• French version

You've probably noticed if you have a Windows phone 7, the Windows Phone Market place is just the jungle. You'll often find what you are looking for and probably many more. It is this last point that causes me the most problems: very often you will find several applications with the same name (not to mention the music), logos slightly modified and similar functionality. Without even talking about piracy because it is not directly possible, any developer or company can freely create an application with similar functionality when they are not complex to develop. So often you find 3 / 4 (and sometimes more) applications with the same name.

The problem is, I think, completely specific to Windows Phone 7 MarketPlace, I haven't not noticed this phenomenon on the AppStore.

To summarize, even if the application was released one month, two months or 1 year before and was the first of that name, nothing prevents a developer or company to file the same application later with a similar logo and name exactly identical. Microsoft's answer is: it is necessary to file a complaint in court to protect the application name and the logo idea. Imagine that you wore ten complaints for 10 different applications by 10 different society. Therefore as a developer Windows 7 Phone and Silverlight, I ask myself the following questions:

1 - I find it a good idea with a great name and I am a small business, how to protect my application?

2 - How do I get my application to be quickly found on the market place?

3 - What differentiates my application and protects it from others with the same name ?

Personally, I think a small structure has very little means to defend themselves apart from legal action. Market place on your application and name in particular could be filed with the same functionality, only remedy the law. But what law, it seems to me that this aspect is very difficult because it will likely file an international patent and / or go through all possible tools at your disposal.

To ensure that your applications will be found quickly, no mystery, it is what is used and highly rated by WindowsPhonaute, or you have other means such as a website marketing an advertising campaign, or a Windows application out there that either phone connected. This question refers to question three.

What will differentiate your applications from others having the same name:

* The ScreenShots content with unique graphics. This content is much more difficult to copy as opposed to the name. An image bank with unique and great content for example.
* The complex features that are not easy to develop for everyone.
* A seamless user experience, just what is need for NUI.

All these elements will be much protection against the copying of your application. But then what is different when comparing Microsoft Marketplace to AppStore? I will say something romantic . We all had the idea to create an application with THE IDEA of the year (IDEA). But today, the developer who wants to create in his corner this application, even with the idea of the century, could not protect his application's name against others. Long months of legal procedures are the key to all appeals. This can be very expensive ...

No technical answer to this problem is good, no good answer is legal kind unless you're part of a medium / large company and that you have many, many times before you. The correct answer is multiple : the artistic response, the response of the single, the answer content and development perfect, perfect ergonomics. All these elements together will be much harder to copy. So those who post applications just to post applications, while others of the same type already exist, please stop, you will not win any money that way. This behavior affects the quality of the microsoft marketplace and the fantastic tool that Windows Phone 7 is.

• French version

I recently completed writing my book Silverlight Practice wich is dedicated to technology of the same name. It should be over 500 pages and focuses on learning good practices and team production. It is published by Pearson Education France and released February 2, 2010. I have not designed as a glossary of features but rather as a production guide and learning. He draws a sketch of the design of Silverlight applications, starting from the display list to loading external data in the design model MVVM through prototyping or organizational workflow.

The general idea of the book is to provide concrete examples downloadable for both designers and for developers. You can reserve a copy on the website of Pearson France here.

This book is for Web integrators, interactive designers, graphic designers and pure web developers unfamiliar platform. Net. It creates a bridge between development and design, to improve collaboration and productivity.

Its content takes into account the specificities of developers and designers of interactive forms of complementary exercises. The C # is chosen as the only logical language for clarity. The theory, examples and exercises (downloadable) are progressive and can be a learning base for non-developers. However this is not a book for beginners Web, but to those who have acquired bases on other technologies.

Here is the summary of the book:)

Part I. Approach Silverlight

1. Introduction
1.1 What does Silverlight?
1.2 In. Net 1 to Silverlight
1.3 The benefits of Silverlight
1.4 The Expression Studio
1.5 Positioning business
1.6 Development language and choice

2. The couple XAML / C #
2.1 XML
2.2 XAML, a declarative language powerful
2.3 The fundamentals of C #

3. HelloWorld
3.1 A first Silverlight application
3.2 Architecture of a solution
3.3 The root container
3.4 Add Text
3.5 Test and compile

4. A site full screen in 2 minutes
4.1 type projects website
4.2 Creating resizable containers
4.3 The component button
4.4 Add interactivity
4.5 Files deployed

5. The visual and logical tree
5.1 Components Visual
5.2 Principle of Nesting
5.3 Adding children to the display list
5.4 Remove objects from the visual tree
5.5 Exchange index

