saw this from phil haack and thought it was funny...i'm a big fan of office space, but if you've never seen it, you for sure would think it was not a comedy!

i just put up another podcast video of how to "cheat" at creating a media player for silverlight.  have you been looking at some of these media experiences with all their fancy buttons and dvd player-type overlays, etc. but didn't want to take the time to code your own?  well, you don't have to :-) (man that sounds like an infomercial)

in this podcast i demonstrate using expression media encoder as a tool that will essentially generate stub code for you.  now keep in mind that expression media encoder itself generates some pretty kick arse templates that may perfectly suit you.  but perhaps you want a player that has more branding or a mix of certain elements, etc.  well, still use expression media encoder for this.  let it output the template and then just change the xaml! 

after you watch the podcast (subscribe links on the left panel of my web site if you are reading this in a reader), you'll hear me reference certain named elements for key function points of the player code that is generated.  i said i'd call them out here and that is what i'm doing :-).  these refer to the named elements in the xaml.  they could be canvas elements/groups or objects themselves like a rectangle.  as long as they are named specifically the code should work.  here's a list of the most popular that i've used and the heirarchy of any children objects they should have.  the names themselves are in bold, everything else is just description:

• VideoWindow - this is the key element to display the media and must be a MediaElement node.  you can add clipping masks, etc. (as i show in the video), but you must have at least one MediaElement with this name
• PlayPauseButton - the grouped canvas of your play and pause buttons.  named this way, the logic is already there to handle certain functions if you don't provide additional animations/timelines (like hide/show).
  • PlaySymbol - the symbol for the actual play button
  • PauseSymbol - the symbol for the actual pause button
  • PlayPauseButton_MouseEnter/MouseLeave/MouseDown - i'm only going to put this here once, but it applies to most of the other elements like StopButton and MuteButton, etc.  if you have a timeline named these, it will fire, if you don't some default actions will occur.
• StopButton - the symbol for the actual stop button
• Timeline - for displaying the playing progress of the media
  • TimeSliderDecoration - the element that shows the full progress
  • TimeSlider - the progress growing metere
  • TimeThumb - the arrow/object, etc. that shows the point in the progress and the user would drag to adjust the position
• VolumeSlider - the elements making up the volume function
• VolumeThumb - the arrow/object that shows the position of the current volume and the user would drag to adjust
• VolumeUpButton/VolumeDownButton - if you were to use buttons for volume instead of a slider
• MuteButton - self explanatory
• CurrentTimeText - displays the time progress of the media element
• ChapterArea - the area that would display the markers in the media file (dvd-style playback)
• FullScreenArea - the full screen experience root node

there are, of course, more elements to mess with and i'd encourage you to look at one of the more advanced template outputs and start sniffing around to see what you find.  the cool thing is that you don't have to have all of them.  you'll notice in the podcast that i only put 3 elements on there and there are no errors.  the output code handles if an element is there or not for you.

i hope this helps get you started on creating great media experiences with silverlight and expression sooner!  if you want the sample player xaml that i used in the podcast, you can download that here.

i recently started to embark on a little 3 part series involving taking a pdf document of a baseball field and doing some silverlight and asp.net ajax love with it.  it led me along a path of creating some intense xaml design elements actually and i thought i'd share (in simpler form) the process i used.

expression design is a graphic tool that enables creating vector art that can then be exported to xaml (either WPF or silverlight).  it is a great tool that i'm starting to be more and more familiar with.  design understands various import and export format but sometimes your existing assets might not be directly importable.  have no fear there is a simple process (hopefully someone will automate this in one of their tools).  i just added a podcast (feeds listed on the left of this site) demonstrating the steps i used to convert an .svg file to readable in expression design, then export to silverlight xaml for an application.  it's only 8 minutes and might help if you are running into similar challenges.  you'll see that pdf documents with graphics also might give you some love.

i had my first full fledged second life experience today.  i had signed up a while back out of sheer curiosity, didn't get it really, and just fell by the wayside.  today i saw that brad abrams was presenting a silverlight session "in second life" i figured i'd check out what this experience is going to be.  after all, he was presenting on visual studio island and i figured, cool.

to be fair, i'm not a gamer, or alternate world-ist at all, so i absolutely entered this with preconceived notions.  but nonetheless i entered...as a noob.

so off i went to the teleport.  i checked in early to see what was going on.  some people in the auditorium were mulling around.  the anonymity freaked me out...all these freaky names and not knowing who really was who.  i don't drink, but i felt like dropping a few f-bombs and pounding some jack and coke while i was in there as long as nobody knew who i was ;-).  but seriously, i just layed low and tried to figure out the system.

the session was starting and two moderators made themselves known and told everyone to turn off feature x, y, z.  i had no idea how to do some of the things they asked, but some fellow second lifers helped me out.  the session started.  remember, this session was about silverlight.

brad started out talking (the audio was very clear for me and i could hear him perfectly).  i enjoy listening to brad talk so was curious how this was going to go.  then he started with the presentation.  this is where i started to lose interest.  not because of the presentation, but the medium.  it appeared that the deck and other demonstrations were played back using some type of media file.  it took a while to advance, render clearly, etc.  i even felt like brad was pausing a bit to wait until it rendered.  i really wasn't enjoying the experience at all.

so i decided to leave.  what i thought was my stand up button i accidentally clicked on either a few keystrokes or whatever, but the next thing i know i was flying.  great.  so i tried to go "down" but that resulted in me moving backwards (in the air) and then i moved the other way, which put me in front of the presentation screen :-).  crap.  then suddenly i see a message on the little chat window (that fades away rather quickly).  "TAKE YOUR SEAT OR BE BOOTED AND BANNED!"  um okay, i'm trying.  then

boom.  banned.  i was exiled to some random place.  when i tried to return to the island, i couldn't.  i was greeted with border patrol and a "no entry" fence.  mother flipper.  i was pissed.  on top of my already horrible view of presentations in second life, i was even given the chance to enter the island -- the whole island -- not just booted from the auditorium.  argh.  i decided to chat it up with the person who booted me.  i learned that they were hired moderators and had a little chat.  i identified myself and said that for a noob, that left me with a horrible experience and had i been someone curious to microsoft and the topic i would have been more pissed at microsoft.  she proceeded to tell me that they had a lot of people deliberately causing trouble in the room and have to take action quickly because there is a lot going on.  well, i say you need more moderators then.  or guess what...that's the point...it is a virtual world and people want to be able to do what they want -- including cause trouble.  i don't know, maybe i'm getting old, but i really was just way turned off by the whole experience i had.  i don't believe i'll be going back to second life.  if there was more of a QA session i think that would have had a better interaction, but the overall experience left me blah.  i hope our other customers/noobs aren't treated like that...virtual or otherwise.

sorry for those that like it, that's cool.  hey i like foodtv and people think i'm an idiot, so i'm cool with that.

due to some feedback, microsoft has added an msdn/technet event to the phoenix area on 26 SEP 2007.

for msdn, the topics covered in the half-day session are:

• LINQ (covered by Rob Bagby)
• WCF (covered by Rick Garibay)
• Silverlight (covered by me)

please join us and register for both the technet and the msdn event!  they are both free events!

register for technet

register for msdn