Tips and Tricks

Using WikiPedia as a Clip Art Source for Silverlight/WPF Apps

Frank La Vigne — Sat, 02 May 2009 10:56:00 GMT

In my previous post, I discussed some of the graphics resources for developers mentioned at the informal pre-meeting session of CapArea Silverlight.

There was one method for sourcing graphics I talk about that I didn't cover in that post: grabbing vector graphics from WikiPedia for use in your Silverlight or WPF projects.

Everybody is familiar with WikiPedia, but not a lot of people know that much of its content is licensed under creative commons and that the site prefers to use SVG for many of its graphics and diagrams.

For this example, we'll take a look at the WikiPedia entry on Maryland.

Notice the map of the US with the state of Maryland highlighted in red, click on that and you'll see the following page:

The image you see is a PNG rendered from a SVG file. Since most people don't have an SVG plug-in to render the image, WikiPedia has made the wise decision to convert it to a more widely used format.

SVG stands for Scalable Vector Graphics, an XML based format for defining vector graphics. It sounds a lot like XAML, but XAML can do so much more.

If you want to know more about XAML vs. SVG, read this post. You don't need to understand the debate, controversy, or pick a side to continue.

Coming back to the topic at hand, right mouse click the link to Map_of_USA_MD.svg? and download the file locally.

If you have Adobe Illustrator, start it up and load the Map_of_USA_MD.svg? into Illustrator.

If you're comfortable with Illustrator, feel free to edit the file. The shape of Maryland is actually wrong, it moves the entire Eastern Shore of Virginia into Maryland. Oops!

Now that you can be smug that you found an error in WikiPedia, you can now export the file into XAML, assuming you've installed Mike Swanson's excellent plug-in.

If you've got the plug-in installed, you'll notice that you have two choices for exporting to XAML: WPF or Silverlight.

Choose the format you'd like and click save.

Remember, even though both WPF and Silverlight share a common language, the dialect can be a little different.

Here's the same SVG file exported to WPF and Silverlight, with the main differences highlighted.

Now, we'll open Blend and add the new XAML file to our project:

Once the XAML file is loaded into Blend, open the file and you'll see it looks just exactly like the version on WikiPedia.

From here, you can convert this to a control, add events, and more.

If you're really industrious you can make a map control.

If maps aren't your thing, then you can keep a sharp eye out for other SVG graphics on Wikipedia or browse through the archives at Open Clip Art.

Technorati Tags: XAML,SVG,WPF,Silverlight,Devigner,Wikipedia,Graphics

Writing Like a Rock Star

Frank La Vigne — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:28:00 GMT

Here's an interesting presentation on SlideShare on writing "like a Rock Star" with some interesting advice and tips on all kinds of writing: from slogans to blogs.

Writing Like A Rock Star

View more presentations from Mersedeh Arvaneh.

Technorati Tags: SlideShare,Writing,Tips

50 Sites That Will Help You To Become a Better Designer (or Devigner)

Frank La Vigne — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:14:00 GMT

Whenever I give my Graphic Design for Developers talk, I'm often asked about good links for developers to learn the tricks of the graphic design trade.

Fortunately, dzineBlog has compiled a list of 50 sites that will help you become a better designer.

Some of the sites, I've recommended before and some are new to me, but all are excellent resources to help you bring out your inner designer.

[found via @PerryBelcher]

Technorati Tags: Devigner,Design,Tips,Graphic Design

Podcasts for .NET Developers

Frank La Vigne — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:05:00 GMT

Scott Hanselman has compiled a list of podcasts specifically for .NET developers.

Here's a sampling of what I subscribe to.

	.NET Rocks The first .NET developer podcast ever. I started listening to this faithfully back when I had 100 mile round trip commute each day. I credit Carl and the gang with helping to convert me to .NET from die hard Java developer. :)
	Sparkling Client If .NET Rocks is too general for you and you're knee deep in XAML, then this one is for you. It's focused entirely on Silverlight and the RIA (Rich Internet Application) space.
	ASP.NET Podcast by Wally McClure It's been said that the world "needs more Wally." I've not read the economic stimulus bill, but I doubt there's a "more Wally" spending bill, although he does have some well known listeners. Wally's podcast has been around a while and has accumulated well over a 100 that focus solely on ASP.NET. I listen to it to stay well rounded and aware of what's going on the non-XAML world.
	This Week on Channel 9 "This week" is a weekly roundup of all the happenings in the .NET world, from the old standby's to cutting edge topics, this show has a wide range of subjects. Expect to see everything from Surface to F# and everything in between.
	Continuum In this show, host Adam Kinney explores the the Microsoft Client Continuum. It covers everything in the client space from rich to reach: WPF, Silverlight, ASP.NET, IE8, Surface and Windows 7 from a designer and developer point of view.

