Xperimentality

I have had a minor release of the Silverlight Code Camp Template for some time and just keep getting side-tracked when I go to move it out to CodePlex.  So I had a few spare minutes today and uploaded the new file.  I know a lot of people wanted the better mouse support.

The only change in Version 0.4 is the addition of the mouse scrolling support libraries.  So now all scrollable regions in the site can be controlled with the mouse-wheel and by dragging the scroll thumb.

More releases will be forthcoming (more quickly than this one)!

I got the Silverlight Code Camp Template out on CodePlex last Wednesday.  It still needs a little work but I wanted to go ahead and get it out for folks to start using it if they wanted.  This is the same template that I built for the Alabama Code Camp site.

The template is built to be deployable on the widest range of machines.  It does not use ASP.NET.  In fact, there are no dynamic server side technologies involved.  The site is 100% HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and Silverlight.  It utilizes XML files on the server for data storage since all the data is read-only.  The template also utilizes Silverlight's downloader object and zipped up assets in order to increase network performance.

Yes, more could be accomplished utilizing a combination of ASP.NET, AJAX, Silverlight, and perhaps asmx services, but then the deployment scenarios would be restricted.  And part of the point for developing it the way I did was to demonstrate that none of this was necessary in order to develop a Silverlight site!

The template consist of a main frame that contains the header and navigation.  Each subsequent page is dynamically loaded from the server when needed, then cached in the browser cache for subsequent requests.  Some pages are actually zipped up sets of assets which are then parsed and displayed by Silverlight.  This decreases the number of connections from the browser to the server and decreases overall download size.

By default, there are 5 pages:

• Home
  
  The home page is the landing page.  The home page contents are not dynamic.  They are edited directly allowing maximum flexibility.
• Speakers
  
  The speakers page is a zipped up set of assets.  Contained within the zip are the XML data for the page, pictures of the speakers, the main page layout, the left speaker item template, and the speaker bio template.  This page is generated entirely from the XML file.
• Sessions
  
  The sessions page lists all the sessions from all the speakers.  Clicking on a session title, displays the full description of the session.  This page is also a zipped set of assets containing the page layout, the session template, and the XML file for the data.
• Agenda
  
  The agenda page is a scrollable agenda.  This page was originally dynamically created but, quite honestly, I broke it!  So it is currently edited manually.  The content has been ordered to make it easy to edit in Expression Blend.  One of my first orders of business is to fix what I broke so I can get the dynamic generation part working again.  It will be driven from an XML data file as well.
• Contributors
  
  The contributors page is dynamically generated from an XML data file.  This page is downloaded as a zipped up set of assets containing the page layout, the contributor pics, and the XML data file.

There are a number of enhancements that will be made quickly.  Most of these are easy changes that I just did not get to before posting the project: things like better mouse support in scrollable regions, fixing the dynamic agenda generation, etc.  Hopefully it will be of some use to folks interested in quickly setting up a Silverlight site for their code camp.  I'll be sure to keep my blog updated as enhancements are made!

Although I have not been blogging much, I have been spending a ton of time on WPF and Silverlight projects.  I am still doing some things with ASP.NET AJAX but the majority of my time over the last year or so has been spent in what I call the "XAML Technologies".  Recently I had the opportunity to work with 3 other guys from Moxie Interactive on a Silverlight project for a 20th Century Fox movie called Jumper.  The site is an interactive trailer viewing site built entirely in Silverlight 1.0.  Take a look at the Silverlight site and definitely go see the movie!

Woo-Hoo!  I have been checking every day waiting for the Silverlight Tools to show up for the VS2008 RTM.  They are available today!  Be sure to visit the Silverlight site or you can access the download directly from here.

I have been really busy lately and have been doing it all in Visual Studio 2008! Since I installed the Visual Studio 2008 RTM, I have not looked back.  Installing the Silverlight Tools will just take me one step closer to bliss (well maybe that is a bit strong and maybe a bit markety)!

The Alabama Code Camp site has been updated with some more data including information about the Silverlight game contest.  Sounds like it could be fun!  The call for speakers is out there.  If you do not have Silverlight installed, first of all, why not?  Second, here is a direct link to both the speaker form and the Silverlight contest guidelines.

Speakers should begin to be updated in the next couple of days!

Looks like things have started moving forward with the next Alabama Code Camp.  The site has been updated with a new look.  It asks the question, "Do you believe in magic".  Interesting!  And the site is using Silverlight 1.0 RC!  The date is apparently Saturday October 6th.  No mention of venue yet.  A Silverlight contest has been announced and it looks like the winner is going to get a Zune!  Cool!

I will post more as the site gets updated.  I will be interested to see what the Silverlight contest is going to be.  If you want to watch the progress yourself, go to www.alabamacodecamp.com.

It is time, my friends!  Silverlight RC 1.0 has been released.  Silverlight periodically checks for updates, but why wait....go and install it now.  Just remember a couple things:

If you develop Silverlight apps, take note of my previous blog post about the breaking changes in the RC.

If you just enjoy Silverlight apps as a user, please keep in mind that it may take some developers a short while to make modifications to their existing apps to accommodate some of the changes in this release.

ENJOY!

On July 13th, Tim Sneath posted that Silverlight 1.0 Release Candidate would be posted soon.  While that is great news, there is more to this post than just spreading that word!

There are some breaking changes that will be introduced in the release candidate.  But after this release, there should not be any further breaking changes once it is finally released.  Of course it could always happen, but it is nice to hear that the Silverlight team thinks this is a stable API release.

Tim includes a download link in his post that contains:

• a new silverlight.js file that detects both the beta and the RC version of the plug-in,
• a document that lists differences between the Beta and the RC releases,
• an updated Visual Studio template that can be used to correctly embed the new plug-in,
• and a EULA that governs the legal usage of the items in the above bullets.

Although we don't have access to the new plug-in yet, these items will allow us to get a head start on making our Silverlight programs compatible with the new RC prior to its release.  If you have been working with Silverlight 1.0 and/or doing presentations on it, I encourage you to be proactive and update your apps to be compatible with both the Beta and the RC.  That way, when it is released, you will be ready!

A couple of good resources of information on the RC and some of the breaking changes can be found at:
Tim Sneath's blog post on the upcoming RC release
Joe Stegman's blog post on the breaking changes

For anyone who knows me, you know that I am considered the freak at my company because I have a strong level of experience with backend code, but I also love the graphic design side of the house.  Most folks do one or the other, but I love the creativity of UI.  So it was natural for a lot of the work I do to focus around web applications.  When WPF came out, I loved it.  It allowed for some really great UI experiences with a smaller amount of code.  So I made the decision to have WPF be the focus of my "new technology" effort.  I looked briefly at WPF/e, but had to focus!

Well since Microsoft formally announced Silverlight, the official name of WPF/e, I took another look at it.  I am hooked again!  This is really great!  I can use what I have been learning about WPF and put it on the web.  I can't help but just dive in!  So I imagine you will be hearing more about it soon.  I plan on adding a lot more entries here about my experiences with learning (and getting caught up) on Silverlight.  Hopefully my experiences will help others getting started!