Silverlight Resources Directory - silverlight

If you have any links to nice animations, effects, basically any Silverlight resources please list them here.
Searching in google frustrates me, but it is probably due to me not knowing Silverlight and it's terminology that well.

Another good place to start sampling themes and applications, is here: Microsoft Expression Gallery

Download Silverlight Toolkit and look for Themes\Xaml folder. here is an online sample of those themes. Look for Theme Browser link in the bottom left.

Related

Future of PivotViewer control and HTML 5 equivalent

As Silverlight's future seems to be quite unsure, does anybody know if the PivotViewer control will still be maintained and updated?
I wish to develop an application based on this amazing control but I am not confident whether it will be maintained or not.
Is there any HTML5 initiative for developing such data visualization behavior?
Thanks.
I've been working on a HTML5 version of PivotViewer for a while now, you can see it here: http://pivot.lobsterpot.com.au/html5.htm.
This first prototype version doesn't have pan or zoom, but I do have a later version in the works that supports pan, zoom and tile templates.
I know this is an old question, but this control has been one of those awesome ones. The lobsterpot control is open sourced on github by openlink:
https://github.com/openlink/html5pivotviewer
if you're a budding dev for js, fork and improve :)
The short answer is that Silverlight as a whole will be "maintained and updated" for years.
There is so much talk of the death of Silverlight, but it and XAML are still top-tier Microsoft technologies. Nothing should stop you using the PivotViewer control and Silverlight in your application. If, in several years you're still working on the same thing and you feel support is lacking, cross that bridge then and reassess this decision.
There's an HTML5 version of PivotViewer around now by members of the original team that made the Silverlight version. It's sad that there is no WPF and WinRT version of it by Microsoft btw.
see links I've gathered on PivotViewer here
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/kf7pir9gf0wwdwy/AABmsm5LDcGYoA7UDGH33tTha?dl=0
those were collected during the development of ClipFlair project (http://ClipFlair.net - see http://clipflair.codeplex.com for the source code). Choose the "Gallery" option to see Silverlight PivotViewer in use there inside a zoomable floating window container that can host other components too along with it.

Integrating Windows Explorer's preview pane into WPF app

I've looked at a couple of articles today, and it doesn't seem to be working, I don't have enough of an idea of what is going on to troubleshoot... any simpler implementations or insights that may make this easier?
A WPF based treeview would exactly solve the purpose. This is a classic example of it's implementation for Windows Explorer.

WPF - Sample App, Step by Step

I'm new to WPF development. Is anyone aware of a site or resource that builds a somewhat simple WPF application step by step, with ample explanation and/or documentation?
Scott Hanselman has a series of blog posts in which he builds a WPF application called "BabySmash", sounds like it might be along the lines of what you're looking for. The first post is here, and all of the posts can be found under the BabySmash category on his site.
Months before I was also searching for stuffs like what you asked. Here I can provide you the best link for building a WPF application step by step with total documentation. This project demonstrates where to use which controls at what extend.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tims/archive/2007/06/13/wpf-hands-on-lab-build-an-outlook-2007-ui-clone.aspx
It is a hands-on lab that demonstrates the steps to create a user interface for business applications using WPF and Expression Blend.
Have a nice day.

What silverlight dev must learn to use arcGIS silverlight?

I am already familiar with Silverlight programming but not have any experience with GIS.
my role as silverlight developer is only to display existing GIS data.
If you guys have any experience with arcGIS silverlight control & api, what else do you think I must learn to be able to use it.
any learning reference could be helpful. thanks.
you don't need alot, you can dl the SDK from ESRI and then check out thier help site they have crap-loads of examples, both downloadable source and live samples (with the source code). If you have a license, you can use bing maps in the ESRI silverlight control--there are assemblies in the SDK for that.
as an aside, the SDK also includes the WPF assemblies as well.
It helps to have a basic understaind of the ESRI Map and Graphics object model for any of their API's (they all have similarities). The Silverlight API is much simpler than the Arcobjects API, but shares many of the same patterns.
If you are performing specific operations (such as distance calculations, map annotating, etc) there may be very specific concepts that will help. Can you post a question with more details about your goal?
I have made some different projects that used GIS data. I haven't tried arcGIS but used Bing Maps (http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/maps/archive/2009/03/18/introducing-the-virtual-earth-silverlight-map-control.aspx) and a Silverlight component from ThinkGeo (http://gis.thinkgeo.com/Microsite1/MapSuiteSilverlight2/tabid/709/Default.aspx?adcampaign=Map+Suite+Silverlight+Edition&leadsource=Google&adgroup=Silverlight+General&adtype=search&keyword=silverlight+map&gclid=CIu976aW0Z0CFZ1h4wodwGsDsA).
I think that Bing Maps is really easy to work with and there is lots of help available online. Maybe that can help you with some starting resources to argGIS?!
Chris is right. The help site has enough samples. I don't have Silverlight skills, so I really struggled with it and I was pretty bad at it too. I think the silverlight learning curve is much steeper.
I tried to wire up GIS tools/buttons to a ribbon control. It sort of worked, a silverlight dev would do a better job:
View esri-silverlight-toc-png
If you just need to control visibility, between services. It's real easy. Or if you have one service, with layers inside that you need to control...that's easy too.
But if you need both, you will have to roll your own layer control. I wired it up to a treeview, but it doesn't look sexy. ESRI may have a better TableofContents control out now, they didn't when I was messing with it:
View esri-silverlight-png

Free XamlPad Alternatives

I was using the XamlPad from the .NET SDK, so I did a quick search for something similar but with more features and utility.
My search turned up multiple alternatives, so I was wondering if anyone had any specific recommendations on which XamlPad alternative to choose.
As others have said, Kaxaml* is a great alternative to XamlPad. Kaxaml is great for quickly testing out layouts. And has some great snippets that show how to style basic UIElements and Brushes.
However, Kaxaml looses the ability to render the layout as soon as you start getting into !OOB namespaces.
IIRC, VS2010 has much better support for XAML. Can't wait :)
* link is to the GitHub project; the project's .com website is now being squatted and is NSFW.
I use Kaxaml
Update: Kaxaml is no longer maintained; as of November 2020, the .com domain redirects to an adult website.

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