jQuery & MicrosoftAjax “happy together”

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I’ve been using jQuery quite a bit lately.  I’ve grown very fond of it.  At the same time, I have been digging into ASP.NET AJAX 4.0.  I just read a post from Bertand Le Roy that made me smile.  In his post, he shows how you can do the following:

<ul class="dv">

    <li>{{ $dataItem }}</li>

</ul>

<script type="text/javascript">
   1:     $(".dv").dataView({ data: ["foo", "bar", "baz"] });


</script>

To me, being able to instantiate a DataView control using the jQuery plugin syntax is PRETTY COOL!  Check out the details of how all this works and download the sample at:

http://weblogs.asp.net/bleroy/archive/2009/05/04/creating-jquery-plug-ins-from-microsoftajax-components.aspx

MVVM Toolkit for WPF

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The Model View ViewModel pattern has become very popular for building WPF applications.  Until now, there wasn’t much guidance/tooling from Microsoft to help you get started with MVVM.  The WPF team just released an early preview of the MVVM Toolkit:

“The Model-View-ViewModel toolkit is intended to introduce the Model-View-ViewModel design pattern for building WPF applications to the broad WPF developer community.
The toolkit includes:

  • A Visual Studio 2008 template (Visual C# Express 2008 also supported)
  • Documentation
    • General introduction to M-V-VM
    • Walkthrough using the VS template
  • A complete WPF application demonstrating the M-V-VM pattern

You can download the toolkit on the WPF Futures page.”

I just installed it, went through the documentation/walkthrough.  I’d definitely recommend taking a look at this!

I hope there is something like this in the works for Silverlight:).

FOLLOW UP: Developer Dinner on Silverlight 3

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Thanks to everyone who attended!  Sorry to put you in the tough position of choosing between two MVPs (Sahil Malik and Pete Brown).  We try to prevent having our dinners at the same time as other community events in the area.  Thanks also to Pete for presenting a great, comprehensive overview of Silverlight 3.  You can download all the resources for the presentation from Pete’s blog:

http://community.irritatedvowel.com/blogs/pete_browns_blog/archive/2009/04/30/Silverlight-3-Links-from-the-Reston-DevDinner.aspx

InfoStrat.VE – Intermediate fix published for the latest 3D control

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Due to popular demand, InfoStrat just published an intermediate fix to get their InfoStrat.VE control working on top of the latest Virtual Earth 3D release.  You will notice that they just made a changeset available.  What they made available is not fully tested.  Once it is, they will publish a new release in the Downloads tab.  Here’s the post announcing the interim fix:

http://tinyurl.com/csxhnj

If you aren’t familiar with their control, then check out my blog post for a little background:

http://tinyurl.com/b3a5ps

This control is a must have for any WPF or Surface developer looking to get Virtual Earth 3D working optimally in their app.

Developer Dinner on Silverlight 3 next week

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I’m excited to have Pete Brown come in to be the guest presenter for our monthly Developer Dinner for US Public Sector Partners next week.  Pete is a Silverlight MVP and the author of an upcoming book on Silverlight 3 & .NET RIA Services.  I’m looking forward to sitting back and watching Pete present:).  Details at http://tinyurl.com/d84sy7.

MIX09: Building Accessible RIAs in Silverlight

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My team focuses on US Government customers and partners.  To say that building accessible applications is important for our customers/partners would be a huge understatement.  I just watched the following session from MIX09:

Building Accessible RIAs in Microsoft Silverlight

The session is short (roughly 20 minutes), but definitely worth the time if you are interested in how to build accessible apps with Silverlight.  Check it out!

DevDinnerOnDemand: What’s new in ASP.NET 4.0

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I decided not to publish the last Developer Dinner in favor of pointing you to newer sessions last weeks MIX 09 conference.  These sessions basically cover everything I covered at the dinner and more.

Microsoft ASP.NET 4.0 : What’s Next?

Choosing between ASP.NET Web Forms and MVC

Microsoft ASP.NET: Taking AJAX to the Next Level

There are some other great sessions on ASP.NET & MVC as well.  You can check out all the ASP.NET content by going to https://content.visitmix.com/2009/sessions/default.aspx and selecting the ASP.NET tag on the left hand side just under the session/agenda selection tool.

REMINDER: The follow up post for this developer is at:

http://tinyurl.com/aspnet4devdinner

Developer Dinner tomorrow

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I have really been slacking when it comes to my blog.  I have a few posts planned, but I have been “heads down” on some really fun Windows Azure work that I should be able to talk about soon. 

Hopefully, you don’t use my blog as the source for Developer Dinner announcements since there are more official vehicles:

MSDN Flash: http://tinyurl.com/msdnflash

My team’s blog: http://tinyurl.com/psdevdinnertag (RSS)

In the event that you expected to see an announcement here, I am sorry for the short notice.  There is a dinner tomorrow:

Design your ASP.NET Application with Standards using Expression Web

InfoStrat releases a Virtual Earth control for both WPF and Surface to CodePlex

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I’ve been waiting for this day to happen for a LONG TIME.  I’ve been working with WPF, Virtual Earth, and Surface for quite a while now.  If you’ve followed my blog, you’ve seen some hacked up samples showing various ways of getting Virtual Earth integrated into a WPF application.  I’ve been working with a number of customers and partners on Surface and WPF applications lately.  Just about every one of them wants mapping capabilities in their Surface and WPF apps.  That is not a surprise given that I focus on US Government customers. 

