VSLive! Las Vegas 2008

Rich Clients

Sessions in the Rich Clients area are related to SilverLight, WPF, and Windows Forms. The content is a mix of control development, data binding, architecture and best practices.

VLT6Tricks, Traps, and Techniques in Migrating VB6 Applications to .NET
Francesco Balena
Tuesday, October 14 – 11:00 a.m.
Six years after Microsoft launched the .NET Framework there are just too many VB6 business applications waiting to be ported to the .NET world. Given the limitations of the Upgrade Wizard, not surprisingly many software shops decided to go through the long and costly process of rewriting their applications from scratch or – much more frequently – just to stay with VB6. Unfortunately, some 3rd party ActiveX controls don’t work well under Microsoft Vista and Microsoft has officially discontinued tech support for VB6 in March 2008. This has made upgrading to .NET the only option for VB6 legacy apps.

In this session we’ll briefly list the most important issues you have to face when migrating your VB6 code to VB.NET and how you can solve them. We’ll briefly cover all the most evident differences between the two languages – data types, arrays, structures, error handling, and so forth – and then dig under the surface to reveal many undocumented details, for example how string immutability and orphaned delegates can make your converted VB.NET code fail. We will also illustrate many examples of how you can use a support library to shorten the distance between VB6 and VB.NET and reduce the time you spend testing the converted code, how to work with arrays with non-zero lower bound, how to simulate control arrays, how to use regexes to fix common problems in the migration process, and much more. Attendees will receive the source code of a support library that implements all the techniques discussed in the session (a trimmed down version of a commercial support library used in real-world migration projects).

VLT14"How did you do that?": Surprising Windows Forms Techniques
Billy Hollis
Tuesday, October 14 – 4:00 p.m.
Before you make that jump to WPF, check out some capabilities in Windows Forms that you probably didn't know existed. Would you believe... A tooltip that displays graphics inside its popup message? UserControls that adapt their layout on resize - with no sizing logic? Oval buttons displaying gradient backgrounds - without third party controls? Continuous checking for unsaved data - with two lines of code? A tutorial form - floating inside a grid? Field-level security on a form - with one line of code? You'll see these techniques and more in this advanced Windows Forms session, based on examples that were created to solve real-world problems during Windows Forms development.

WPF

VLT2Creating Business Applications in WPF and SilverLight
Billy Hollis
Tuesday, October 14 – 9:30 a.m.
You've likely seen plenty of flashy WPF samples, but what does it offer for business applications? Come and see an overview of how WPF and Silverlight can be used for line of business applications that have better usability and productivity than you'll likely get with other user interface technologies. Techniques such as templating list controls, working with styles, and appropriate use of animation will be discussed. This in an introductory session intended for those who have not yet gained any significant exposure to WPF or Silverlight.

VLT10WPF Meets the iPhone Interface
Kevin McNeish
Tuesday, October 14 – 2:30 p.m.
The iPhone is one of the most compelling and exciting user interfaces to appear in recent memory, with many innovations that make it a pleasure to use. How can you deliver a similar experience with your .NET applications? In this session you will see how to implement these features in .NET as you watch the iPhone interface recreated using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) technology with both Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft's Expression Blend.

VLW2 Build a WPF Application in an Hour
Ken Getz
Wednesday, October 15 – 8:00 a.m.
WPF makes it possible to build rich graphical user interfaces, but it doesn't necessarily make it easy. Getting your head around where to start, and how to display information, can be a daunting task. This session gets you started with WPF, and demonstrates creating a working video-player application, using data binding, templates, and more. Not the typical first introduction to WPF, this session actually shows you features you can use now to get started building WPF applications. (Please don't select this session along with the "What's New in VS 2008" workshop proposal.)

VLT6 Tricks, Traps, and Techniques in Migrating VB6 Applications to .NET
Francesco Balena
Tuesday, October 14 – 11:00 a.m.

Six years after Microsoft launched the .NET Framework there are just too many VB6 business applications waiting to be ported to the .NET world. Given the limitations of the Upgrade Wizard, not surprisingly many software shops decided to go through the long and costly process of rewriting their applications from scratch or – much more frequently – just to stay with VB6. Unfortunately, some 3rd party ActiveX controls don’t work well under Microsoft Vista and Microsoft has officially discontinued tech support for VB6 in March 2008. This has made upgrading to .NET the only option for VB6 legacy apps.

VLW14 WPF Data-Binding Tidbits
Walt Ritscher
Wednesday, October 15 – 3:15 p.m.
There is plenty to learn regarding the WPF data-binding model. In this talk we'll discuss the Data Providers and study XML data sources and how to work with hierarchical data. Next stop, we'll look at how to sort, filter and group your data with CollectionViews and take a quick peek at asynchronous binding support. You'll see how data-templates allow you to completely revamp your data presentation. If you think you know data-binding, wait until you see what the WPF team has created for you.

