Monthly Archive for June, 2006

The June CTP of .Net Framework 3.0 was released on Friday. One new June CTP feature that I am very excited to introduce is a new property on Window called AllowsTransparency. AllowsTransparency enables you to create those semi-transparent windows and rounded-corner windows for which many of you have been asking.

I have written a small sample to illustrate some of the things to think about when creating semi-transparent windows. The central part of the sample is the following XAML:

<Window x:Class="WindowTransparency.Window1"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    Title="WindowTransparency" Height="300" Width="300"
    AllowsTransparency="True" WindowStyle="None"
    Background="Transparent"
    >
  <Border CornerRadius="50" Background="Blue" Opacity=".7">
    <Button Click="CloseWindow" Height="30" Width="100">Close Me
    </Button>
  </Border>
</Window>

There are a few things to notice in this XAML. First is that I set Window.AllowsTransparency to true. Of course, as the name implies, this simply means that the Window may be made transparent (under the covers, it switches to using a layered window), it does not actually set the background to transparent. To achieve a transparent window, I set Window.Background to Transparent. Now that I have a transparent window surface, I can draw whatever content inside of it that I like. In this example, I’m simply using a Border with rounded corners to show that you can create rounded-corner windows and dialogs.

You’ll also notice that I have set Window.WindowStyle to None. For now, Windows with AllowsTransparency=true are not compatible with any of the other WindowStyles, and we expect that this will be fine for most scenarios (if you are using a transparent window, you probably don’t want the standard Win32 window chrome). Drawing your own Window chrome is easy (as an example, I’ve created a close button that I’ve hooked up to Window.Close()). Making your Window user-draggable is actually just as easy to do. The following code does it:

public Window1()
{
    InitializeComponent();
    MouseLeftButtonDown += new MouseButtonEventHandler
           (Window1_MouseLeftButtonDown);
}

void Window1_MouseLeftButtonDown(object sender,
     MouseButtonEventArgs e)
{
    DragMove();
}

You can download the full sample here.

The Windows SDK online documentation is now live with Beta 2 content. The WPF content is under the WinFX node. My assumption is that that node will change to “.Net Framework 3.0″ at some point.

Unfortunately the chalk talk schedule is not provided in any of the printed TechEd materials, but we on the WPF team are resourceful folks, and we put together this high-tech alternative:

Our demo booth is a bit hidden, so it may be hard to find by the signage, but you can always just look for our bright orange shirts over in the Developer area.

Here’s a cheat sheet if you want to attend all of the WPF talks at TechEd:

There are going to be three chalk talks covering WPF content as well (one on data visualization, one on writing XBAPs, and one on interop). I will update this post with the schedule for those talks when I know it.

Update 6/12/2006 7:47am (PDT): Added the chalk talks to the table above.

Here’s a list of a few WPF samples that I want to write soon (in no particular order):

1. Building a FileUpload control
2. Removing/restyling the NavigationWindow UI
3. Displaying HTML inside of your WPF application
4. Using URL arguments to enable “deep linking” for XBAPs
5. Using Popup as a dialog in XBAPs

I’m posting the list here so that I don’t forget. :) But also, if you have any feedback — e.g. you really want to see the NavigationWindow UI sample before the HTML sample or there’s some other application model-oriented sample that you want to see before any of these — please let me know.

I won’t get to these until after TechEd Boston (next week!), but if you are blocked on any WPF questions in the meantime, feel free to contact me (as usual).