Silverlight 2 (beta2) Contest Extended – More Cash Prizes for Winners

As you know, I’m running a writing contest for Silverlight 2 developers on my blog recently. I got one more sponsor for that contest. Ivan Dragoev, Product Manager of SilverlightShow mailed that he is very interested in sponsoring this contest and he will be given away $300 (USD) for the winners! Cool, isn’t it?

I will be extending the contest for two more weeks so that you don’t miss those cool prizes. Just start writing the great article about Silverlight and you could be the winners!  (There are some changes in rules. Please read below for more information.)

Prizes

First Prize

Second Prize

Random Prize

We will select three people randomly and will send free copy of ebook to those three persons.

Sponsors

How to Enter

  • Write a great article about Silverlight 2-beta2.
  • No matter where you are, you can participate in this contest
  • 25th of July 2008 is last date. (Please be sure to include a author bio with your submission.)
  • You can submit as many Silverlight 2 (beta2) related articles as you want
  • Your article should include screenshots( .jpg or gif) and code samples
  • You can send your article (in pdf or MS Word format) and demo (zip) to “mchlsync AT gmail DOT com”
  • Please encourage all people you know to participate in this contest. Because we need at least 3 participants for this contest. Otherwise, our contest will be failed.

Some tips on writing

  • Step-by-step tutorial with screen shots are preferable.
  • It doesn’t matter whether your article is very long or short but your article or tips should be useful or time-saving thing for other developers.

All of submitted articles will be published in this blog and SilverlightShow.net. I will announce the FIVE winners on 27th of July 2008 (Sunday).

That is all. Get writing and good luck!

Silverlight 2 beta2 – Samples Updated

Me and Chris updated our samples to support the latest version of Silverlight 2 beta2. I’m very sorry for taking that long for updating my samples. I was busy these days and couldn’t get enough time to play with beta2.

Contents

  • Silverlight 2 Beta2 – Rich Text Editor (Demo)
  • Silverlight 2 (beta2): International (Non-US) TextBox
  • Silverlight 2 (beta2) – Database Operations with ASP.NET Web Service in Silverlight 2
  • CRUD operations in Siverlight using ADO.NET Data Service (Astoria)

Silverlight 2 Beta2 – Rich Text Editor (Demo)

Download (Silverlight 2 beta 2) ~

Demos (Silverlight 2 beta 2) ~

Old Links (Silverlight 2 Beta1)

Silverlight 2 (beta2): International (Non-US) TextBox

Download (Silverlight 2 beta 2)~

Old Link (Silverlight 2 beta 1)

Silverlight 2 (beta2) – Database Operations with ASP.NET Web Service in Silverlight 2

Download (Silverlight 2 beta 2)~

Old Article (Silverlight 2 beta 1)

CRUD operations in Siverlight using ADO.NET Data Service (Astoria)

- Coming soon.

Silverlight 2 beta1 – Best of SilverlightCream

Silverlight 2 beta1? Yes. I know Silverlight 2 beta2 is out but let me post this one as the last post of Silverlight 2 beta1.

I’ve been reading Dave’s Silverlight Cream since long time back and I have the list of links that I like the most from his blog. I don’t want to throw away those valuable links even those are no longer with with Silverlight 2 beta 2 (the latest version of SL 2 so far).

So, I create this post and I will try to port those samples to Silverlight 2 beta2 if the original developers haven’t converted them yet. You can also participate in converting those samples. I really appriciate your help and it will be more faster and more helpful for our community. So, please feel free to let me know if you know any link of latest source code or you want to participate in converting those samples.

The following links are the best link (in my opinion ) from Silverlight Cream.

Graphics

InnerGlow Effect For Silverlight 2 Beta 1

URL : http://blogs.msdn.com/timrule/…/innerglow-effect-for-silverlight-2-beta-1.aspx

InnerGlow Effect For Silverlight 2 Beta 1  By : Tim Rule

Tim wrote great article about creating “Inner Grow” effect in Silverlight. You can also take a look at the demo in his blog. He also wrote a few great articles Scale 9 Image for Silverlight, Spline Based Animation Helper, Drop Shadow Effect for Silverlight 2 Beta 1,

Dynamic Image Generation in Silverlight

URL : http://blogs.msdn.com/jstegman/…image-generation-in-silverlight.aspx

Joe Stegman came up with really amazing trick that generate the image dynamically with Silverlight. His trick is totally awesome and unique within our Silverlight community. Noone has even done that kinda trick like that before.

