Discussions

I have a couple of questions about Avalon and XAML and if they aren't possible I'd like to suggest the concepts to the Avalon team.

1.)  I've been looking for a way to set a property after an event in XAML but havn't been able to find anything about it (all EventTrigger examples use Actions which run timelines).  I'd like to be able to do something like this:

 The reason why I cant just use some code-behind function is that it's inside the default ControlTemplate of the default Style for a custom control, so I can't call any functions, just XAML.

2.)  Is there a way to use conditional values for Triggers?  i.e.

<Trigger Property="Expansion" Value=">.5">

...

</Trigger>

I don't want Value=.5 because then the setters applied by the Trigger only last for as long as Expansion is exactly .5, i want it for greater than .5.  This would be useful for anything being animated where you want Setters applied past a certain point in the animation, not just at one single instant.

Both suggestions seem obvious to me which is why I was wondering if there wasn't already a way to do it.  Any ideas?  Otherwise, why have they been omitted?

mVPstar wrote:

The problem with making the deeper components managed is the fact that managed code requires unmanaged code somewhere along the line.  The CLR I don't believe is managed in itself or that would just be analogous to a black hole. The CLR doesn't run too deep into the system so it requires other components to run. That said, the deeper components (way past the CLR) end up being unmanaged because they can't target the CLR.

In order to get a system that is completely managed, some sort of modifications to the hardware must happen, which is something that the world is truly not ready for.


I could be wrong. I don't really know much about .NET.
mVPstar 

I would be surprised if any RSS API created by Microsoft is not managed.  Both Avalon and Indigo are built on the .NET Framework, so whatever they do with RSS will most likely do the same.

But at this point I havn't heard or read anything officially explaining what the Longhorn RSS API will be like, other than the features it will offer (common list, common data store, and the sync engine)

There is a question on the LonghornRSS Wiki asking if it will be written in .NET or if it will be part of WinFX but there is no answer yet.

Woops, I mixed up my Avalon bloggers!  Thanks for clarifying for me Adam.

Ryan Dawson wrote an article about custom controls in Avalon which I had been looking at recently along with Chris Anderson's AvPad in order to better understand creating custom controls.  I mixed the two up.  But what I wrote before was still about Ryan Dawson, he provides great information on Avalon.

Wow, you've even got my brother on the list!  I also have Ryan Dawson's blog on my list, although it's a "Longhorn Blog" he has had some of the best Avalon information I've come accross  (he made AvPad).
I see you have him in your feed list but not up on the Wiki.

Unfortunately Longhornblogs.com seem's to be down right now...

Here's his blog URL anyway:  http://www.longhornblogs.com/rdawson/

He's definitely worth a mention on the Wiki.

Edit:  Ah, I see he's already on the Wiki under "General"

Just an update:  I've finally figured it out.  To do what I wanted I actually needed to derive from HeaderedItemsControl and the AvPad source was very helpful in showing me how to "wire" it all up with styles.  When I'm finished with the control I'll post it here along with the source and perhaps a brief article explaining in detail how to make an actual Avalon custom control library (would be the first one on the web as far as I can tell!)

Avalon applications, which can be written in XAML, will be available as "sandboxed" applications through IE in Longhorn.  It will limit the application's privelages and therefore somewhat limit it's functionality but will certainly be a powerful tool for webpages.

It really won't be a plugin which has to download the entire .net runtime library, because anyone who is using Longhorn will alreday have it.

Thanks for the links Andokai and Tyler, I'll check them out and if I get it sorted out I'll post back here with what I came up with.

I too found it difficult at first to create even a basic application with Avalon/XAML but after some experimentation and making a couple of mini-apps I can see how it will be much easier to create rich applications with customized GUI's.  I think the main reason it can be difficult to get started with Avalon is that the official documentation is sparse and incomplete and there aren't many tutorials or examples floating around the net at this point.  Thats why I think it's important for us to post our problems and our solutions as we encounter them, and Channel 9 seems like a perfect place for doing that.

Thanks Tom!

I have .NET 2.0 Beta installed, and in fact I've had it installed since before I knew about Channel9 so that might be the problem like Sven Groot mentioned.

I guess its the price I pay for using my TabletPC as a development machine