DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by dwhittaker

Using the ToggleSwitch in WinRT/Metro (for C#)

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:12:33 GMT

One of the new user controls being released with WinRT/Metro is the ToggleSwitch which can be found in the Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls namespace. This post provides some good info on the new control and how to set its parameters.

Learning how to use Value Converters in Silverlight

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 14:08:10 GMT

Taking a look at how to use and harness the power of Value Converters. A Value Converter (IValueConverter) allows for you to perform custom logic during Bind time in XAML based applications. With a value converter you can implement pretty much any type of complex logic you want (bool to visibility, changing styles, etc) at runtime and have this logic extracted away in a stand alone class.

Getting Started w/ NuGet

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 22:05:49 GMT

Learning how to use the NuGet Package Management System. We will start off by looking at how to install NuGet inside of Visual Studio. We will then learn how to use NuGet to install/uninstall packages. We will end the episode by looking at how to create our first NuGet Package.

Working with Advanced Aspects with Postsharp

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:56:19 GMT

Taking a look at how to use the AOP (Aspect Orientated Programming) framework Postsharp. In this episode we will focus on how to use the OnMethodBoundry, MethodInterceptions, LocationInterception and EventInterception Aspects. We will look at how each of these can be used and how they can be used in conjuction with each other to build a better application.

Getting Started with AOP using Postsharp

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:58:18 GMT

Taking a look at how to implemented AOP (Aspect Orientated Programming) with PostSharp. We will be using the Postsharp library in this episode and we will take a look at how to create our first Aspect as well as how to use the metadata with the aspect to provide real business value in your application.

Learning how to use Behaviors in Silverlight

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 10:19:19 GMT

Taking a look at how to use and harness the power of Behaviors. A Behavior in Silverlight is a way to extend an existing UI element in order to add additional state or actions to it. We can create these Behaviors and attach them to pretty much any UI element you could hope for.

WP7: Using Location Services

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 19:59:56 GMT

Taking a look at how to use the Location Services (GPS) built into the Windows Phone 7 platform. We will first take a look at how we can use the location servcies library on the phone to get the phones current GPS information. We will then take a look at how we can use that information in conjuction w/ the Bing Services to get the street address for the GPS coordinates

WCF: How to create Custom Message Interceptors

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 19:59:21 GMT

Taking a look at how to extend WCF to create custom Message Interceptors We will first take a look at how we can create our custom interceptors and hook them into the WCF pipeline. We will then take a look at how we can intercept both inbound and outbound messages to allow us to perform some sort of actions agains the messages.

MVVM - How to create a ViewModelLocater

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 19:58:42 GMT

Taking a look at how we can create a simple ViewModelLocator to inject our ViewModel into our DataContext at runtime via conventions. The ViewModelLocator Pattern will allow you to create a very flexable application because it will decouple your Views from your ViewModel. The approach in this episode will take a convention based approach to determine which ViewModel should go with a given View.

WP7 - Learning how to use Live Tiles

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 19:58:03 GMT

Taking a look at how we can use Live Tiles in WP7 (Mango). WP7 Mango has introduced not only the ability to create Application Tiles via code but they have also added the ability to create Secondary Tiles, tiles which can deep link into your application. These Secondary tiles can also be created, updated and deleted in code and can provide a very powerful feature for your application.

Entity Framework: Making changes to the T4 Templats

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:09:16 GMT

Taking a look at how Entity Framework uses T4 Templates (Text Template Transformation Toolkit) when building out the entity model. We will first learn how EF is using the templates, we will then learn how to view and access these templates and finally we will take a look at how to modify these templates to meet your own specific needs.

WP7: Learning how to detect Themes

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 12:18:14 GMT

Taking a look at how the phone uses themes and styles. We will focus on how to determine which theme is being used as well as learning how to swap out our resource files which are used by our application based on the active theme. Knowing which theme is in use will allow your application to better conform to either the light or dark user experience.

WP7: Writing and Reading from Isolated Storage

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 16:05:52 GMT

Taking a look at store data in Isolated Storage on the phone Storing data in Isolated Storage on the phone is critical because there is no SQL database which can run on the phone at this point. In this episode we will look at how we can store and retrieve data to storage on the phone.

