‘Twas the week before MIX, when all through the tubes Not a developer was sleeping, not even the noobs. The laptops were paved removed of their glitz In hopes that they soon will get some new bits. A developer was coding, building an app Trying to build the next greatest XAP Battleship gray?! Now that’s obscene Check our designers’ latest theme Okay, so I’m not going to win any poetry awards.  Our UX design team for Silverlight has been thinking about app building a lot this past year,...

It’s that time again…beginning of a new month!  That means that Smashing Magazine has released their monthly wallpaper pictures again. Not as many St. Patrick’s themed ones as I would have expected.  Here are your March 2010 Windows 7 Theme Packs for the wallpapers though…including all images (note: some ‘without calendar’ images are not provided by the authors) unfiltered. Smashing Magazine March 2010 Windows 7 Theme (calendar) Smashing Magazine March 2010 Windows 7 Theme (no calendar) Smashing Magazine Desktop Wallpaper: March 2010 (original post) For details on these and to see...

A developer asked me this question and while a simple answer, I thought it would be a good quick tip to share for those who may be in similar situations. The scenario is the classic master-details scenario where perhaps you have a grid of data and when a user selects the row, the details are enabled in a form (or perhaps the child of the element) for editing.  Maybe something like this: See you can see the row clearly selected (note: this is using the default DataGrid styling).  But watch what happens when you go to the form to edit: Notice the focus...

Below is a list to links of my Windows 7 themes that are based on the Smashing Magazine monthly desktop wallpaper posts.  Simply click on your desired theme pack (you must have Windows 7) and it will run.  These themes all use the default Windows sound themes (minus the start navigation) and are set to rotate every 30 minutes.  You can adjust those settings to your liking after installed.  They also use the 1920x1280 resolution pictures from the post as the maximum/best provided for each author. January 2010 February 2010 ...

One of my colleagues, Corrina, pointed me today to some research her team is conducting on user experience with Visual Studio and Silverlight.  From her post today, …that my co-workers on the Visual Studio User Experience Team are doing focused on professional and non-professional web/application developers. The research involves… A short survey A telephone interview to discuss your development experiences A gratuity will be offered to individuals selected to participate in the telephone interview,...

With the Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio, developers get access to the Silverlight Navigation Application template.  By default the styles (which are located in the project’s Assets/Styles.xaml file) are really good and neutral for the application layout.  Now, keep in mind this is an overall application layout style and not control styles/templates. In addition to the default look provided by the tools out of the box with Silverlight 3, we’re providing 7 additional application template themes for you to enjoy, extend, whatever.  Corrina and team had developed these for the community to consume and we’ve put them up on the...