• Creating a Silverlight 5 Static Markup Extension

    If you have done any WPF application development I am sure you have used and fallen in love with the Static markup extension.  If you’re are not familiar with it, the Static markup extension allows you to reference static fields and properties in your XAML markup.

    For example; let’s assume we have a class with the following static field defined:

    public class Common
    {
        public static string StaticText = "This…
    • Fri, Mar 23 2012
  • Create Your First WinRT WatermarkTextBox Control

    Unless you have been living under a rock the past few days you already know about the recent release of Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Visual Studio 11 Beta.  Since I know you already downloaded and installed all the shiny new toys, let’s take a quick look at how to get started writing a custom control for the new metro style applications.  There is no better control to start with than the ever popular WatermarkTextBox…

    • Tue, Mar 6 2012
  • XamDataGrid Cell Adorner Framework

    Quite some time ago, Josh Smith wrote a post on how to adorn the cells of the XamDataGrid.  I like the concept, but wanted a better implementation that didn’t rely on events or initializing controls in the code behind.  So this led me to write a simple cell adorner framework that will allow you to adorn a cell in the XamDataGrid/XamDataPresenter with any custom control.  Now keep in mind, this was something I  just…

    • Thu, Mar 1 2012