Part II. Interactivity and graphic design

6. Animation
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Animating with Expression Blend
6.3 Managing acceleration
6.4 Animating with C
6.5 The transformations on
6.6 Animate particles

7. Buttons
7.1 Create a video player
7.2 Visual Style
7.3 Generic Button
7.4 The manager of visual states
7.5 The switch or button ToggleButton

8. Interactivity and event model
8.1 The foundations of event model
8.2 withdrawn listening to an event
8.3 The weak coupling in practice
8.4 Event Propagation
8.5 The behavior

9. The basics of 3D projection
9.1 The 3D environment
9.2 The properties of 3D
9.3 The camera
9.4 Introduction to matrices

10. Prototyping dynamic SketchFlow
10.1 The Environment
10.2 Simple Prototype
10.3 The player SketchFlow
10.4 Interactivity
10.5 Interface rich

Part III. Designing rich applications

11. Graphic Resources
11.1 What is a resource
11.2 brushes
11.3 Fonts
11.4 Styles and component models
11.5 The model Slider
11.6 connections
11.7 The model ListBox

12. Custom Components
User Control 12.1
12.2 Connection Box
12.3 Custom Controls

13. Media and Data
13.1 Loading media
13.1.1 Dynamic loading of images
13.1.2 video formats and modes of dissemination
13.1.3 A simple video player
13.1.4 Dynamic Loading videos
13.2 Design MVVM
13.2.1 Principles
12.2.2 Model
12.2.3 Model-View
13.3 Loading Data
13.3.1 The object WebClient
13.3.2 Introduction to LINQ
13.3.3 Lambda Expression
13.3.4 Consuming XML with LINQ
13.3.5 Loading a JSON feed
13.3.6 Cross Domain Security

• French version

Hi, I recently have to find a solution create two customs controls

I recently needed controls customizable type ColorPicker ColorChooser and, finding none, I have designed from scratch, here's a demo.

They are in beta but I think provide a final version by November 15. In the meantime, if you want to test those controls and download the dll to test in SL3 is here.

Ps: the Silverlight plugin for wordpress provided by Tim Heuer, is powerful and useful, so thank you to him, I will only use this solution from now.

• French version

I've just released V2 of ProxyrenderTransform. ProxyRenderTransform use extensions methods to allow easy access to renderTransforms nodes. These are difficult to target by C# when they are not named. If you add the reference ProxyRenderTransform.dll, you will easily reach RenderTransform for any FrameWork element by extensions methods :

• SetX / GetX
• SetScaleX / GetScaleX
• SetRotate / GetRotate
• SetSkewX / SetSkewY

You can get PropertyPath corresponding the way Blend create RenderTransformGroup via static properties

• _SCALE_X_PATH // (UIElement.RenderTransform).(TransformGroup.Children)[0].(ScaleTransform.ScaleX)
• _SCALE_Y_PATH
• _SKEW_X_PATH
• _SKEW_Y_PATH
• _ROTATE_PATH
• _TRANSLATE_X_PATH
• _TRANSLATE_Y_PATH

You can also get reference to transform nodes themselves

• GetScaleNode
• GetTranslateNode
• GetRotateNode
• GetSkewNode

there's an example below :

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void Page_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
//any FrameworkElement can now have direct access to his RenderTransform
rec.SetX(605);
Debug.WriteLine( rec.GetX());
//rec.SetX(105);
//rec.SetRotate(60);
//rec.SetScaleX(2);
 
dp.Interval = TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(10);
dp.Tick += new EventHandler(dp_Tick);
dp.Start();
}
 
void dp_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
double newX = (double)rec_Copy.GetX() ( 500 - (double)rec_Copy.GetX() ) * .2;
rec_Copy.SetX(newX);
}

In that release, you will have access to 3D projection plan too...

You can get library under MS-PL licence on Code Plex here.
Don't hesitate to send me an email or post a comment if you encounter bugs or difficulties when you use it

• French version

Recently i needed to get static method contained by a Class to display their visual result.
Indeed The idea was to display Robert Penner's Equation used by tweened. For doing such task you just have to use Reflection Api provided by Silverlight Framework that you can find in System.Reflection package. You will find the code I used in this article. Read more »

• French version

Visual State Manager

Until now VisualStateManager was a Silverlight 2 projects feature( You will find french video on how it works here ) but now with the WPF ToolKit you will find here, it's possible to create Blend 2 projects including WisualStateManager. To get this feature I encourage you to go here where you will find full explanations. It's a very good news that permit to understand the direction blend 2 has taken. For myself I have tried it et all work perfectly but there's no a real integration into controls as we have in Silverlight 2 Projects. Of course you can create States in Controls but they are not defined by default in the Design view.