Thomas Huber

The Lottery-Console-Application used at the last WPF-Event @ Microsoft Usergroup Switzerland

2008-08-25T10:30:34Z

Last week we had a great WPF-afterwork-event at Microsoft Usergroup Switzerland (MSUGS) sponsored by Trivadis. I gave a deep-dive session about developing custom controls using WPF with many of it’s features like Dependency Properties, Commands, Routed Events, PART-Elements, Theme-Styles and so on. At the end of the session a copy of my German WPF-book was [...]...(read more)

Developing Multicolumn-DropDown/DropDownList with ASP.NET, the GridView and the AJAX Control Toolkit

2008-07-31T13:22:57Z

During the last months I was developing an ASP.NET application and I needed a dropdownlist to display multiple columns in each item. Everyone with a little knowledge in Web-development knows, that HTML doesn’t contain built-in support for multicolumn-DropDowns. HTML only knows a <select>-Tag that can contain multiple <option>-Tags, but each <option>-Tag just represents one column [...]...(read more)

WPF-book is now available in stores, maybe you win a free one @MSUGS

2008-06-30T22:10:37Z

Since last week my German WPF-book is available in stores. You find more details about the book and some snippets of chapter 1 and chapter 14 on Galileo Computing. You can order the book on the Galileo Comuting-Website or on amazon.de and other stores. For any questions about the book, write a comment to this post [...]...(read more)

Print of WPF-book will start next week

2008-05-31T17:15:55Z

As I promised in my last post, here are some infos about my nearly finished book project: Last weekend I made checks on the first galley proof of my german WPF-book. Yesterday I got the second galley proof, the corrected one. The second galley proof I’ve checked yesterday evening and today. The book will have about [...]...(read more)

Got the MCTS: .NET Framework 3.5, Windows Presentation Foundation

2008-05-18T16:27:05Z

Last Thursday I took the exam for the Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist .NET Framework 3.5, Windows Presentation Foundation. The exam is brand new and covers a wide spectrum of WPF. Im not sure, if asking Multiple-choice-questions is a good thing for testing the knowledge of programmers, but hey, the exam was a good test for my [...]...(read more)

UIAutomation to open ComboBox from Code

2008-05-18T16:07:16Z

In WPF there’s an Automation Framework called UIAutomation. This Framework can be used to control UIElements from code. This can be useful for different scenarios: Provide the user additional help Control a programm by another programm Test applications Execute a user-action from code … The Automation Frameowork isn’t limited to WPF. You can also control Win32-Applications. In WPF for every FrameworkElement you [...]...(read more)

WPF Multi-Layer Business Application for Download

2008-05-16T21:24:09Z

Tomorrow Karl Shifflett is giving a Code Camp session in Charlotte. Unfortunately it’s too far away for me to participate. Today Karl has posted a really great WPF Multi-Layer Business Application that can be downloaded from his blog. Check it out here and learn from it. Thx to Karl for posting and sharing that [...]...(read more)

LostFocus (TextBox) vs. Buttons IsDefault-Property

2008-05-02T09:52:36Z

If you bind the Text-Property of a TextBox to something, the "something" is updated when the TextBox loses focus. This is the Default-UpdateSourceTrigger defined in the Metadata for the TextBox.TextProperty. In a Data Binding you can specify another UpdateSourceTrigger, like e.g. PropertyChanged. If a TextBox has LostFocus as UpdateSourceTrigger, which is the default, you can get [...]...(read more)

The dream of "half-automatic" Automation Properties

2008-05-02T09:12:44Z

Everyone who has worked with WPF knows the interface INotifyPropertyChanged. It only defines the PropertyChanged-event, that should be called when a property’s value has been changed. The PropertyChanged-event is used by WPF’s Data Binding. Normally a class fires the event in the set-Accessors of its properties. And that’s the problem why you can’t use Automation Properties [...]...(read more)

Vista’s SaveFileDialog and OpenFileDialog in WPF

2008-04-12T00:05:34Z

Windows Vista contains new Win32-Dialogs to save and open a file. There are also the old dialogs from XP available. Windows Presentation Foundation has two wrapper-classes for Win32-Dialogs. The Microsoft.Win32-Namespace contains a SaveFileDialog- and an OpenFileDialog-class. The classes are located in the PresentationFramework-Assembly, one of the central assemblies of WPF. When you use the classes from Microsoft.Win32-Namespace, [...]...(read more)

Take Snapshots PART II - Save as animated GIF

2008-04-09T21:31:35Z

I was asked, if it would be possible to save the snapshots created in my last post as an animated gif. With a DispatcherTimer and the GifBitmapEncoder-class you’re not far away from it. Just create a MediaElement in your Window: <MediaElement Source="thomasOnBoard.wmv" x:Name="media" MediaOpened="media_MediaOpened" MediaEnded="media_MediaEnded" Width="300" Height="200" Stretch="Fill"/> In the Codebehind-File, implement Eventhandlers...(read more)

Take Snapshots of Videos with WPF

2008-04-06T11:14:59Z

With WPF’s Imaging-Classes you can take snapshots of any Visual. The snapshot can be saved in any common Image-Format, like e.g. JPG. Let’s take a look at a pretty short example, that shows how easy this can be done. The example takes snapshots of a Video. The following Window contains a MediaElement and a Button. The [...]...(read more)

Dependency Properties - Value Precendence

2008-03-13T16:02:10Z

The value of a Dependency Properties in WPF can be set from many sources: Templates, Styles, Data Binding, Animation, Local, Inherited from Element Tree,… That’s the reason why they are called "Dependency" Properties. Their values depend on many sources. To get not a total chaos, there’s a precedence list in WPF that rules which value finally [...]...(read more)

Built-in DataGrid for WPF is planned

2008-02-22T23:36:40Z

Yes, they are planning to release it. Really great news. Today there’s no DataGrid for WPF-applications as part of .NET Framework 3.5. There are only third-party controls like the Grid from Xceed or Infragistics. Have you ever built a business application without a DataGrid? I haven’t. I’m really happy to hear that microsoft will release a [...]...(read more)

Kick it like Beckham with WPF Animations

2008-02-21T07:31:52Z

I’m just finishing the Animation-Chapter of my German-speaking WPF book (WPF-Buch erscheint im Juni 2008). I had a hard time to find a good idea how to show the reader animations in a really "non-boring", but easy way. And I think I’ve found one. Animations in WPF are really powerful. You can create them completely in [...]...(read more)