Essential XAML

Displaying user Messages, Errors and Dialogs from a ViewModel using a Service – Part 2 by Tomer Shamam

Displaying user Messages, Errors and Dialogs from a ViewModel using a Service – Part 1 In my previous post , I've discussed a bit about using the MVVM pattern and how to display a message or opening a dialog from within the view-model. As part of the discussion, I've shown a possible way for displaying Messages, Errors and even Dialog or Popups. In this post I would like to provide more details about the implementation of the Dialog part. Recall previous post, we have the following two methods...

Displaying user Messages, Errors and Dialogs from a ViewModel using a Service – Part 1 by Tomer Shamam

Displaying user Messages, Errors and Dialogs from a ViewModel using a Service – Part 2 Years after the invention of the MVVM pattern and people are still asking many questions about how to do this and how to do that, and specifically, how to display a Message, Error or even opening a Dialog from a View Model without accessing the view layer or visual tree. If we go straight with the MVVM pattern concept, the view-model must not directly access or manipulate the View/Visual Tree or part of it in any...

MVVM Open House at Sela Group, Haifa by Tomer Shamam

To all of you who participated in the MVVM session today last week, I hope you've enjoyed it and learned something new. It was a great pleasure to speak in front of you. As I promised, here is the presentation . Also here is the Agenda for the 4 days Advanced WPF course at Sela Group.

Implicit DataTemplate in Silverlight 4 Composite UI – Get ready for Silverlight 5 (Part III) by Tomer Shamam

In this post I'll show how did I implemented the ItemsControl implicit data-template using the ImplicitItemsTemplateBehavior attached behavior. But first, lets talk a bit about how WPF searches for an implicit data template, given a collection of items, so we can mimic that behavior in Silverlight. Having an ItemsControl with an ItemsSource property set to a collection of type Shape, WPF looks at the ItemsControl.ItemTemplate. In case that one is missing, and there is no ItemTemplateSelector...

Implicit DataTemplate in Silverlight 4 Composite UI – Get ready for Silverlight 5 (Part II) by Tomer Shamam

In this post I'll show how did I implemented the ContentControl implicit data-template using the ImplicitContentTemplateBehavior attached behavior. But first, lets talk a bit about how WPF searches for an implicit data template, given a content, so we can mimic that behavior in Silverlight.   Having a ContentControl with a Content set to an instance of type Circle, WPF looks at the ControlControl.ItemTemplate. In case that one is missing, and there is no ItemTemplateSelector, it changes...

Implicit DataTemplate in Silverlight 4 Composite UI – Get ready for Silverlight 5 (Part I) by Tomer Shamam

I'm using Prism 4 in one of my Silverlight 4 Composite UI. Working with Prism, there are two ways populating a Region: You can populate it with a UI element, which is the view, or placing the view-model directly. Personally I support the idea that a UI element must not be treated directly from the Application logic, and there should be ZERO UI elements in the Application logic. So natively, populating a region with a view-model instead of a view sounds more reasonable for me. With WPF things...

MVVM Open House at Sela Group by Tomer Shamam

To all of you who participated in the MVVM session today I hope you've enjoyed it and learned something new. It was a great pleasure to speak in front of you. As I promised, here are the presentation and demo code. Also here is the Agenda for the 4 days Advanced WPF course at Sela Group. CodeProject

Open Window, Dialog or Message Box from a ViewModel – part 2 by Tomer Shamam

In my previous post I have shown how to open a Window bound to a view-model triggered by the view, using a simple Action. In this post I'll show how to open a Window, triggered by the view-model.   Opening a window directly by the view where the view decides when a Window should be opened, is an incorrect approach since the view shouldn't make that decision. This decision belongs to the Application layer and not the Presentation layer. What if the view shouldn't be opened because...

Open Window, Dialog or Message Box from a ViewModel – part 1 by Tomer Shamam

Saying that a view-model belongs to the Application layer, and the Application layer doesn't references upper layers, and must not create or use visual objects, how can I open a Window, Dialog or any kind of Message Box on-the-fly, based on some logic triggered by the view or view-model? Well, there are several options doing that, one is using kind of service which encapsulates that, providing an interface, so the view-model don't really work directly with the upper layer or WPF. This solution...

My Visual Studio 2010 SP1 Best Feature - Microsoft Help Viewer 1.1 for by Tomer Shamam

As you may already know, Microsoft released the first service pack for Visual Studio 2010. And yes, there are tons of improvements, bug fixes, crash fixes and performance issues. I think SP1 is great for the developers and I really appreciate that.   One of the most annoying and frustrating features came out with Visual Studio 2010 is the poor web-based help center. Up until VS2010 came out we where used to have a great help viewer, and then Boom… it was gone!   Fortunately, the Microsoft...

My SDP Session About MVVM + MEF by Tomer Shamam

Thank you to all of you who participated in my SDP session " Architecting a Smart Client with MEF and MVVM " today at Crowne Plaza Hotel, Tel Aviv. I really hope that you enjoyed it and learned something new about MVVM and MEF. it was delightful. Feel free to download the Power Point presentation from here , and the source code from here . Also here is a small souvenir for remembering this session. Hope to see you soon in the near future, Tomer Shamam CodeProject

WPF Course at Canada by Tomer Shamam

To all of you guys, participated in the Sela's WPF course at Waterloo, Canada, I want to thank each personally. It was a real pleasure and I really enjoyed training you. Please find here the demos created in class. Feel free to comment this post should you have any questions. Also feel free to PM me using this blog. Hope to see you soon in the near future. CodeProject

Mole for Visual Studio 2010 by Tomer Shamam

Just in case that you've missed the great news, Karl Shifflett released the new version of Mole, called Mole 2010 . This version has many new features and it makes the previous free versions to be looked half-baked prototype, as Karl mentioned. Note that this version is a commercial version and it will cost $$. If you're asking me, It worth every penny, but if you care about your money you can still use the old version with Visual Studio 2010. You can download a free version from here , also...

WPF 4 Multitouch Application testing with Microsoft Touch Mouse by Tomer Shamam

One of the greatest features in WPF 4 is the built-in support of Windows 7 multitouch gestures. Developing multitouch applications for Windows 7 you should have a special multitouch screen, and usually you don't have it, at least not in your development laptop. So you have to buy one, or use the PDC 2009 laptop: Acer Aspire 1420P give-away. The problem in such case is that you'll have to use remote-debug to debug your multitouch gestures, and it's awkward. There are several NUI alternatives...

Blendability Part IV – Design Time Support for MEF by Tomer Shamam

In my previous post I've discussed the usage of MEF with the famous MVVM pattern, and demonstrated the usage of my Import markup-extension, and how it can replace the View Model Locator with an elegant syntax. In this post I would like to reveal and discuss the implementation of the Import markup-extension. Let's begin with a short story. Say that you're building an application for controlling a robot. The robot lives happily in a 2D surface, and can be move freely in between the surface's...