Silverlight 2 Beta 2 - how to set built-in style for custom controls from generic.xaml

Built-In Style of Controls

The built-in style for a control is now determined by looking at the DefaultStyleKey property. This property defaults to null (which means no built-in style will be used).

If a control class wishes to provide a built-in style that is different from its parent, it should set the DefaultStyleKey in the control constructor. This change ultimately enables the scenario where a developer wants to subclass a control and add functionality, but does not wish to change the control's built-in look.

Example: Button sets DefaultStyleKey

public class Button : Control
{
public Button() : base()
{
...
DefaultStyleKey = typeof(Button);
}
}

for more details : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645049(VS.95).aspx

Bill Gates announces Silverlight 2 Beta 2 and Crossfader @ Tech-Ed 2008

As Bill Gates announces Silverlight 2 Beta 2 @ Tech-Ed 2008, Crossfader application became one of the key presentation of Keynote.

Crossfader application was built with Silverlight 2 Beta, It was demonstrated in Tech-Ed by S. Somasegar, Senior Vice President, Developer Division, Microsoft.

Crossfader is a social networking application, through which one can share their digital content like Video, Audio, Photo, etc., with friends, families & with other members of the Online Community.

I am really proud to say that, I was one of the key members of the Crossfader development team, it was a great experience in working with some latest technologies like Silverlight, WCF, etc.

Crossfader was one of the first major project in Silverlight 2.0 in our company (IdentityMine). David Kelly was the architect of this project. I am thanking all team members for their support to make the project a grand success. Congratulations Team!

Some Links to Tech-ed 2008:
Microsoft Tech-Ed Online
Silverlight 2 Beta 2 Announced [Crossfader Demo]
Crossfader.com [Soon replaced by the new application in Silverlight.. Keep watching :) ]

Microsoft Innovation Days @ Kochi - May 30, 2008

I got a chance to attend Microsoft Innovation Days event at Le Meridien Hotel, Kochi on May 30,2008. Microsoft Innovation Days are day-long free events which offer an inspiring and productive day of technology previews, resources, and business benefits that will keep us competitive and help us to energize and maximize our technology.

Some of the key topics covered were:
1. Building Rich Internet Applications Using Silverlight 2.0 by Nahas Mohammed, Microsoft
Siverlight2.0 virtual vehicle gallery demo by Jim Mangaly, IdentityMine
2. Building high performance .NET applications by Harish Ranganathan, Microsoft
3. LINQ: Working with data naturally! by Harish Ranganathan, Microsoft
4. Getting the Best from SQL Box: Performance Tuning SQL Server by Praveen Srivastava, Microsoft

In that our company (IdentityMine) got a 30 minutes slot to share our experience using Silverlight 2.0, Since IdentityMine has been into this technology for more than a year and IdentityMine also did some Silverlight 1.0 training at Mumbai and Bangalore in last December which had a wonderful developer, designer audience from various companies around India.

At the end of Building Rich Internet Applications Using Silverlight 2.0 by Nahas Mohammed, my colleague Jim Mangaly did a great presentation showcasing a virtual vehicle gallery demo application developed in Silverlight 2.0. This was not a fully fledged application, which was created in a week's time. It include most of the highlighted features of Silverlight 2.0 like: Databinding, Templates, Animations, Drag and Drop, Video Brush, Isolated Storage, Video Markers etc.. He explained some of our experiences working with Silverlight, including the Developer-Designer workflow, also showed some other samples too.

There was 200 plus developer, designer audience from various companies around Kerala, all were impressed with Jim Mangaly’s presentation.

Silverlight Chart Control - Sample Code

The Silverlight Chart Control provides charting solution in a silverlight environment. It uses XAML and C# to display charts on the silverlight platform. The Silverlight Chart Control supports different types of chart like: VerticalBar, CylinderBar, HorizontalBar, StackedVerticalBar, StackedHorizontalBar, Pie area, StackedArea, Line BarLine, AreaLine, BarAreaLine, XYLine, ScatterPlot, Radar, RadarArea, Funnel, CircularGauge, SemiCircularGauge, etc.

For more details Please check :

Free Silverlight Chart Control

You can download the original source code from here

FreeSilverlightChart Control Test Page