This sample loads a panoramic image using data from XML. Three copies of the image are placed in a ScrollViewer, and that’s it! You have a Panoramic 360º Viewer.
You can change the XML to add your own images and turn this app into a photo gallery.
Download from:
http://nibblestutorials.net
From the Home Page, open Samples > Silverlight 2 and click 360º Panoramic View.
-Celso
Microsoft has just released two great products - Blend 2.5 June 2008 Preview and Silverlight 2 Beta 2. That means we have new stuff to learn, so I’ve prepared four new tutorials and two new samples to help you get up to speed with the updates.
Nibbles Tutorials also has new features:
Preview
Now you can preview a sample/tutorial before diving into the details (only Silverlight projects have this feature, not WPF ones).
Download
A new way to download projects/samples was implemented. Now a window will open with the options to preview/download. This will fix a security problem with Vista users.
http://www.nibblestutorials.net
The tutorials cover the new Visual State Manager. The first two tutorials show how to create States to interact with a photo (Introduction to States). The other two show how easy is to create a Button Style from scratch, without using any code, and then apply that style to other buttons (Creating a Button Style).
There are two new samples:
Oxigen 360º view
Peter Blois, from the Expression Team, developed a new Control called Image Sequencer, which has a UI that you can change in Blend - pretty cool!
Grand Piano
This is a WPF and Silverlight 1.0 sample that I was able to re-build in Blend 2.5 (Silverlight 2) in just half-hour using the new Visual State Manager (States).
Hope you enjoy it!
-Celso
This morning at TechEd Microsoft announced that later this week we will have a new release of Silverlight 2 Beta 2. There are some really cool new features that will be especially interesting to Designers.
With Beta 2 we will have a new templating model called Visual State Manager and, of course, Blend 2.5 June Preview will support it. Later this week I will publish a few new tutorials to help you get up to speed with this new model.
More details about this release:
· UI Framework: Beta 2 includes improvements in animation support, error handling and reporting, automation and accessibility support, keyboard input support, and general performance. This release also provides more compatibility between Silverlight and WPF.
· Rich Controls: Beta 2 includes a new templating model called Visual State Manager that allows for easier templating for controls. Other features include the introduction of TabControl, text wrapping and scrollbars for TextBox, and for DataGrid additions include Autosize, Reorder, Sort, performance increases and more. Controls are now in the runtime instead of packaged with the application.
· Networking Support: Beta 2 includes improved Cross Domain support and security enhancements, upload support for WebClient, and duplex communications (“push” from server to Silverlight client).
· Rich Base Class Library: Beta 2 includes improved threading abilities, LINQ-to-JSON, ADO.NET Data Services support, better support for SOAP, and various other improvements to make networking and data handling easier.
· Deep Zoom: Beta 2 introduces a new XML-based file format for Deep Zoom image tiles, as well as a new MultiScaleTileSource that enables existing tile databases to utilize Deep Zoom. Better notification for sub-images enter the view is another improvement in Silverlight 2 Beta 2.
-Celso
Expression Blend 2 (and the whole Expression Studio 2) was announced today! As part of the package you can get six new Samples built using Blend 2 (Sample Pack 2 – including Silverlight 1.0 and WPF). They are available in the Welcome Screen (Help > Welcome Screen > Samples).
Follow the Nibbles tutorials link and download Blend 2!
Brief description of what you will find in the samples:
Blend Player (Silverlight 1.0)
Player template from Expression Encoder that was re-skinned using Blend.
Button Gallery (Silverlight 1.0)
Simple example of a Button class that can be used to create Silverlight 1.0 buttons.
Magnifying Glass (Silverlight 1.0)
Move the magnifying glass around to see details of butterflies. You can also play an animation.
Note Table (WPF)
Import folders with images and create annotations, just like a whiteboard.
Smooth Blends (WPF)
A great example of how we can re-style a List Box in WPF!
Web Search (WPF)
Searches the web using Live Search API. You can search web and images at the same time.
Hope you enjoy them!
-Celso
This is the most exciting Blend release, and because of that we’ve prepared a few new sections at Nibbles Tutorials to explain some of the new features in Blend 2 September Preview.
There is a new Sample (Lava Lamp) that shows an example of Vertex Animation in Blend. Don’t miss it!
http://www.nibblestutorials.net
You can download two new samples for WPF in the Nibbles Tutorials:
http://www.nibblestutorials.net/
Go to Samples > WPF Samples to download them.
First sample: T-Rex 3D
You can see how easy is to work with 3D in Blend & WPF. This sample uses a pretty big 3D file (~5 Mb just for the geometry). Five buttons trigger a few animations that move the camera to show different angles of the T-Rex. But be aware… 3D demands good hardware!
Second sample: Planets 3D
Another 3D sample, but now showing big textures. Note that the buttons have 3D content inside of their Control Template. Nice WPF!
Also Note that there are NO CODE in these samples. All XAML created using blend. Nice!
-Celso
You can access a new session from the Nibbles home page: Samples. In this session you will find complete projects in Silverlight and WPF, but they are not explained step-by-step like the tutorials. However, they will also be short projects, in order to be easily understood. To start, we have two samples about Silverlight and RSS Feeds / XML.
The first sample gets an RSS feed from the Weather Channel, and shows how Silverlight can turn meteorology into something fun! And the second one populates a custom list box with new releases from Netflix.
XML is easy in Silverlight. Give it a try…
http://www.nibblestutorials.net
-Celso
Nibbles is already running on Silverlight 1.0 RC. That means you have to install:
1) Silverlight 1.0 RC (Release Candidate)
2) Expression Blend 2 August Preview
All tutorials were also updated to reflect changes in the new version of Blend:
http://www.nibblestutorials.net
-Celso
Silverlight 1.0 RC (Release Candidate) is available!
Please, check the previous post. Nibbles Tutorials will be available in Silverlight 1.0 RC this Monday, July 30th. Or maybe before… 
-Celso
Today Microsoft announced two upgrades that will impact Nibbles Tutorials:
Expression Blend 2 August Preview
and
Silverlight 1.0 RC (Release Candidate)
The Silverlight web site doesn’t have the new RC version up to this date, so if you want to start playing with RC you will have to use the same link above (Blend’s install). The instructions about installing Blend 2 will also show links to Silverlight 1.0 RC. Because of these announcements, I will also update Nibbles Tutorials.
Starting on Monday, July 30th 2007, in order to access Nibbles Tutorials you will need to:
1) Install Silverlight 1.0 RC (Nibbles will not work with Silverlight 1.0 Beta anymore)
2) Install Expression Blend 2 August Preview
You will be able to use Expression Blend 1.0, or Expression Blend 2 May Preview only if you are creating WPF applications. Although, I will update the screen shots and instructions to reflect the new UI in Blend 2 August Preview, so you should update to be able to better follow the tutorial’s steps.
Thanks,
-Celso