Note: The code is updated for Silverlight 2 beta2. Here is new updated sample.

Water Ripples with Silverlight 2

URL : http://www.makingria.com/?p=165

Lars Godejord created this great demo “Water Ripples with Silverlight” based on Joe Stegman’s Dynamci Image Generation Technique, 2D Water Algorithm and Rick Barraz’s Decode BMP Algorithm.I would say this demo is really impressive. Good Job, Lars!

Controls

Rich Text Editor

URL: http://www.codeplex.com/richtextedit

SimpleSilverlightXpsViewer

URL: http://blogs.msdn.com/delay/…erlight-2-beta-1.aspx

This control is created by David Anson for showing XPS document on Silverlight application. You can also use this control for showing Microsoft Office File after converting them as a XPS document.

HTML Text Block

URL: http://blogs.msdn.com/delay/…..tml-display-in-silverlight-htmltextblock.aspx

This is another control created by David Anson for displaying HTML on Silverlight object. It’s pretty cool. I wanna extend some features from this control. maybe, we create HTML-to-XAML converter Library or something in future.

Glowing Glass Buttons

URL: http://advertboy.wordpress.com/…glowing-glass-button-in-the-style-of-web-20/

Windows Media Skin

URL: http://www.cynergysystems.com/blogs/page/josefajardo?entry=showing_off_the_power_of

VISIFire – Silverlight Chart Control

URL: http://www.visifire.com/

Groupbox

URL: http://leeontech.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/groupbox/

Control Skin : Ux Musing
http://blogs.msdn.com/corrinab/archive/2008/03/11/silverlight-2-control-skins.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/corrinab/archive/2008/03/11/silverlight-2-control-skins.aspx

Tutorial: Writing a Templated Silverlight 2 Control : Shawn Burke
http://blogs.msdn.com/sburke/archive/2008/03/22/tutorial-writing-a-templated-silverlight-2-control.aspx

Silverlight Control Contracts
http://www.cynergysystems.com/blogs/blogs/jose.fajardo/downloads/ControlContract.png

Silverlight Control Hierarchy
http://advertboy.wordpress.com/2008/03/13/silverlight-control-hierarchy/

Developing a Custom Control for Silverlight 2.0 : Attila Hajdrik
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/silverlight/mediabutton.aspx

Applications

Woodgrove Bank

URL: http://www.cookingwithxaml.com/meals/financials/default.html

Note: I got those images from this link.

This site is completely written in Silverlight 2. If you have Silverlight 2 beta1 installed, you can play the live demo here. You can also download the whole source from this link. Here is the video about this application.

Silverlight Session Scheduler

URL : http://tocode.blogspot.com/2008/04/silverlight-session-scheduler-at.html

Tools and Libraries

Silverlight Spy

http://firstfloorsoftware.com/silverlightspy/download-silverlight-spy/

Silverlight Spy provides detailed XAML inspection of any Silverlight application. Use the built-in browser to navigate to a web page. Silverlight Spy will automatically pick up any Silverlight application embedded in the page and display it in the XAML Explorer. The XAML Explorer presents the UI element..

Note: This code is already updated for Silverlight 2 beta2.

agTweener

http://www.codeplex.com/agTweener

agTweener provides a toolkit for Silverlight designers and developers to achieve animation and transition effects similar to toolkits currently available for Flash/Flex developers by defining transition effects in .NET code and applying these effects to any FrameworkElement.

Note: This code is already updated for Silverlight 2 beta2.

SharpZibLib for Silverlight

http://web-snippets.blogspot.com/2008/03/unpacking-zip-files-in-silverlight-2.html

Do you want to play with zip files in Silverlight? Please take a look at the link above. I think this is the one that you are looking for. Thank you, Rob!

