The Infragistics Silverlight June CTP is now available for demo and download, compiled against Silverlight 2 Beta 2 released last Friday.
The CTP includes a Silverlight Chart and Silverlight Gauge both of which you can see in the online demo. So download the bits, take them for a test drive, then send us feedback and help shape the final shipping product!
Calling all WPF Designers/Developers — Josh just announced the Podder Skinning Competition.
For those of you who’ve been thinking about creating your own custom skin, now you finally have some incentive to do it! Josh and I put in a lot of late nights to release Podder v2 in time for Mix ‘08. That was almost two months ago, so I’m sure you’ve already had ideas for new skins that you just haven’t made time for. Well, you have until July to realize your vision - so get to it and impress us all!
A couple of months ago I posted a preview video of the “Fireworks Brush Manager”. Since that post I’ve had pretty much no free time to work on the project. I’ve update the layout a bit, added new icons, etc., but haven’t really focused on finished up the functionality. Last week I spent a little time before bed one night reviewing how I expected to interact with the panel and realized that I was trying to cram too much into a single panel. I realized I really had two panels: a ResourceDictionary Panel and a new Brush Editor panel. Since I have the ResourceDictionary part of the thing in a partially working state, I decided to go ahead and post a preview release to start getting some feedback and bug testing going.
I only have the “Open” function working, which lets you browse for a ResourceDictionary. I’m planning on adding Save capability and a Sync feature, which will synchronize objects on the stage with brushes assigned to them should the resource change. Watch for that over the next 3 months 
Known Issues: I’ve found that I have to open the same ResourceDictionary twice sometimes in order for the file to be recognized. So if your brushes don’t appear at first, try again. If your brushes never appear, or if you run into bugs, please send me a note along with your ResourceDictionary and I’ll add it to my list of test RDs.
(7: The number of times I typed “Panel” in this post, 8 after that last reference)
Download ResourceDictionaryPanel Preview
(Double-click MXP to install, swf included if you have problems, copy directly to the Command Panels folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Fireworks CS3\Configuration\Command Panels)
I’ve posted a couple of videos that highlight new features included in NetAdvantage for WPF 2007.2 that we released about a month ago. The first video demonstrates how you can use the samples included in the xamFeatureBrowser to quickly create a xamRibbon.
The second video demonstrates a feature that I’m really excited about: ResourceWashing. Using ResourceWashing, you can “wash” the brushes defined in ResourceDictionaries with a new color. Since the brushes can be washed at runtime, you can create an application that can be infinitely customized by the end user — really exciting! This is the same washing technology used by AppStylist for Windows Forms in the “New from Template” feature. The xamRibbon is the first control whose brushes have been grouped into “WashGroups” to really take advantage of this technology. Moving forward, we’ll be applying the same techniques to the other controls. I can’t wait to see what the WPF community ends up creating with this technology!
Videos
A couple of years ago Robby introduced me to the term “McGuffin”, via this post. In his explanation, he admits that he is probably stretching the original intention of the word, and since I’m now interpreting his interpretation, it may be safe to say that my usage of the term is now far from its original meaning. You be the judge.
If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably also reading Josh Smith’s blog, and you’re probably aware that I’m working on a new skin for Podder, his WPF podcast reader. Throughout the design process, I’ve had lots of different ideas running through my head - I really have a clean slate to play with here, and any of you who have designed an app or web site from scratch know how challenging that initial blank page can be. There are so many possibilities, so many directions you can take the layout; ultimately, you just have to go with something then tweak until you go crazy. It’s definitely a different process than designing something that works (visually) with an existing product line. There, you have an established aesthetic that drives the design.
So, as I go into the polish stage and really have a feel for the direction the layout is going, I’m looking at ways to make the application feel responsive, alive. One way I’m doing this is through my “McGuffin”-Enabling Image Converter. This converter is bound to an Image’s Source property and then returns an “averaged” Color - I take a random sampling of pixels then average their color values. The resulting color represents the generalized color of the image. In Podder, I’m using this converter to set the background image of the application to a color that works well with the image of the selected podcast, so as the selection changes, the color of the application changes to match, and the plot advances (my McGuffin).
I’ve added this converter to the Infragistic ToyBox assembly that I started a while back (and haven’t actively added to in a while). Download the sample project to see the converter in action. (Note: it currently only works with local images, not images whose source points to a web address).