Entity Framework: Intro to Database First Design

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 14:41:36 GMT

Taking a look at how to use the Entity Framework via its database first design concepts. When building out an application which is based off of the Entity framework you have multiple options, you can either build your model off of your existing database or build your database of your existing model. This episode will explore how you start with your existing database and build your entity model.

WP7: Learning how to handle Tombstoning

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 16:26:15 GMT

Taking a look at how to handle tombstoning (when your application is not longer in focus, but is not shut down yet) in your WP7 application. When building out a WP7 application it is critical that your application can handle Tombstoning and rebuild itself as needed. This is to allow the user to have their work flow interrupted by an action, but still gives them the ability to back into your app and resume from there last usage point. In fact if you fail to take Tombstoning into account your application will fail certification.

Entity Framework: Intro to Model First Design

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 20:38:28 GMT

Taking a look at how to use the Entity Framework via its model first design concepts. When building out an application which is based off of the Entity framework you have multiple options, you can either build your model off of your existing database or build your database of your existing model. This episode will explore how you start with your entity model and build out your databas

Load Testing WCF Services w/ VS2010

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 11:56:31 GMT

Taking a look at how you can use Visual Studio 2010 to perform load testing on your WCF services When building out any WCF services it is very important to understand how they will handle under load and stress. You will want know that your services will respond well under peak load in order to allow your users to have a solid experience. With VS2010 Ultimate there are tools built in which will give you this ability.

Continuous project statistics with StatSVN and TeamCity

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 11:58:27 GMT

Yesterday I wrote about Continuous code quality measurement with NDepend and TeamCity where I looked at nightly builds that assessed code quality using the very excellent NDepend. These reports are great and it's easy to configure but you need to make both a dollar investment in the software and an education investment to really understand the metrics and how they relate to code quality. What's nice about StatSVN is that it's free and it doesn't take a lot of thinking to use it. Rather than analysing your codebase, like NDepend, StatSVN analyses your Subversion repository and reports on how your app has changed over time. In a way, it's kind of chewing gum for the brain (lots of interesting metrics without a whole lot of substance), but there's bit of value in understanding more about how your project is structured. And hey, it's free!

Using Metadata in your MEF Exports

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 12:21:26 GMT

Taking a look at how you can use MEF (Managed Extensibility Framework) to expose metadata attributes in your exports. Having the ability to expose metadata will give you the ability to make decisions around your exports with this metadata.

Using Property/Method Exports in MEF

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 12:20:42 GMT

Taking a look at how you can use MEF (Managed Extensibility Framework) to export either properties or methods on an object. Having the ability to export only certian properties or methods via MEF provides you another great way to extend your application. You can now have different exports for each use case and you do not need to export the entire class, only parts of that class.

Take your Windows Phone apps to the Marketplace faster with RadControl

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 21:34:29 GMT

Take your Windows Phone apps to the Marketplace faster with RadControls for Windows Phone - 12 light and blazing-fast UI components offering unique capabilities such as: Animations, Transitions, Window and more. Read more and see the videos.

WP7 ToggleSwitch in depth | key concepts and API

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 16:35:24 GMT

Windows Phone 7 ToggleSwitch in depth | key concepts and API.

Parallel Programming w/ Task Parallel Library

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:24:41 GMT

Taking a look at how we can simplify parallel programming by using the Task Parallel Library which is part of .Net 4.0 We will take a look at how to move your code away from for and foreach and towards Parallel.For and Parallel.Foreach. These new methods allow you to parallelize your loops w/ little effort, but with large gains.

Going Out Of Browser w/ Silverlight

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:30:52 GMT

Taking a look at how we can use the take our in-browser silverlight application and allow it to run Out of Browser (OOB). We will take a look at how we can let silverlight perform the lifting as well as how we can provide coding to create the OOB application.

Going Lazy<T> with System.Lazy

Tue, 25 May 2010 19:30:52 GMT

Taking a look at the how to use the System.Lazy namespace in .Net 4.0. One of the pretty cool new nuggets inside the .Net 4.0 framework is System.Lazy and System.Lazy. What System.Lazy brings to the table is a way to create objects which may need to perform intensive operations and defer the execution of the operation until it is 100% absolutely needed.