Beginning Silverlight 3

Transcription

1 Beginning Silverlight 3 From Novice to Professional Robert Lair

2 Beginning Silverlight 3: From Novice to Professional Copyright 2009 by Robert Lair All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher. ISBN-13 (pbk): ISBN-13 (electronic): Printed and bound in the United States of America Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. President and Publisher: Paul Manning Lead Editor: Ewan Buckingham Technical Reviewer: Fabio Claudio Ferracchiati Editorial Board: Clay Andres, Steve Anglin, Mark Beckner, Ewan Buckingham, Tony Campbell, Gary Cornell, Jonathan Gennick, Michelle Lowman, Matthew Moodie, Jeffrey Pepper, Frank Pohlmann, Ben Renow-Clarke, Dominic Shakeshaft, Matt Wade, Tom Welsh Coordinating Editor: Anita Castro Copy Editor: Katie Stence Compositor: Mary Sudul Indexer: John Collin Artist: April Milne Cover Designer: Anna Ishchenko Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 233 Spring Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY Phone SPRINGER, fax , orders-ny@springersbm.com, or visit For information on translations, please info@apress.com, or visit Apress and friends of ED books may be purchased in bulk for academic, corporate, or promotional use. ebook versions and licenses are also available for most titles. For more information, reference our Special Bulk Sales ebook Licensing web page at The information in this book is distributed on an as is basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author(s) nor Apress shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this work. The source code for this book is available to readers at You will need to answer questions pertaining to this book in order to successfully download the code.

3 To my beautiful wife Debi, whom I love more and more each day, and to my son Max, who has made me so proud. I love you guys more than anything on this earth.

4 Contents at a Glance Contents...v About the Author...xii About the Technical Reviewer...xiii Acknowledgments... xiv Chapter 1: Welcome to Silverlight Chapter 2: Introduction to Visual Studio Chapter 3: Layout Management in Silverlight Chapter 4: Silverlight 3 Controls...65 Chapter 5: Data Binding and Silverlight List Controls Chapter 6: Data Access and Networking Chapter 7: Navigation Framework Chapter 8: Local Storage in Silverlight Chapter 9: Introduction to Expression Blend Chapter 10: Styling in Silverlight Chapter 11: Transformations and Animation Chapter 12: Custom Controls Chapter 13: Deployment Index iv

5 Contents Contents at a Glance...iv About the Author...xii About the Technical Reviewer...xiii Acknowledgments... xiv Chapter 1: Welcome to Silverlight The Evolution of the User Interface...1 Rich Internet Application Solutions...3 What Is Silverlight?...3 Benefits of Silverlight...4 Cross-Platform/Cross-Browser Support... 5 Cross-Platform Version of the.net Framework... 5 XAML, a Text-Based Markup Language... 5 Use of Familiar Technologies... 6 Small Runtime and Simple Deployment... 6 The Silverlight Development Environment...8 New Features in Silverlight Improved Performance Summary...11 Chapter 2: Introduction to Visual Studio What Is Visual Studio?...13 v

6 What s New in Visual Studio 2008?...14 JavaScript IntelliSense and Debugging Multi-Targeting Support Transparent IntelliSense Mode Building Your First Silverlight Application in Visual Studio...31 Try It Out: Hello World in Silverlight Hosting Your Silverlight Application: Web Site or Web Application? Summary...37 Chapter 3: Layout Management in Silverlight Layout Management...39 The Canvas Panel...40 Try It Out: Using the Canvas Panel Filling the Entire Browser Window with Your Application The StackPanel Control...45 Try It Out: Using the StackPanel Control Try It Out: Nesting StackPanel Controls The Grid Control...49 Try It Out: Using the Grid Control Try It Out: Nesting a Grid and Spanning a Column The WrapPanel Control...56 Try It Out: Using the WrapPanel Control The DockPanel Control...59 Try It Out: Using the DockPanel Control Summary...63 Chapter 4: Silverlight 3 Controls...65 Setting Control Properties...65 Attribute Syntax Element Syntax vi

7 Type-Converter-Enabled Attributes Attached Properties Nesting Controls Within Controls...67 Handling Events in Silverlight...68 Try It Out: Declaring an Event in XAML Try It Out: Declaring an Event Handler in Managed Code The Border Control...76 User Input Controls...80 Try It Out: Working with the TextBox Control Try It Out: Working with the RadioButton and CheckBox Controls Extended Controls...87 Adding an Extended Control Try It Out: Using the GridSplitter AutoCompleteBox...90 ViewBox...92 Modal Windows...93 Try It Out: Using the Modal Child Window Summary Chapter 5: Data Binding and Silverlight List Controls Data Binding The Binding Class Try It Out: Simple Data Binding in Silverlight Element to Element Binding Try It Out: Element to Element Binding The DataGrid Control Try It Out: Building a Simple DataGrid The Columns Collection Try It Out: Building a DataGrid with Custom Columns vii