SilverlightDefaultStyleBrowser Tool

http://blogs.msdn.com/delay/….aspx

SilverlightDefaultStyleBrowser is a simple application that automatically extracts the default styles from an assembly’s generic.xaml, lists the available control styles, and presents them in an easy-to-browse manner with syntax highlighting, automatic formatting, and expandable/collapsible nodes. The common scenario of copying a Style or Template is made easy by two dedicated buttons that do just that!

Networking

Silverlight HTTP Networking Stack

The following is the tutorial series written by Karen Corby.

Pushing Data to a Silverlight Client with Sockets

Do you want to learn about how to use Socket in Silverlight? I’d like to recommend you to take a look Dan Wahlin’s tutorial part1 and part 2. Additionally, you can also check-out Mike Taulty’s article “Silverlight 2 & Sockets” that he wrote when you was bored in his hotel room. :)

My Silverlight application cannot access my service! :        Tim Heuer

URL: http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2008/04/09/silverlight-cannot-access-web-service.aspx

Testing

Unit Testing with Silverlight : Scott Guthrie

URL: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/…/unit-testing-with-silverlight.aspx

Silverlight unit testing and JavaScript : Laurent  Bugnion

URL: http://geekswithblogs.net/lbug…..rlight-unit-testing-and-javascript.aspx

Others

SilverPart

URL: http://www.codeplex.com/silverpart

Siverlight Security : Joe Stagner
http://joeon.net/post/2008/03/Some-Blog-Posts-on-Silverlight-Security.aspx

Silverlight 2 Beta 1 Path and File Resolution : Pete Brown (POKE)
http://community.irritatedvow….ilverlight-2-Beta-1-Path-and-File-Resolution.aspx

Xap! App! Pow! Packaging and Application Startup in Silverlight 2 Beta 1 – Part 1 and 2 : Pete Brown

Tip of the Day: Routed Events – Bubbling and not… : Jesse Liberty
http://silverlight.net/blogs/jesseliberty/…routed-events-bubbling-and-not.aspx

Using HitTest Method in Silverlight 2 for Collision Detection : Andy
http://www.andybeaulieu.com/Home/tabid/67/EntryID/95/Default.aspx

Silverlight 2: Demystifying URI references for app resources : Ashish
http://nerddawg.blogspot.com/2008/03/silverlight-2-demystifying-uri.html

built-in Styling and generic.xaml : Jaime Rodriguez
http://blogs.msdn.com/jaimer/archive/2008/04/08/built-in-styling-and-generic-xaml.aspx

How does the Canvas control deal with the Measure/Arrange process : Nikolay Raychev
http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/4688.aspx

Embedding fonts in Silverlight 2 : Tim Heuer
http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2008/03/10/embedding-fonts-in-silverlight-2.aspx

Using and embedding fonts in Silverlight 2 : Rob Houweling.
http://web-snippets.blogspot.com/2008/03/embedding-fonts-in-silverlight.html

Silverlight cross domain policy file helpers: Tim Heuer
http://timheuer.com/../silverlight-cross-domain-policy-file-snippet-intellisense.aspx

Silverlight Dynamic Languages in Visual Studio : Laurence Moroney
http://blogs.msdn.com/../silverlight-dynamic-languages-in-visual-studio.aspx

A deepzoom primer ( explained and coded).. : Jaime Rodriguez
http://blogs.msdn.com/jaimer/archive/2008/03/31/a-deepzoom-primer-explained-and-coded.aspx

A carousel control in Silverlight 2…: Jaime Rodriguez
http://blogs.msdn.com/jaimer/archive/2008/03/17/a-carousel-control-in-silverlight-2.aspx

Awesome panoramic view : Martijn Croezen
http://web-snippets.blogspot.com/2008/04/panoramic-view-using-texture-mapping-in.html

IsolatedStorage in Siverlight 2 Beta 1
http://www.danielmoth.com/Blog/2008/04/isolatedstorage-in-siverlight-2-beta-1.html

Layout controls in Silverlight 2 Beta 1 (Links for Canvas, StackPanel and Grid) : Nikolay Raychev
http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/4642.aspx

