.NET Rocker

Continuing on with the Hacking PivotViewer series, in this post we will look at accessing and modifying the current pan position.  As I mentioned in the first post, Hacking PivotViewer : Zoom, there is always more than one way to attack some of these problems.  In doing the research for this post, I came across a new approach that will allow access to internal structures without the need for using elevated permissions.  This post will explore this new approach as well as build a new API for panning within the PivotViewer.

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If you have been following my blog, you know that there are quite a few posts here on PivotViewer.  If you haven’t seem them, you can find them all here: PivotViewer posts.  The Silverlight 5 PivotViewer provides a laundry list of new features and enhancements, but there is still several areas that simply weren’t addressed for one reason or another.

So that means it’s time to start taking matters in our own hands and start poking around under the hood.  This is the first post in a new series, Hacking PivotViewer.  This series will be a little different from some of the others, as it won’t be sequential.  As I have time to tackle different road blocks, I will post the results to this series.  Guess that means it’s time to get started.

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Defining properties in the new PivotViewer is rather straight forward, but I was recently asked about defining a multi-valued property.  In the original PivotViewer, the CXML item would simply contain multiple entries for a given property and the PivotViewer would do the rest.  Fortunately, PivotViewer still handles most of the details for us, with a minor catch.

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For the past year, the Microsoft MVP Program has been holding Twitter chats.  The idea is that for a given date/time (usually a 1-2 hr window), you could be involved in a group conversation by following the #mvpchat hash tag.  During the first conversation, as I watched the feed blow by at amazing speed, I realized that PivotViewer would offer a unique look into this type of data.  So within a couple of weeks of the first event, MVPChat (http://mvpchat.net) was born.

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I was recently working with another developer on a ComboBox, where he needed to be able to disable certain items in the ComboBox (aka make them non-selectable).  Having been a while since I looked at it, all I could remember was it was not as easy as it should be.  In coming up with a solution, we realized that Silverlight 5 makes this rather easy.

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Well we are coming to the end of the PivotViewer Basics series.  To round it out, I thought I would continue on with the last post which discussed Basic Item Adorners.  In that post we looked at implementing the custom actions that you found in the first PivotViewer.  This post will look at taking it one step further and look at what it takes to build our own item adorners. 

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After a break to review some of my favorite Silverlight 5 features in the 12 Days of Silverlight series, it’s time to get back to some PivotViewer action.  This is the 4th post in the PivotViewer Basics series focused on some of the basics of the Silverlight 5 PivotViewer.  In this post we will look at item adorners, what they are and how to use them.

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After giving my latest talk last night on the Windows 8 XAML story, I thought I would do a little review of the Scott Hanselman’s TekPub video on The Art of Speaking.  Why?  Truthfully, so that I would have a baseline to come back and review further down the road and I thought a few people might be interested as well.

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This has been the longest series that I have done and I’ve really had a lot of fun doing it.  If you have missed any of them, you can catch the whole series here: 12 Days of Silverlight.  It’s really nice to see the level of interest in Silverlight 5.  Make sure to drop me a note if you have anything specific you would like to see more about.  I’m always looking for more topics to write about.  So, for the grand finale…

On the twelfth day of Silverlight the team delivered to me… PivotViewer.

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Rounding up the series, we are going to look at a couple of my favorite features in Silverlight 5.  This one has been a hobby of mine sine my college days (which are a lot further away than I care to admit).  Let’s face it, it’s just cool.  That, and it’s let some people do some amazing things.

On the eleventh day of Silverlight the team delivered to me… 3D.

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