINQ to SQL

I've been reading ScottGu's posts on LINQ to SQL (start here from where it's easy to work backwards). These are really good and cover a lot of ground. I learnt a few interesting things along the way such as these snippets about Beta 2; There's a Read More
posted Monday, July 16, 2007 4:28 AM by mtaulty :: 0 Comments

Software Licensing and Protection Services

SLPS is one of the many things that was announced whilst I was out on holiday - I think/hope that this will be a big step forward for a number of ISV's who've been looking for this kind of functionality from Microsoft for a long time. Read More
posted Saturday, July 14, 2007 5:16 AM by mtaulty :: 0 Comments

blog.Resume()

Back from holiday and I find that my wireless router isn't working :-( I have my Media Center box connected by a piece of cable into the back of a LinkSys WAG54G wireless router that I've had for a while and then the rest of the house is wireless. I've Read More