Q & A

Q1. When is this free training available?
A1. The entire weekend of Nov 12th 2011 through Nov 14th 2011.

Q2. Do I have to be a Pluralsight subscriber to get this awesome training?
A2. This training will be freely available to everyone. You do not have to be a subscriber.

Q3. What does the course cover?
A3. Well let’s take a look:

• Getting started with Prism
• Bootstrapper and Shell
• Regions
• Modules
• Views
• Communication
• State-Based Navigation
• View-Based Navigation

More course information.

Q4. Who is the author of this kick ass Prism course?
Q4. That would be me.

Q5. Is it really free?
Q5. You’re kidding right? Didn’t I already cover this part? Yes, it is free.

New and Improved

If you are a subscriber and have already watched the course, I would like to bring to your attention that there have been two new modules added.  These modules will cover everything you need to know in order to start using the navigation services provided by Prism.  This includes state-based navigation and view-based navigation.

Mark your calendar for Nov 12th and be sure to cram as much Prism knowledge into your brain as you can before the weekend ends.  Don’t worry, if you run out of time you can always ask me questions directly.  You can contact me either through Twitter (@brianlagunas) or through the Extended WPF Toolkit project site.  I hope you enjoy the training.

The stuff I was interested in:

• Add New Row for the DataGrid
• Improved application startup performance
• Mouse wheel support for out-of-browser  applications on the Mac
• Media bug fixes
• MouseCapture memory leak is fixed
• Inline DataTemplate memory leak fixed.

Developers go get the tools:

• Windows developer runtime
• Mac developer runtime
• Silverlight 4.0.50826.0

http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/geekSpeak/geekSpeak-Recording-Local-Messaging-and-Silverlight-with-Brian-Lagunas/

And yes, I did give Elegant Code some love on the show.

• Get the Bing Maps Silverlight Control
• Get a Bing Maps API Key
• Play with the Bing Maps interactive SDK Application
• Read the Bing Maps blog
• Check out the Bing Maps forum

You can also get the source code to my presentation here:  Download the source.

Note: You will need to download the Bing Maps Silverlight control and re-reference the DLLs before the source will compile.  Also, you have to have a Bing Maps API key in order to use any of the geocoding service examples.

Here is the episode description:

“A powerful feature of Microsoft Silverlight is the ability for different Silverlight controls to communicate, even with instances running out of browser. In this geekSpeak, Silverlight guru Brian Lagunas shows us the ins and outs of how to communicate between Silverlight applications by using local messaging. We’ll cover everything from multiple banner ads synchronizing animations to business applications displaying master/detail data. Brian goes over how to create complex layouts that combine multiple Silverlight-based applications with content that is based on other technologies. Join us for this unique take on Silverlight programming.”

When: Wednesday, July 14, 2010, 3:00-4:00 ET

If you are interested or have some questions register at https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032455709&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Owners of v3 pay special attention to what I am about to tell you.  You can get v4 for FREE.  Yes, I said FREE.  Just install the v4 trial on top of your licensed v3 and upgrade it.  For more information read this article.

So what’s new with Expression Studio 4?  Rather than writing everything down for you, it is just as easy to provide the links that can give a much better explanation.

• Expression Blend 4 (note worthy MVVM support)
• Expression Web 4
• Expression Encoder 4
• Expression Design 4

Important!  If you are developing in Silverlight for Windows Phone 7, do not install this released version of Blend in Expression Studio 4.  You must continue to use Blend 4 Beta and Add-in Preview for Windows Phone.  A service pack will be released when the Windows Phone SDK releases.  Read more about this here.

Developers can update their runtime by downloading and installing the updated Silverlight developer runtime for Windows or Mac.  Any new Silverlight 4 applications will target this updated version.  For existing applications, if your users must have the newest version, update your <object> tag by setting the minRuntimeVersion to 4.0.50524.0.

Since anonymous types are generated in an assembly as internal types, by default, if you try to DataBind to an anonymous type, you’ll probably receive a binding error much like the following.

System.Windows.Data Error:
    Cannot get 'Age' value (type 'System.Int32') from '{ Name = World, Age = 23 }' (type '<>f__AnonymousType0`2[System.String,System.Int32]').
    BindingExpression: Path='Age' DataItem='{ Name = World, Age = 23 }' (HashCode=-172495608);
    target element is 'System.Windows.Controls.TextBlock' (Name='');
    target property is 'Text' (type 'System.String')..
    System.MethodAccessException: Attempt by method 'System.Windows.CLRPropertyListener.get_Value()'
    to access method '<>f__AnonymousType0`2<System.__Canon,System.Int32>.get_Age()' failed.

   at System.RuntimeMethodHandle.PerformSecurityCheck(Object obj,...
   at System.RuntimeMethodHandle.PerformSecurityCheck(Object obj,...
   at System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.Invoke(Object obj, Bind...
   at System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.Invoke(Object obj, Bind...
   at System.Reflection.RuntimePropertyInfo.GetValue(Object obj, ...
   at System.Reflection.RuntimePropertyInfo.GetValue(Object obj, ...
   at System.Windows.CLRPropertyListener.get_Value()
   at System.Windows.PropertyAccessPathStep.ConnectToPropertyInSo...

Turns out, it _IS_ possible to DataBind to an anonymous type in Silverlight.

All you have to do is expose your privates. Placing the following into your AssemblyInfo.cs will give the built in bindings the ability DataBind to your object(s).

[assembly: System.Runtime.CompilerServices.InternalsVisibleTo("System.Windows")]

I’m not going to say whether this is or is not a good idea, and I’m sure there’s many ways to abuse it.

Don’t inhale too much of this stuff.

Go get’em boys and girls!

Accent Color

Windows 7

Cosmopolitan

Go To Value Definition

Have you ever had a control that had a style assigned to it, but had no idea where to find that style?  It could be nested down in some obscure folder path in a ResourceDictionary somewhere.  You would have to do the good-old “ctrl + F” and do a search for it.  Well, no longer.  You can now go to the style value definition just by using the property inspector.

And when you click that magic button, it takes you straight to its definition.

Style Intellisense

A big pain for writing styles is that you have to hope you are setting the correct properties, and not fat-fingering them (misspelling).  Well, never fear, Style intellisense is here.  Never guess which property to use in the setter again.

Grid manipulation with a simple right-click

The source of my biggest headaches comes from the Grid.  Yes the Grid.  Because it can be a real pain to change once you have it created.  Lets say that I have laid out my nice beautiful form, and all of a sudden realize I put a row in the wrong order.  Well, I have to go into my XAML and update all my Grid attached properties for all the controls affected.

Not anymore!  With a simple right-click I can now move, insert, and delete rows and columns from my grid.  I just have to select any control in the row/column I want to manipulate, right-click it, then make my selection.  In this case I chose to move an entire row down one level.

As you can see, not just the control I selected moves, but the entire row moves with it.

As you can see, the Silverlight Tools for VS2010 aren’t just for Silverlight developers.  Even WPF peeps get a little love. 

Check out this video which shows theses features in action.