I need to create charts for WP Mango. Therefore I have a couple of "what/how" questions which might be interesting:
What...
...frameworks or tools use for this purpose?
...better to use, Silverlight or XNA (or mix)?
...to read, download, avoid etc.?
...pitfalls in charts creation (even not for WP)?
The same Data Visualization project that supports charting on WPF and Silverlight supports Windows Phone 7. Download the package and the data visualization demos from Delay's Blog:
Phone-y charts [Silverlight/WPF Data Visualization Development Release 4 and Windows Phone 7 Charting sample!]
Look at Telerik RadChart for WP7
I have found only 2 free Windows Phone chart libraries. Here are my posts with overview of these libraries:
Silverlight Toolkit
AmCharts
At the end of my posts I posted links to sample applications, so you can download and test them without writing your own samples.
Related
I just started a new job where I need to do a new development in Silverlight technology. The existing application is an ASP.NET and GIS application.
What version of Silverlight is recommended to use?
I don't have any experience using Silverlight, please suggest me a good place to start -- Tutorials / Blogs/ resources...
If you are using ArcGIS, then you should use Silverlight 4. The current version of the Esri Silverlight SDK is version 2.4. It is built on top of Silverlight 4. If you are using ArcGIS 10.1, then you can use version 3.0. The current version (beta) of 3.0 is also built on Silverlight 4, but they were talking about building it on Silverlight 5.
Silverlight 5 would be the best bet. You can get lots of tutorials over at http://silverlight.net.
This,this and this are very good and knowledegeable for starters.
This shows many samples of the silverlight controls with source codes.
This shows different practical uses of silverlight with source codes!
If you come across any other queries while development, you can post a question and get suggestions here, on StackOverflow very easily.! :)
I have experience coding in C# (console and Windows Form applications). For something to do in my free time, I've been intending to pick up another language, and have my sights on something thats a little more content rich. However, I'm confused about the following:
Windows Forms are used to develop GUI applications for windows. What is WPF and how is it different from Windows Forms
Does Windows Phone development use C#, or exclusively Silverlight? Or does it just use the .NET framework, and you can use either of the two?
Adding to other answer(s):
WPF uses an XML-based markup called XAML to describe the UI, like HTML does for a web page. The XAML file is paired with a "code-behind" (.cs or .vb) file that is compiled together when the app is built. Adding an XML element to the XAML file is equvalient to declaring an object in the code-behind file. For many classes, you can choose to do one or the other.
Use can use C# or VB.NET language to write Windows Phone apps (although currently only C# is available in the free Visual Studio Express that comes with the Windows phone tools on App Hub). Silverlight is a subset of the .NET Framework, whose classes can be used to write phone apps. You can also use the XNA libraries to develop phone applications.
I HIGHLY recommend Charles Petzolds free ebook for more. He does a great job of explaining this in the first couple chapters: http://charlespetzold.com/phone/index.html
Hope that helps!
Win Forms are a light object oriented wrapper around the basic Win32 GDI primitives.
WPF and Silverlight do their own rendering, don't use GDI and are built on XML-based layout and the MIL.
Windows Phone Development uses Silverlight with C#. The WP7 version of Silverlight runs on a modified version of Silverlight 3, which in itself uses a modified/minified .NET framework. So WP7 development uses all of what you mentioned in question 2.
I can't give a much better answer than #jeffmaphone for question 1, so please look at his response.
Windows Phone 7 uses Silverlight for the UI but the code can be C# or VB. This page of Code Samples for Windows Phone has both but:
In order to build and run Visual Basic samples, you must install additional developer tools. For more information, see Installing Windows Phone Developer Tools.
For more information see the Windows Phone 7 Developer Guide
1) Windows Forms is one method to develop GUI apps for Windows, WPF is another (for Vista, 7 and XP SP2). In general, Windows Forms is great for simple, quick and dirty applications, while WPF works well for more complex and flashy applications.
2) Windows Phone uses Silverlight for non-game applications and XNA for games. In both cases, you can use C# as the logic layer. In other words, C# code decides where to put things in the UI, while Silverlight or XNA are different ways of talking to a display.
Be careful about searching for Silverlight tutorials, because not all of Silverlight is on the phone.
Here are my suggestions:
1) Check this discussion :WPF versus Winforms
2)Generally Windows Phone 7 supports two frameworks for developing applications– Silverlight and XNA. Check MSDN for reference:
The Silverlight and XNA Frameworks for Windows Phone
Features Supported in Silverlight for Windows Phone
PS: One of the best resource for Silverlight development is the official Silverlight web site: http://www.silverlight.net/
Back when Windows Phone 7 had it's first SDK released they had an item list template that had the transitions for the items. Currently in the RTM tools there doesn't appear to be any support for this, can you not access the standard built-in transitions in Windows Phone 7?
You can implement this yourself with Blend.
Two things you can look at.
Christian Schormann's blend demo in his CL02 Mix Talk.
Shawn Wildermuth's blog post on this topic.
Bring Back Page Transitions to the Windows Phone List Application Template
Micks' suggestion is great. To add awesomeness to your Windows Phone application, learning how to use Blend is important. Adding page transitions is quite simple to a Windows Phone app is easy and if you are looking for sample code/library, Kevin Marshall has a good sample here. I would also recommend reading Kevin's development tips for Windows Phone development.
I've found the Silverlight Toolkit for Windows Phone has some transitions very similar to those that exist in the phone itself.
http://silverlight.codeplex.com/
I'm a developer with WPF experiences, my next project will use Silverlight. I have read some articles on the internet (almost all msdn and silverlight.net) and I think that they aren't much different. Anyway, I still have questions that I'm not sure.
What is different between WPF 4 and Silverlight 4? (I found an article on msdn but its based on .NET framework 3.5)
Are there any resources for learning Silverlight that are good for experience WPF developer?
Do I need a book on Silverlight?
I personally really like the course posted here:
http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Silverlight4/
I don't know what you intend to develop using Silverlight. But it's a good start if you like to develop business applications using Silverlight.
WPF has hardware-accelerated full faceted 3D support
WPF has direct access to the full .NET framework
WPF can take full advantage of the hardware on the system.
Silverlight allows you to create a single app that works across browsers, operating systems.
You can use Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 development
For Books, I would recommend Silverlight Recipes and Microsoft Silverlight 4 Data and Services Cookbook.
I'm looking for some nice looking silverlight video players to be used on a website. Similar to this question regarding flash: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/167072/free-paid-flash-video-players, I'm looking for some good silverlight skins.
Any good resources available? I'm aware of:
http://www.longtailvideo.com/players/jw-wmv-player/
Microsoft Media Platform Player Framework
Silverlight 2 Video Player on CodePlex
The ASP.Net MediaPlayer control in the Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio has some built-in skins that can be customized