Shawn Oster

One of the great controls released with the Silverlight Toolkit is the NumericUpDown.  Sure it may seem like just a basic textbox that allows user input with the added glory of a spinner that makes it easy to nudge values up or down with a click, which in and of itself is a great benefit, but there is also some lesser known plumbing that allows users to easily extend this control to provide some great user experiences. One of my favorite user experiences is the way the UpDowns, or spinners as some call them, work in Microsoft Word when you’re

A common question in the forums has been how to get dynamic icons in the Silverlight Toolkit TreeView and luckily there are quite a few options. The Icon Before you can make the icon dynamic you need a place to put it.  The basic idea is to create a HierarchicalDataTemplate and make room for an image: <stackpanel.resources> <controls:hierarchicaldatatemplate x:key="TaxonomyTemplate" itemssource="{Binding Subclasses}"> <stackpanel orientation="Horizontal"> <contentpresenter margin="0 0 4 0" content="???" /> <textblock text="{Binding Classification}" /> </stackpanel> </controls:hierarchicaldatatemplate> </stackpanel.resources> <controls:treeview x:name="MasterTree" itemtemplate="{StaticResource TaxonomyTemplate}" /> I've added a ContentPresenter and the Content is what we're interested in setting dynamically. Option #1 – The

With the release of the new coolness otherwise known as the Zune 3.0 update a few people have let me know that my Mp3tag sources that hook into Marketplace data no longer work.  After a little digging the problem was that the Zune team put everything into a namespace thus breaking all the tags I was searching on.  A little search and replace magic and now we have an updated Marketplace.zip. Get it while it’s hot! As an aside I was at the EMP, the Experience Music Project in Seattle which is like a huge museum/learning center centered around all

It's all about the snappy opening line, watch any classic movie from the 40's and you'll realize the importance of the opening line.  If you need some evidence check out 'His Girl Friday', at least the first 20 minutes, for some of what I consider some of the back & forth dialog around.  Of course the classic for lines from the 40's is arguably 'Casablanca' and if you've never seen it you owe it to yourself to watch it with a bottle and some friends, you'll be amazed at how many lines come from just that one movie. The point,