Play Beanbag Toss on Microsoft Surface

What type of application would you create if your target device is a 30 inch table?  Did I mention that it has a hardened top that can take some serious abuse?

Would you have considered a bean bag game?

The clever folks at Razorfish are churning out some interesting Surface apps.  Check out their video archive for more applications.

 

---

Mastering Microsoft Surface Development with WPF

Learn to program the Microsoft Surface today.
Take our intensive five day course

 

A multi-faceted course that delivers loads of content in an instructor-led format. You get lots of lab time and thousands of lines of sample code to take back to work with you. Best of all we bundle the Microsoft Surface™ and WPF content into to one convenient package, so you can learn everything you need in one information packed week.

Next class:

• Dallas TX
• April 20-24th
• Register for an upcoming class

Read Full Post »

Quick Tip: Expression Blend – the Hand

 

There never seems to be enough screen space when working with Expression Blend or Visual Studio.   Sometimes in Blend the Artboard gets a little off center and you need to move it to see what you are working on.

In this screen shot the right edge of the button and window are not visible.

Scrollbars are so ’90’s

Are you tempted to grab the bottom scroll bar and move the artboard back into the center?

Before you do I’d like to point out another option.

Blend also has ‘the Hand”.

Click the Hand (or press the H key) and you can mouse drag anywhere on the artboard.

Now here is the tip.

You don’t have to actually have to select the hand in the toolbar or with the H key.  The secret is to hold down the Spacebar and mouse drag.  The benefit to this approach is that the Hand is only toggled on as long as you hold the spacebar.  Once you release the spacebar Blend returns to the previously selected tool.

Read Full Post »

MS Demos Surface Physics Engine

James Wood has been quietly hacking away on a new Surface physics engine.  His job is to visualize and create proof of concept applications for Microsoft UK and this is his latest project.

A couple weeks ago James released some videos of his latest research.  Take a look, what do you think?  There are more videos on his site.

In the last couple months there have been  number of excellent Microsoft Surface applications released.  Vertigo, IdentityMine , RazorFish and InterKnowlogy are just a few of the companies creating fascinating Surface applications.  Most of these apps are written in WPF and show how beautiful a WPF interface can be.

 

---

Mastering Microsoft Surface Development with WPF

Learn to program the Microsoft Surface today.
Take our intensive five day course

 

A multi-faceted course that delivers loads of content in an instructor-led format. You get lots of lab time and thousands of lines of sample code to take back to work with you. Best of all we bundle the Microsoft Surface™ and WPF content into to one convenient package, so you can learn everything you need in one information packed week.

Next class:

• Dallas TX
• April 20-24th
• Register for an upcoming class

Read Full Post »

True multi-monitor support in Visual Studio 2010

If you have ever been frustrated with the mutli-monitor support in Visual Studio 2008  you’ll be pleased to see what’s coming in VS 2010.

VS 2010 will sport a new WPF IDE.  Since the IDE is getting a complete rewrite it allows Microsoft to rethink multi-monitor.  Every window in VS will be ‘tear-off’.  Drag the properties window to mon2, drag the thread window to mon3.  Total freedom and very useful.

Read Full Post »

Visual Studio 2010 gets WPF facelift

WPF has been out for a couple years.  That’s long enough that new releases of Microsoft products are sprouting WPF interfaces. 

Last year at PDC Microsoft announced that the code editor in Visual Studio would be re-written in WPF.   Microsoft didn’t stop at the code editor though.  Today Jason Zander, GM for Visual Studio, revealed the new WPF based IDE. 

My first impression;  very clean look, pleasant to work with.  No, it’s not dark and moody like the Expression Blend interface.

See Jason’s blog for more screen shots.

Read Full Post »

SilverlightContrib – Nice Open Source Library

Ever week a new crop of Silverlight/WPF tools crosses my desk. It’s hard to keep up with the steady flow.    You can’t beat Silverlight Cream for a daily list of what’s new.

The latest item that caught my eye is SilverlightContrib.  This open source Silverlight library just shipped v 1.0.

Silverlight Contrib is a continuously evolving collection of open source Silverlight Controls and API enhancements built for and by the Silverlight developer community.  The goal of this project is to complement Silverlight and make the lives of Silverlight developers easier.

Partial Tool List

Color Picker

 

Cool menu

Sliders

Star Selector (Rating)

Plus

• Tweening tools
• Convert to XAML
• Convert from RTF
• Many more

Read Full Post »

Reflecting on Design #15

Kinetic typography is a form of animation that uses fonts and words as the main actors.  This style of animation, also known as moving type, can create complex animations mostly on moving text.

---

See the entire Reflecting on Design series.

The point is to find beauty elsewhere; photographs, typography, architecture, fine art, industrial design. Just maybe they’ll help wake up your inner designer.