VLW18 Styling Your UI – WPF Styles and Templates
Walt Ritscher
Wednesday, October 15 – 4:45 p.m.
WPF is a powerful tool for creating exotic and beautiful interfaces. This session focuses on two WPF tools (templates and styles) that help you construct compelling and flexible UI. The web world realized a long time ago that styling your UI one element at a time was a tedious process. WPF brings the power of styles to Windows development. Styles are collections of property values that you can apply to a WPF element. Templates, on the other hand, allow you to replace any controls visual tree with a brand new visual representation – without changing the way the control works or interacts with your user. During this fast paced tutorial you'll learn the about styles and templates, understand when to employ internal and external resources and how to define events, triggers and setters in your styles. Finally we'll look at control vs. data templates.

VLTH6 Creating a Custom WPF DataProvider Control
Rocky Lhotka
Thursday, October 16 – 9:45 a.m.
WPF has a powerful data binding mechanism, that you can leverage from XAML or code. But if you want to minimize code and maximize XAML, you'll need to use a DataProvider control to access your data. While WPF comes with some useful DataProvider controls, there are many cases where you may need a more specialized control, or one with slightly different behaviors. Fortunately you can create your own control, and in this session you'll learn how it is done.

VLT2 Creating Business Applications in WPF and SilverLight
Billy Hollis
Tuesday, October 14 – 9:30 a.m.
You've likely seen plenty of flashy WPF samples, but what does it offer for business applications? Come and see an overview of how WPF and Silverlight can be used for line of business applications that have better usability and productivity than you'll likely get with other user interface technologies. Techniques such as templating list controls, working with styles, and appropriate use of animation will be discussed. This in an introductory session intended for those who have not yet gained any significant exposure to WPF or Silverlight.

Silverlight

VLT2 Creating Business Applications in WPF and SilverLight
Billy Hollis
Tuesday, October 14 – 9:30 a.m.
You've likely seen plenty of flashy WPF samples, but what does it offer for business applications? Come and see an overview of how WPF and Silverlight can be used for line of business applications that have better usability and productivity than you'll likely get with other user interface technologies. Techniques such as templating list controls, working with styles, and appropriate use of animation will be discussed. This in an introductory session intended for those who have not yet gained any significant exposure to WPF or Silverlight.

VLT6 Tricks, Traps, and Techniques in Migrating VB6 Applications to .NET
Francesco Balena
Tuesday, October 14 – 11:00 a.m.

VLW10 Custom Control for Silverlight 2.0
Sue Googe
Wednesday, October 15 – 11:00 a.m.
Silverlight 2.0 introduce fairly good amount of controls. For most ASP.NET developers, it still missing majority of the controls we familiar with. This is one of the reasons stop us integrating Silverlight into our application. While Microsoft Silverlight team is developing more controls for us, you could be one of the early adopters of Silverlight by writing your own controls. In this session we will show you how to write custom Silverlight control from scratch.

VLTH2 Managing Data with Silverlight
Billy Hollis
Thursday, October 16 – 8:15 a.m.
Silverlight 2.0 is fully data-enabled. Unlike the media-focused first version, you have many options to get data into and out of Silverlight 2.0 applications, LINQ capabilities to work with data on the client, and multiple choices for containing data on the client. This session will look at ways to get data into Silverlight, including ADO.NET Data Services and other REST-based services, WCF, and Web Services, and how each works end-to-end with data objects on the client to provide a complete and stateful data experience for the user.

VLTH10 Silverlight, SOA, and Objects
Rocky Lhotka
Thursday, October 16 – 1:45 p.m.
Silverlight is a powerful UI development tool, but it is useful for far more than just building pretty web displays. By combining object-oriented design concepts and SOA with Silverlight, you can create incredibly powerful applications that provide high levels of interactivity with the user in the browser, but also tap into server-side processing as needed. Building such an application in a maintainable manner requires a solid architectural backing, along with clear design principals. Learn how to architect, design and build maintainable, powerful Silverlight applications for business.

VLTH14 Spice Up User Experience With Silverlight 2.0
Sue Googe
Thursday, October 16 – 3:15 p.m.
Are you excited about the new Silverlight 2.0 features introduced this Mar? Are you look forward to integrating Silverlight into your application? You might not be ready to convert your Giga size application into Silverlight for various reasons. However, there are plenty of opportunities to spice up your application with Silverlight. This demo will show you the popular features for Silverlight in real world applications.

VLTH18 LOB 2.0 with Silverlight and AJAX
Anthony Lombardo
Thursday, October 16 – 4:45 p.m.
Line-of-business applications have a long history of being more functional than friendly. Leveraging the rich experiences that can be created with Silverlight 2 along with the power of the Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX framework, enables developers to build LOB applications with a Web 2.0 flare, like never before. In this session attendees will learn about the tools available in Silverlight 2, databinding options, and AJAX integration needed to build a visually appealing User Interface that ultimately adds value and efficiency to business operations.