Technorati Tags: Podcasts,.NET,WPF,RIA,Channel9

A Photoshop How To

Frank — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:28:00 GMT

Here's an interesting tutorial on how to make a shiny pencil graphic in Photoshop.

The tutorial shows you how to create Web 2.0 style gradients and, while the tutorial specifically mentions Photoshop, you could easily apply the techniques to your design tool of choice.

As an added bonus, the site has tons of tutorials and how-to's in Photoshop.

Technorati Tags: Photoshop,How To,Devigner,Graphic Design

101 Photoshop Tips in 5 Minutes

Frank — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:14:00 GMT

Here's an interesting take on tip videos.

Photoshop guru Deke McClelland dances and raps his way through 101 Photoshop tips in five minutes.

The tune is catchy and the tips are useful.

Will we start seeing Jesse Liberty rap his Silverlight tip of the Day?

Will Silverlight Cream morph into a musical/skit comedy format one day?

Only time will tell. ;)

Technorati Tags: Deke McClelland,Photoshop,Tips

You Can Learn a Lot About UX from PowerPoint

Frank — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:09:00 GMT

At first glance, it may be a stretch to connect PowerPoint slide decks to good user experience.

However, if you think about it, both are meant to convey information and you need to engage users in the same way that a successful presenter engages his/her audience.

Check out this slide deck to see what I mean:

| View | Upload your own

Technorati Tags: Devigner,User Experience,Tips,PowerPoint. Slideshare

Making Your WPF Applications Speak

Frank — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:16:00 GMT

It's amazingly easy to add speech synthesis to WPF applications.

WPF's speech synthesis capabilities are often lost in the rich feature set of the platform.

Last year, I wrote a blog post about Speech Synthesis in WPF.

I thought it would be cool to write an Extension Method that encapsulates speech synthesis functionality, so that speaking would be as simple as

   1: string sayThis;   2: sayThis.Speak();

The code to make this possible is this simple.

   1: public static void Speak (this string text)   2: {   3:     SpeechSynthesizer synthesizer = new SpeechSynthesizer();   4:     5:     synthesizer.SpeakAsync(text);   6: }

Be sure to add a reference to System.Speech and add the appropriate using statement.

   1: using System.Speech.Synthesis;

Now if only Speech Synthesis existed in Silverlight. ;)

Technorati Tags: Speech Synthesis,WPF,Extension Methods

Presentation Anti-Patterns

Frank — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 02:02:00 GMT

As a follow up to my "Present Like Steve Jobs" post, here is some advice to give the worst possible presentation.

Kids, don't try this at home.

[Hat tip to Pete Brown for sending this my way]

Technorati Tags: Presentation,PowerPoint,Anti-Pattern,Humor

How to Deliver a Presentation Like Steve Jobs

Frank — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:42:00 GMT

BusinessWeek has an article on how to deliver a presentation like Steve Jobs.

The article distills his unique, showman like style into ten tips:

Set the theme.
Demonstrate enthusiasm.
Provide an outline.
Make numbers meaningful.
Try for an unforgettable moment.
Create visual slides.
Give 'em a show.
Don't sweat the small stuff.
Sell the benefit.
Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

No word on how to generate your own Reality Distortion Field, though.

For more tips on giving presentations check out these sites:

Technorati Tags: Steve Jobs,BusinessWeek,Presentation,Tips,PowerPoint

Tips and Tricks

Using WikiPedia as a Clip Art Source for Silverlight/WPF Apps

Writing Like a Rock Star

50 Sites That Will Help You To Become a Better Designer (or Devigner)

Podcasts for .NET Developers

.NET Rocks

Sparkling Client

ASP.NET Podcast by Wally McClure

This Week on Channel 9

Continuum