exotribe

Matthew Roche, a colleague at Configuresoft, recently appeared on RunAs Radio. 

Matthew says:

Technorati Tags: RunAs Radio SSIS

In Tag, you are not it I mistakenly said you need an IValueConverter so that the xaml parser could convert the string "Divide" into the enum value Operator.Divide.  (I must've been too busy trying to find a clever Parthian Shot.)

IValueConverters are used by the binding engine, and are assigned via binding markup extensions.

Technorati Tags: Silverlight 2.0 IValueConverter TypeConverter

In WPF and Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1, the FrameworkElement class provides a Tag property.

From the Silverlight 2.0 documentation on MSDN:

[Tag] Gets or sets an arbitrary object value that can be used to store custom information about this element.

Technorati Tags: Silverlight 2.0 WPF DependencyProperty Attached Property WPF in Action

Jared Youtsey, a senior developer and colleague at Configuresoft, was recently featured in a pod cast on PodTech:

Technorati Tags: Configuresoft WF WCF

Here at Configuresoft, we are developing an infrastructure to be used to build our next generation Configuration Intelligence products. We have had lots of internal debates about which UI platform we should use for our future applications - browser or desktop. We've looked at everything from ASP.NET Ajax, Silverlight and Adobe Flex, to Java Swing, WinForms and WPF.

Technorati Tags: Silverlight 2.0 Configuresoft

Say you are working on your new Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1 application. You know you are going to build some slick custom styles, but you do not have the styles ready yet. You want to proceed with your application development, but want to put in placeholders for the upcoming styles.

For this example, I'm going to borrow a bit of the sample code from WPF in Action with Visual Studio 2008. The sample code builds a simple calculator user interface, then proceeds restyle the buttons with a custom template.

Technorati Tags: Silverlight 2.0 Silverlight Styles

Setting default control styles (and templates) in Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1 works a bit differently than WPF. In WPF, I can set a style in an element's resource dictionary (i.e. Application.Resources or Window.Resources) that will automatically be applied to all descendents.

Say I wanted to change the text color of all TextBlocks in my application, I could create this style in App.xaml:

<Style TargetType="TextBlock">
    <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="Blue" />
</Style>

Technorati Tags: Silverlight 2.0 Silverlight Styles

I recently stumbled upon a UI design article published in the November 2004 edition of the SAP Design Guild.  The article, User Interface Patterns - Components for User Interfaces, discusses reusable components, user interface patterns, and mapping UI patterns to user tasks.

The interaction structure consists of discrete areas, known as the focus areas, each of which describes a user activity, such as entering invoice line items. A focus area is defined by its purpose for the user, by other areas to which the user can navigate, and by functions available to the user.

Technorati Tags: UI Design Business Objects

Merriam-Webster OnLine defines collaboration as:

1 : to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor

Let me tell you about how my middle-school aged children are using IM, email, Google Docs, and Windows Live SkyDrive to collaborate on their Colorado History Day projects. Colorado History Day is part of the National History Day contest:

Technorati Tags: Google Docs SkyDrive History Day

Troy Ketsdever, a colleague at Configuresoft, will be presenting a couple of sessions next week (March 5-6, 2008) at Colorado PASS Camp.

PASS Camp is a free, information-packed day of practical SQL Server training and information. There will be a total of 32 sessions on a wide range of interesting topics plus an opening Keynote for each day. PASS Camp sessions are short, to the point, and filled with code and actual hands-on demonstrations to maximize the value to you, our peers in the SQL Server community.

Technorati Tags: SQL Server