Silverlight 3 : Lap around Silverlight 3 Beta 1 : Part -1

You must have seen my yesterday’s article about Silverlight 3, Now from today I am going to explore more on Silverlight 3, offcourse as and when required I may still blog on Silverlight 2 since it might take some time to move you directly on Silverlight 3.

Silverlight 3 Beta 1 SDK, Runtime and Tools for Visual Studio installation is very smooth, While installation, it does not ask me to uninstall my Silverlight 2, Small Conclusion I drawn : Silverlight 2 and 3 Beta 1 right now going parallel. I am looking into Architectural part and covered most of the Silverlight CoreCLR architecture in my last article, For Silverlight 3 Beta 1 I found some new things :

sllauncher.exe at Program Files\Microsoft Silverlight\3.0.40307.0 and SlSvcUtil.exe at Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Silverlight\v3.0\Tools , I will talk about these in more details in my upcoming articles. One thing to note, Silverlight 3 Beta 1 and Blend 2 not going hand in hand, When I tried so, it shown me “Invalid XAML”.

Once you installed all Silverlight 3 Beta 1 components successfully, You can now start programming it in Visual Studio.

“Silverlight Navigation Application” is new template you can see. Some controls you will also find new, check this out :

 

So, many more things to talk about..so I will cover all stuff part by part so you can learn->Implement->Enjoy !! Silverlight 3 exprience. So to start with some Practical thing I am touching the new 3D support aspect of Silverlight 3.

3D in Silverlight 3 Beta 1 :

Tools Require :

• Silverlight 3 Beta 1 SDK
• Silverlight 3 Beta 1 Tools for Visual Studio 2008 [Offcourse with SP of VS and .NET 3.5 Framework]

Step 1 : Open Visual Studio 2008, go to File->New->Project and then choose Silverlight Application

Step 2 : Let me first tell you, there is nothing like 3D control etc., 3D in silverlight is mainly achieve by “Plane Projection” class under System.Windows.Media namespace. [ System.Windows.dll Assembly and there is no mapped XMLNS for xaml ]

Xaml :

<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="White">
       <StackPanel Height="200" Width="300" Background="IndianRed" x:Name="MyStack">
           <StackPanel.Projection>
               <PlaneProjection
                   RotationX="0"
                   RotationY="0"
                   RotationZ="0"
                   />
           </StackPanel.Projection>
           <MediaElement Source="Bear.wmv" Height="200" Width="200" />
       </StackPanel>
       <StackPanel Margin="10,40,0,0">
           <TextBlock Margin="230,0,0,0">X:</TextBlock>
           <Slider Margin="10,-20,0,0" x:Name="Slider1" Maximum="360" Minimum="-360" Width="300"  ValueChanged="Slider1_ValueChanged"/>
           <TextBlock Margin="230,10,0,-15">Y:</TextBlock>
           <Slider Margin="10,-5,0,10" x:Name="Slider2" Maximum="360" Minimum="-360" Width="300" ValueChanged="Slider2_ValueChanged" />
           <TextBlock Margin="230,0,10,0">Z:</TextBlock>
           <Slider Margin="10,-20,0,0" x:Name="Slider3" Maximum="360" Minimum="-360" Width="300" ValueChanged="Slider3_ValueChanged"/>
       </StackPanel>
   </Grid>

*Note : In Silverlight 3 Beta 1, you will find Page.xaml now as “MainPage.xaml” with corresponding code behind file. Rest all looks same as it was in Silverlight 2.

C# Code :

using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Media;

namespace SL_3D_Demo
{
    public partial class MainPage : UserControl
    {
        public MainPage()
        {
            InitializeComponent();          
        }

        private void Slider1_ValueChanged(object sender, RoutedPropertyChangedEventArgs<double> e)
        {
            ((PlaneProjection)MyStack.Projection).RotationX = e.NewValue;
        }

        private void Slider2_ValueChanged(object sender, RoutedPropertyChangedEventArgs<double> e)
        {
            ((PlaneProjection)MyStack.Projection).RotationY = e.NewValue;
        }

        private void Slider3_ValueChanged(object sender, RoutedPropertyChangedEventArgs<double> e)
        {
            ((PlaneProjection)MyStack.Projection).RotationZ = e.NewValue;
        }
    }
}

Output :

Something about Plane Projection :

Simple definition of Plane Projection given by Silverlight 3 docs is :

Represents a perspective transform (a 3-D-like effect) on an object.

Plane Projection Class gives you certain Methods and Properties, Plane Projection helps you to set orientation across X,Y and Z axis with properties like RotationX,Y and Z respectively and no wonder, all of them do take negative values. Basically now UIElement have property as Projection. You can even set the Center of Rotation with CenterOfRotationX,Y and Z property respectively. To know more details about Plane Projection, I encourage you to get hold of Silverlight 3 Beta 1 docs [chm file].

I know, few days back I spend many sleepless nights to get working that kit3D for implementing 3D in Silverlight 2, but I guess now we all should thank Microsoft for making this happen in Silverlight 3 and with great ease.

Hope by this small step towards Silverlight 3 must have given you idea what is the future of Silverlight Technology, many more things to come now, and yes as usual I will try my best to tell you those by making as simple as I can, so that you can start working on it. So go ahead and Download early bits of Silverlight 3 Beta 1, meanwhile I will get ready with my Part 2 of this Lap around article.

Vikram.