IanBlackburn

One other thought - you use converters in some of the views - I know that some MVVM guys think that you should never need a converter in the View since the ViewModel should prepare the data correctly for it.  I also know there are lots of discussions about MVVM currently and nothing really baked into the framework or tools to answer all the current questions - but just wondered what your opinion was.

 

Fantastic set of videos by the way - really detailed and incredibly useful - many thanks for the work you have put into them; I for one really appreciate the hands-on "live code" approach that you take...

 

Cheers

 

Ian

Hi Mike,

 

At around 30 minues you go and create your own commands for ListBoxSelectionChanged and TreeViewSelectionChanged - what are your opinions on using, for example, a TwoWay Binding to the ListBox SelectedItem property to the view model instead and then publish the event in the Setter?  Not such a nice solution perhaps but possibly easier in many of these cases.  Here's what I did for the MailListViewModel which seems to work fine:

 

Adding a binding as follows:

<ListBox SelectedItem="{Binding SelectedItem, Mode=TwoWay}"
 ScrollViewer.HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Hidden" 
ItemsSource="{Binding Emails}">

 

Then had the following property on the view model:

 

private object _selectedItem=null; 
public object SelectedItem { 
   get { return _selectedItem; } 
   set { 
        _selectedItem = value; 
        EmailSelectionChangedEvent evt = eventAggregator.GetEvent<EmailSelectionChangedEvent>();

        MailViewModel viewModel = (MailViewModel)value; 
        evt.Publish(viewModel == null ? null : viewModel.Email); 
       } 
}

 

Can you see any problems with this approach?

Looks great Mike - many thanks - looking forward to watching these on my trip to Belfast this week.

 

On a download point - for those trying the zune format download - none worked for me; the Zune player complained that all the files were corrupted (using the latest Zune software); download the wmv files instead which worked fine (but were bigger).

Thanks Adam and Jesse - interesting insight into both Microsoft and the role Jesse has there.  I like Jesse's approach, blogs and video which really hit home for many developers getting to grips with the technology.

Cheers

Ian Blackburn

Silverlightforbusiness.net

 

Silverlight 3 is really going to start to drive home the value of using Silverlight for business apps.  It is a clear differentiator from the competition, and a clean win for .net developers, many of whom are currently seeing Silverlight as some sort of media app.  That is set to change.

I have summarised the points from this video here, looking forward to Mix09!

Cheers

Ian
http://silverlightforbusiness.net

This is a fantastic presentation that gives some great insights into how your design and development decisions can affect Silverlight performance.  Mike Snow has produced a nice summary of the main points on his excellent Silverlight Tips blog series, so I won't attempt to do that here, but this is a presentation you should watch if you are using Silverlight in a business environment.

Ian Blackburn
silverlightforbusiness.net

It looks great - but these demos aren't that far away from those shown at Mix 07 (Silverlight 1) and Mix 08 (with the same "announcement" of Silverlight for mobile then -Amit Chopra: "The wait is finally over, we have Silverlight for Windows Mobile").  I have no doubt that it is on it's way but the timing of a Jan CTP is frustrating for those wanting to start building apps with it as soon as possible.  I guess that this is all tied to the Windows Mobile 7 release (which was deafening in it's silence at this PDC) and  I am still hoping Microsoft will surpise us with some announcement about both before the new year, but I think this looks less and less realistic all the time.  Meanwhile Android gets an early release date in the uk, and IPhone continues to grow...

Ian Blackburn
http://silverlightforbusiness.net

The most appealing aspect here I think is the simplicity that Mesh can bring to these scenarios of multiple devices and people sharing data, and this leads to savings in development costs and user training and support. Most of the demos currently focus on the consumer space , but businesses value sharing information too of course, and I can imagine that this will become a compelling way to build mobile apps in the future, providing that the security is proven.  I can see uses for it now, even in it's current form.

Ian Blackburn
http://silverlightforbusiness.net
http://bbits.co.uk/blog

This is a really good presentation if you are interested in how Silverlight can be used for Business apps.  Not everyone sees that yet, still bracketing it with Flash-like games and marketing assets, but Silverlight is much more for the developer and much more for the Enterprise UI. 

Looking forward to see how Alexandria develops and exploring it on my new blog: http://silverlightforbusiness.net

Ian Blackburn
www.bbits.co.uk/blog

Hi,

Great video - lots of interesting info re mobile 5 and new devices. 

Thought you may be interested in the work we are doing with local government in the uk - using a free mobile app we give to the public to report grafitti and other street incidents in a far more efficient way than through the old paper route.  (www.lovelewisham.org)

That camera api in 5 is going to be a big win for us, it is a pain getting multi-device support for that currently.

Cheers

Ian
www.bbits.co.uk