Hands-on Labs

RecipeBox: Expression Blend Hands On Lab

jaytayl — Fri, 25 May 2007 21:21:31 GMT

RecipeBox is an application written in C# which loads a set of recipes from an XML file and displays them using the Windows Presentation Foundation. WPF controls can be given customized appearances using a feature known as Control Styling. Those styled controls still retain the default windows behavior, which allows you to (e.g.) select items in this list by using the arrow keys.

Color Swatch: Expression Blend Hands On Lab

jaytayl — Fri, 25 May 2007 21:20:44 GMT

Have fun customizing a ListBox control to look like a color pantone!

Windows Live Search: Expression Blend Hands On Lab

jaytayl — Fri, 25 May 2007 21:19:47 GMT

Discover the power that custom controls in Expression Blend bring in helping you deliver rich experiences, and learn how you can create and use such controls in your applications.

Using Data Binding in WPF

kevinharder — Wed, 09 May 2007 17:48:27 GMT

Any real-world scalable application relies on a data model. Data Binding is the process that connects that data with the User Interface of your application. The easy communication between the two enables us to easily achieve a very clean separation of the UI and business logic, allowing designers and developers to work in parallel doing what they do best.

Support for data has been an afterthought in many previous technologies. “Windows Presentation Foundation,” however, was designed from the ground up with Data Binding in mind. Data Binding in “Windows Presentation Foundation” is extremely flexible because developers can link any Control to any type of data.

This lab will cover the main scenarios around Data Binding. We hope this is a good starting point for you to discover more about Data Binding as you apply these concepts to your own applications.

Expression Blend Feature Tour - Fabrikam Catalog

kevinharder — Wed, 09 May 2007 17:47:08 GMT

This tutorial shows you how to build a very basic—but functional—interactive product catalog entirely within Expression Blend.

Creating WPF buttons with Expression Blend and Expression Design

kevinharder — Wed, 09 May 2007 17:46:00 GMT

In the first part of this lab you will focus on two things: the drawing and editing features of Expression Design that pertain to vector-based graphics; and how to export these graphics to other formats such as bitmap-based formats (JPG, GIF, etc.) and XAML.

XAML is a new language that was created to allow designers and developers to collaborate together on rich user interface experiences based on the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).

Expression Blend is a perfect tool for designing interfaces that leverage XAML and WPF. Expression Design fully integrates with Expression Blend, making it the perfect tool to create all of the graphics needed for a stunning and functional user interface.

In the second part of the lab, you will import the XAML file you just generated, and then create some custom, fully functional, .NET 3.0-based buttons from scratch. In this way you will see how Expression Design and Expression Blend collaborate together to create great-looking user interfaces.

Creating Rich 2D and 3D Content in WPF

kevinharder — Wed, 09 May 2007 17:38:00 GMT

The objective of this lab is to demonstrate the integration of the Windows Presentation Foundation’s rendering system, as well as to show the power of XAML. You will create 2-D content, animate it, add video, and finally map it onto a rotating 3-D surface – and you will do all of this without writing a single line of C++, C#, or Visual Basic.

Creating a Glass Button in Blend

kevinharder — Wed, 09 May 2007 17:35:50 GMT

This tutorial is aimed at new users to Microsoft Expression Blend, as well as those that may have already used the product before, and are now looking for some tips & tricks.

Creating 3D Content with Windows Presentation Foundation

kevinharder — Wed, 09 May 2007 17:33:50 GMT

The objective of this lab is to explore Windows Presentation Foundation’s 3D features. You will load an existing 3D model into an application, and use animation to make the model rotate. Next, you will write code that builds a model dynamically. Finally you will map a 2D user interface onto a 3D surface in a way that the user can interact with the 3D version.

Creating Rich Reading Experience with WPF

kevinharder — Wed, 09 May 2007 17:32:08 GMT

The objective of this lab is to create a Microsoft Encarta article reader using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) to take advantage of platform services such as pagination, columns, advanced typography features, and XPS.

Building WPF XAML Browser Applications

kevinharder — Wed, 09 May 2007 17:31:09 GMT

In this lab, you will learn how to build and deploy a XAML Browser Application (.xbap). XAML Browser Applications are Windows Presentation Foundation applications that are…

(1) Non-installed

(2) Browser hosted, and

(3) Run in a security sandbox.

XAML Browser Applications can be used to ease development of web applications, as well as create or enhance a customer’s web experience.

Building WPF Applications

kevinharder — Wed, 09 May 2007 17:21:40 GMT

The objective of this lab is to learn how to use the WPF application model, its layout system, and other features to build a rich client application with immersive UI. You will use the “Extensible Application Markup Language” (“XAML”) and C# to build this application.

In this lab, you will create a basic Address Book application to create and manage your contacts. The application’s user interface windows and pages will share data using property bags. You will also learn about structured navigation and create a wizard using Page Functions. This lab will also teach you about event handling and the ability of an installed WPF application to persist data on the local file system.