A while back, I created a fairly trivial sample of how to integrated Virtual Earth into a Surface app.  I’ve been sharing it as a starting point to get customers going.  I met Josh Wall from InfoStrat through my good friend Russ Williams from the Microsoft Technology Center in Reston, Va.  Russ and I had worked together on a few Surface opportunities.  He told me about a conversation he had with Josh from InfoStrat.  Josh was interested in the sample that I put together.  We had a call to discuss some of the challenges around Virtual Earth / Surface integration and we shared the sample with Josh. 

What happened next still amazes me.  InfoStrat took the sample, completely rewrote it using a much better technical approach, and started building their own reusable VE WPF/Surface control.  After seeing the amazing work that InfoStrat put into their control, I figured I would ask them if they would be willing to put it on CodePlex.  Much to my surprise, they were very interested in the idea.  They came up with a plan, and the end result is that today they have announced the first release of the control on CodePlex.

What does this mean to you?  If you are a WPF or Surface developer looking to integrate Virtual Earth into your applications, then InfoStrat just saved you a heck of a lot of time and technical challenges.  The fact that InfoStrat was willing to share their work with the community still blows my mind.

I’ll be doing a Channel 9 Inside Out interview with InfoStrat about the control soon.  Stay tuned!

Here’s a description of the CodePlex project:

“Project Summary

This control provides a WPF interface for the Virtual Earth 3D control, complete with data binding for camera control and WPF-based pushpins. All Win32 restrictions (air space control, no rotation or visual brush) are eliminated. Microsoft Surface is also supported.

Project Details

Virtual Earth 3D has many applications, but until recently has only been practical on the web with a javascript interface. WPF applications could not use it to its full potential without requiring a WPF wizard and some XAML magic due to Win32 interop limitations.

The solution is here: InfoStrat.VE

Created by InfoStrat, this project provides a VEMap control for WPF and SurfaceVEMap control for Microsoft Surface. SurfaceVEMap derives from VEMap and adds multi-touch manipulation support.

For examples of Microsoft Surface solutions we’ve built with this control go to our InfoStrat Surface gallery.

InfoStrat.VE allows WPF and Microsoft Surface developers to take full advantage of Virtual Earth 3D with minimal overhead. Simply reference the dll, add a single VEMap control to your XAML, and you have a map! The control eliminates the Win32 Interop restrictions, so you can do everything with this VE control that you could do with any native WPF control, including:

  • Overlay items (no more transparent windows!)
  • Rotate and transform the map within the interface (no more boring rectangles, bring on the 360 degree interfaces!)
  • Use the map within a Visual Brush (you know you want faded reflections!)”

Josh Blake, the primary developer on the project, announced the publishing of the control here:

http://nui.joshland.org/2009/03/announcing-infostratve-virtual-earth-3d.html

What are you waiting for?  Head over to the CodePlex page to learn more:

http://wpfvirtualearth.codeplex.com/

About InfoStrat:

Information Strategies ("InfoStrat") helps customers solve complex business problems with IT Consulting Services such as: Requirements Analysis, Software Architecture and Design, and Application Development Services.  InfoStrat is an award-winning Microsoft Gold Certified Partner with Gold Certifications in eight Microsoft Competency Solutions Areas.

Founded in 1987, InfoStrat is one of the nation’s foremost leaders in IT Services focused on Microsoft technologies.  InfoStrat has provided IT Consulting Services on over 1000 customer projects.  InfoStrat consultants hold over 150 Microsoft technical certifications and are experts in .NET application development focused primarily on:

News release about CodePlex project on infostrat.com:

http://infostrat.com/home/company_information/news_room/InfoStratVE.htm

InfoStrat’s Single View Platform landing page:

http://infostrat.com/home/solutions/Surface/SurfaceSVP.htm

PARTNER SHOWCASE: Northrop Grumman – Innovating for the War Fighter with Microsoft Surface

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I’ve been a Developer Evangelist for 3+ years now.  For the first 3 years, I spent the majority of my time focusing on delivering public presentations at conferences, for webcasts/screencasts, onsite at customer facilities, and at local community events in DC area.  This year, the focus of my role changed slightly.  Although I still do my fair share of the previously mentioned activities, I am now on a team that focuses on Systems Integrators (SIs) and Partners who do work for the US Government.  I’ve always been focused on US Government developers, but the scope of the people I interacted with was more broad.  With my new role, I have had more of an opportunity to work with SIs and Partners on things like Proof of Concept (POC) applications. 

Back in September/October, I had the pleasure of spending a few weeks with Northrop Grumman and the Microsoft Technology Center in Reston, Virginia to build a POC application on Microsoft Surface.  After the completion of the POC, we recorded an interview and demo with the team responsible for creating the application.  I just published that video.  Here’s the description:

“Northrop Grumman partnered with the Microsoft Technology Center and the Microsoft US Public Sector Developer and Platform Evangelism team to build a Proof Of Concept (POC) application that would demonstrate how Microsoft Surface could enhance mission planning, rehearsal, and post mission knowledge collection for military command and control decision making.  Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global security company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide.

Watch the interview to see a full demo of the POC.  The interview highlights Northrop Grumman’s learning experiences on the POC especially with regard to Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), the Surface SDK, the designer/developer workflow enabled by WPF and the new thinking behind Natural User Interfaces with an emphasis on User experience.”

The interview is available at:

https://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Inside+Out/Northrop-Grumman-Innovating-for-the-War-Fighter-with-Microsoft-Surface/

One of the things I am trying to do in my new role is to start a “PARTNER SHOWCASE” series of posts to help highlight work like this that SIs and Partners are doing for US Government customers.  Feel free to contact me if you fall into this category and you’re interested in showcasing your work on Channel 9!