Read Full Post »

Building a WPF Search Text Box

I’m sure you have encountered a search box that looks like the following.

 

This type of search box reminds me of a ComboBox.  It takes up very little space in your application and combines many constituent controls into a single control.  In this example the search text box contains a textbox, label and search/clear buttons. 

Unfortunately neither the standard WPF or Winform control libraries contain a Search control.

You’re in luck however.  David Owens II has a lengthy article describing how to make your own custom SearchTextBox control. 

 

Read Full Post »

Reflecting on Design #14

What do you do with a book?  If you are like most people your answer is probably; “read it…”.

But if you are an artist you might look at a book as a treasure to be mined for its internal beauty.  All you need is a scalpel and a fertile mind.

Brian Dettmer: Book Autopsies

Brian Dettmer was the first book artist I encountered.

http://www.toomey-tourell.com/artists/brian-dettmer

 

 

From bookdust.com

At Bookdust.com

 

 

Georgia Russell

At the England Gallery

Folded Page Art

Some people fold the book pages, instead of cutting. 

See a video of book folding.

Read Full Post »

Reflecting on Design #13

Nature is filled with interesting colors and juxtapositions.  Sometimes an organic shot is better than anything you can dream up for using as a pattern. 

Waterdrops on flower by Sophie

Macro photography gives a close-up, detailed look at the the hidden treasures which are all around us.  

 

 

---

See the entire Reflecting on Design series.

The point is to find beauty elsewhere; photographs, typography, architecture, fine art, industrial design. Just maybe they’ll help wake up your inner designer.

Read Full Post »

Reflecting on Design #12

Here’s an interesting idea.  Create a picture using every possible RGB color.

The objective of allRGB is simple: To create images with one pixel for every rgb-color (16777216 to be exact); not one color missing, and not one color twice.

Working within these rules you could make some boring pictures, but as usual people are coming up with interesting ideas.

http://allrgb.com/

Here is a small portion of a picture at AllRBG.com

 

The whole picture is below.

 

---

See the entire Reflecting on Design series.

The point is to find beauty elsewhere; photographs, typography, architecture, fine art, industrial design. Just maybe they’ll help wake up your inner designer.

Read Full Post »

Reflecting on Design #11

 

What if you performed a color map of every frame of a film and built a conglomerate map with the results?

Alan Woo wrote a program to do just that and created a series of posters.

A program written in processing captures each frame of each movie and essentially creates a ‘pie chart’ of the colours contained within each film producing a simplistic and abstracted representation. Each poster includes the film title, year, director, cinematographer, running time and occasionally, various surprising/unsurprising similarities.

Here’s an example from “A Clockwork Orange”.

 

---

See the entire Reflecting on Design series.

The point is to find beauty elsewhere; photographs, typography, architecture, fine art, industrial design. Just maybe they’ll help wake up your inner designer.

Read Full Post »

Reflecting on Design #10

More light painting photos.  I especially like his portraits.

Some ‘not safe for work’ items on Patrick’s site.

 

 

---

See the entire Reflecting on Design series.

The point is to find beauty elsewhere; photographs, typography, architecture, fine art, industrial design. Just maybe they’ll help wake up your inner designer.

Read Full Post »

Feel the Power of WPF ListBox Templates

I teach a lot of WPF classes. During each class there comes a moment, usually on the third or fourth day, when the questions change and a sense of excitement rises in the room.  Suddenly all the pieces come together in the students mind; the dependency system, data binding and data templates, styles, control templates and everything else they’ve seen during the week.

The drums start pounding…

“I feel the power of WPF.”

A chant soars though out the room…

“I feel the power of WPF.”

I can see it in their eyes….

“I feel the power of WPF.”

I can hear it in their voices…

 “I feel the power of WPF.”

Clap, clap, clap, clap…

“I feel the power of WPF.”

Clap, clap, clap…

“I feel the power of WPF.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reality fights back

OK. that was a bit of a stretch but the point is valid. 

At some point when learning WPF you realize how flexible and powerful  the framework is, and it opens your mind to the new possibilities.  Here’s a simple example. One of the surprising areas in WPF is the limitless ways to restyle the lowly ListBox.

Listboxes in WPF are different

Items Controls are the basis of all list controls in WPF.  Dr. WPF has a great series about ItemsControls which is very helpful in learning about this powerful set of controls.

ListBox Control Template example

Here’s a interesting example of the drastic extent you can change the appearance of the ListBox. This map of the U.S.A is really a ListBox.

http://richapps.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/advanced-styling-wpf/#

Read Full Post »

Reflecting on Design #9

 

Painting with light creates vivid images.  Sometimes called ‘light graffiti’.

From Recycle Bean

 

 

---

See the entire Reflecting on Design series.

The point is to find beauty elsewhere; photographs, typography, architecture, fine art, industrial design. Just maybe they’ll help wake up your inner designer.

Read Full Post »