Defining Columns for a Silverlight DataGrid : Scott Morrison
http://blogs.msdn.com/../defining-columns-for-a-silverlight-datagrid.aspx

Using The Silverlight DataGrid : Scott Morrison
http://blogs.msdn.com/scmorris/../using-the-silverlight-datagrid.aspx

Silverlight 2 Map / DataGrid Demo (Part 1) : Jason Zander
http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonz/archive/2008/04/04/silverlight-2-map-datagrid-demo-part-1.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonz/archive/2008/04/04/silverlight-2-map-datagrid-demo-part-2.aspx

Configuring IIS for Silverlight Applications : Walter Oliver
http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/262/silverlight/

Configuring a Web Server to Host Silverlight Content : Tim Sneath
http://blogs.msdn.com/../configuring-a-web-server-to-host-silverlight-content.aspx

Note: All of graphics from this post are from original article. So, All credits go to the original creator of those images.

Yes. That’s all. All of those links are from my bookmark list. If you like to share your favorite link, please let me know.

Silverlight – Community Recognition Program

Community Recognition Program is launched on Silverlight.net today. This program is a kinda rating system that can tell you who contribute the most in the forum. Unlike Top Answerers Rating System, it will count from the day that you started contributing.

There are five levels as below in the system.

Please read “How to earn points” in this link.

You can also check-out the list of contributers in this page “Hall of Fame“. The following is the list of current high rated contributers in our forum. Yes. I’m one of them. :) but I’m not allowed to create a content or moderate the posts in our forum. Hopefully, I will be invited to do those things in future. Even though it’s not an award or etc, I’m happy to see my own name in the list. I will be contributing more for the community.

Thanks. ( Hey Ben, Thank you so much for mailing this information to me this morning! )

Contest: Write an article about Silverlight 2 (beta2) and Win “Silverlight 2 in Action” ebook

UPDATE: Silverlight 2 (beta2) Contest Extended – More Cash Prizes for Winners

This month begin with a lot of exciting things such as the release of Silverlight 2 (beta2), the release of “Silverlight 2 in Action” eBook and etc. So, I also like to do something interesting for my blog readers.

Okay. Here we go! I’m now running “Silverlight 2 (beta2) Article Competition” for Silverlight developers in this blog. This competition is sponsored by Chad A. Campbell and John Stockton (the authors of Silverlight 2 in Action Book). We are giving away FREE eBooks for 5 people who submit the best article for this contest.

How to Enter

  • Write a great article about Silverlight 2-beta2.
  • Submit your article before 10th of July 2008. (Yes, it’s about 1 month. Please be sure to include a author bio with your submission.)
  • You can submit as many Silverlight 2 (beta2) related articles as you want
  • Your article should include screenshots( .jpg or gif) and code samples
  • You can send your article (in pdf or MS Word format) and demo (zip) to “mchlsync AT gmail DOT com”

Prize

(If you like to sponsor this competition, please let me know.)

Some tips on writing

  • Step-by-step tutorial with screen shots are preferable.
  • It doesn’t matter whether your article is very long or short but your article or tips should be useful or time-saving thing for other developers.

All of submitted articles will be published in this blog. I will create a poll that you all can vote for this contest on 11st of July 2008. I will announce the FIVE winners on 14th of July 2008 (Monday).

That is all. Get writing and good luck!

Update:

Chad informed me that Michael Schwarz has been injured and will be in the hospital for the next 4 weeks. Unfortunately, none of Michael’s work is available. Because of this, John Stockton is doing Michael’s part. So, I have removed Michael Schwarz name and changed it to John Stockton.

Thanks for informing me! Chad.  And also, Sorry about that for mentioning wrong name, John.

Silverlight 2 beta2 Download Links and Installation

Silverlight 2 beta 2 – Download Links

Silverlight 2 Beta 2 Installation

Note: You don’t need to uninstall Silverlight 2 beta1 before installing.

1.

2.

3.

Note: I will update this post as soon as I get the new download link. Thanks to Peter for sharing the download link for Silverlight 2 beta2 Installer. Please let me know if you get the new link for downloads. thanks.