Shine Draw

Having develop Silverlight more than a year, I find that I am lacking of a good management tools to organize all of my Silverlight Resources.

For example, suppose I want to add a Gradient Background in one of my control. The xaml coding is somewhat like

<Border.Background>
                <LinearGradientBrush StartPoint=”0,0″ EndPoint=”0,1″>
                    <GradientStop Color=”#666666″ Offset=”0″/>
                    <GradientStop Color=”#000000″ Offset=”1″/>
                </LinearGradientBrush>
</Border.Background>

It looks simple but I can hardly remember the tags of the XAML. It turns out that I need to open the Blend or reference some previous projects for copy and paste.

Therefore, I think we need a better way to reorganize what we have inside our computer and from the community.

Problem

I attempt to solve the above based on my personal experience.

Most of the time, I only need a piece of code (XAML or C#) to solve a particular problem. I understand how all the functions work, but its not that easy to remember all the codings.

Besides, it’s so annoying to open a previous Project using Visual Studio to look for some of the old coding. It’s slow and will consume me a lot of RAM.

I have a lot of Silvelight sample projects inside my harddisk. This is not handy and I always get lost which project contains the coding I need. A search system is needed.

Solution

I am not felling comfortable when things are getting messy. I really need a tool!

My primary target is to implement a application which intended to tackle the problems I mentioned.

The application should be able to help me to :

1. Looking for coding easily
2. Providing a good searching environment
3. Able to execute *.xap file easily
4. Allow people to download source easily.

These are my primary targets. I believe more features can be added later on. Meanwhile, you may take a look of the design of my application.

My last word

What do you think about my idea? Please feel free to share with me.

Silvelight 3 RTW is out today. Let’s download and experience it now!

Expression Blend 3 with Sketchflow

Silverlight 3 Software Development Kit (SDK)

Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP 1

New Features in Silverlight 3

I have spent a while today to analysis what is new in this release. On addition to Silverlight 3 beta, here are some of my findings that you might find useful:

1. Multi Touch - Provides an application-level service that processes multitouch input from the operating system
   This seems to be an fantastic feature which obviously can provide another level of user experience. However, I don’ t have a multitouch computer to test on this feature. Anyone willing to sponsor me one?
   
   You may visit this SharpGIS to see how Multi-touch can be implemented.
    
2. Analytics - Exposes read-only data about how an application is performing.
   This is a very good reporting feature that enables you to check over the computer CPU usage (Analytics.AverageProcessorLoad), as well as the Silverlight CPU usage (Analytics.AverageProcessLoad). You are able to collect GPU device information as well.
    
3. Matrix3DProjection
   Other than PlaneProjection, you are now able to use Matrix to manipulate the Perspective 3D of an object. However, I am not good in matrix and couldn’t figure out how to use it.
    
4. Mouse Wheel
   Finally we have mouse wheel support without using JavaScript Hack.
    
5. Visual Studio Designer Disappeared?
   In this release, you may find that the Designer in the Visual Studio seems to be disappeared. Actually, it’s not. Point your mouse below the scroll bar of the XAML editor  carefully, then you are able to drag it up to split the view.

Quick Testing

I have created a quick sample demonstrating those new features. Here you are!

Source Code:

•   Silverlight 3 New Feature [Silverlight 3, C#] (180.2 KiB, 865 hits)

Silverlight

This Server was being hacked

I found that someone sign in into Linux server and used crontab to continue to execute a command file. Inside one of the .sh file, I found the following words “Enjoy FloodBot based on OverKill”. Does anyone has any idea what he is doing? I have downloaded all of the script files. If you want to take a look. Please let me know.

Today, I want to share an exciting news with all of you.

I got a MVP award from Microsoft for my activities on the online community, especially in the Silverlight category. You may find my MVP public profile here.

Frankly speaking, I have never expected my blog will bring me so many excitements. Many people say that I am talented. But I don’t agree on that. I don’t really know everything about Silverlight. I google for Silverlight every day on solving various kind of problems. More importantly, I enjoy sharing.

Anyway, Silverlight 3 is coming very soon. I will continue to devote to the community and share more valuable samples with you.

Shine Draw has released more than 60 samples. In order to make all the controls more presentable to all of the developers, I decided to create this Control Explorer.

All of the samples will be reimplemented for the ease of use. Therefore, it will somehow takes me 1 to 2 months before you can see all of the samples here.

Source code is not available yet. Be patient, I will release it very soon.

Enjoy it~

Click here to view Silverlight Control Explorer

Preview

JavaFx has been released more than 3 months. Today, I gonna release a new comparison on JavaFx, Flash and Silverlight.

I picked up one of my previous sample Fps Meter and clone it using JavaFx. To reduce my effort, I started my implementation using the Carousel Sample provided in JavaFx Website.

The development isn’t that smooth. I have spent more than 2 hours in modifying the sample. Anyway, before any further discussion, let’s take a look at the demonstrations first.

Comparison

Source codes

•   Carousel [JavaFx 1.1] (399 KiB, 2,024 hits)
•   FPS Meter [Flash 9, AS3] (129.9 KiB, 3,552 hits)
•   FPS Meter [Silverlight 2, C#] (139.6 KiB, 3,651 hits)

Silverlight

My Feeling

To be frank, I don’t have a very good impression on JavaFx development. I think that’s probably due to the following reasons:

1. There isn’t any UI Editing tool. I always have to work with the script. That isn’t fun if I can only deal with coding. May be I have to check with their milestone when they will provide Visual Editing tool.
2. The application takes too much time to load. I didn’t know why, but when ever I reload the application using IE, it will take a while before displaying anything.
3. In order to run the application, you need not only the .jar file, but it also requires the .jnlp files.
4. I have no idea what properties can be associated for a given object. (May be there is code suggestion for properties, but I just don’t know how to get it open.)
5. Sometimes, the debugger is not able to identify the correct line number of a syntax error.
6. JavaFx Script is a brand new script and it really take a lot of time to learn.
7. It will leave out some “ghost images” when you scroll between the page.

Actually, there are some more bad feelings, but I think I don’t list them all here.

Someone may argue that JavaFx is a relatively new technology and it’s normal to have usability problem. I agree with that. Therefore, I think I will just wait for JavaFx to evolve before spending more time on it.

I still remember that Silverlight also isn’t attractive in version 1.  So, what next will be for JavaFx?