8 The ListBox Control Default and Custom ListBox Items Try It Out: Building a ListBox with Custom Content Summary Chapter 6: Data Access and Networking Data Access in Silverlight Applications Accessing Data Through Web Services Try It Out: Accessing Data Through a WCF Service Accessing Services from Other Domains Accessing Data Through Sockets Summary Chapter 7: Navigation Framework Frame and Page Object Try It Out: Creating a Silverlight Navigation Application Benefits of the Navigation Framework Deep Linking The NavigationService Object Try it Out: Using the NavigationService Object Passing Data to Navigation Pages Try it Out: Passing Data to Navigation Pages Uri Mapping Try it Out: Uri Mapping and the Navigation Framework Silverlight Navigation Application Template Try it Out: Using the Silverlight Navigation Application Template Using Multiple Frames Try it Out: Using Multiple Frames Summary viii

9 Chapter 8: Local Storage in Silverlight Working with Isolated Storage Using the Isolated Storage API Try It Out: Creating a File Explorer for Isolated Storage Managing Isolated Storage Viewing and Clearing Isolated Storage Try It Out: Increasing the Isolated Storage Quota Summary Chapter 9: Introduction to Expression Blend Key Features in Expression Blend Visual XAML Editor Visual Studio 2008 Integration Split-View Mode Visual State Manager and Template Editing Support World-Class Timeline Try It Out: Working with Projects in Expression Blend Exploring the Workspace Toolbox Project Panel Properties Panel Objects and Timeline Panel Laying Out an Application with Expression Blend Working with the Grid Control in Expression Blend Try It Out: Editing a Layout Grid with Expression Blend Summary Chapter 10: Styling in Silverlight Inline Properties Try It Out: Setting Inline Properties with Visual Studio Try It Out: Setting Inline Properties with Expression Blend ix

10 Silverlight Styles Try It Out: Using Styles As Static Resources Defining Styles at the Application Level Merged Resource Dictionaries Silverlight Style Hierarchy Inheriting Styles Using BasedOn Summary Chapter 11: Transformations and Animation Introduction to Silverlight Animation Silverlight Storyboards Types of Animation in Silverlight Programmatically Controlling Animations Using Expression Blend to Create Animations Viewing a Storyboard in the Expression Blend Timeline Try It Out: Creating an Animation with Expression Blend Creating Transformations in Silverlight Transformation Types Try It Out: Using Expression Blend to Transform Silverlight Objects Summary Chapter 12: Custom Controls When to Write Custom Controls Silverlight Control Toolkit Silverlight Control Model Parts and States Model Dependency Properties Creating Custom Controls in Silverlight Implementing Custom Functionality x

11 Try It Out: Building a Custom Control Summary Chapter 13: Deployment Deploying Silverlight Applications XAP Files Hosting Silverlight Content Assembly Caching Try It Out: Exploring Assembly Caching Out of Browser Support Customizing the Install Application Dialog Out of Browser API Removing Installed Applications Summary Index xi

12 About the Author Robert Lair has been working with.net technologies since prior to its alpha and built the original IBuySpy E-Commerce and Portal applications that were used by Microsoft to introduce ASP.NET to the development community. He is a published author of many books and magazine articles including Beginning Silverlight 2. Robert has also been a speaker at a number of.net technical conferences. Technologies in which Robert specializes include: Silverlight, mainframe modernization to.net, ASP.NET custom application development, Sharepoint development and integration, and many related technologies. Today Robert works for T3 Technologies ( a company that offers mainframe alternatives on the Windows platform. Follow Robert on twitter at and on the web at xii

13 About the Technical Reviewer Fabio Claudio Ferracchiati is a prolific writer on cutting-edge technologies. Fabio has contributed to more than a dozen books on.net, C#, Visual Basic, and ASP.NET. He is a.net Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD) and lives in Rome, Italy. You can read his blog at. xiii

14 Acknowledgments There are a number of people to whom I would like to express my appreciation, people who have helped me in many ways. This book proved to be a great challenge, with the short development cycles of Silverlight 3. Without these people this book would never have been possible. I would also like to thank my family for being patient and forgiving for the time this book took away from our times together. A special thanks goes out to my wife Debi, who has always supported me, even when it requires a sacrifice for her. Your support has gotten me through so many of life s challenges. I never could have done it without you. I would like to thank the many people at Apress that made this book happen. I would especially like to thank Anita Castro, Ewan Buckingham, Katie Stence, Dominic Shakeshaft and Fabio Claudio Ferracchiati. Without all of your hard work, this book would never have happened, thank you all. Finally, I would like to thank my neighbors on Lexington Court for being such great friends. Their friendship means so much to me and they helped me get through rough times. I am very lucky to have such a great group of neighbors that I can call close friends. xiv