Yesterday evening we’ve had another Sixin event. Thanks for Macaw for being our host of the evening.

We started with a very interesting session about designers and developers working together by Marc Jacobi, Michel Heijman and Antoni Dol. Quite a few interesting details about their architecture revealed.

After the break we’ve had 3 short 20 minute sessions about experiences with Windows Phone 7. First part by Galina Slavova. The second part was presented by me, download the slide-deck here, where I shared my platform experiences in developing the Buienradar.nl application for Windows Phone 7. The third part was presented by Koen Zwikstra, who showed some parts of the new upcoming version of Silverlight Spy with support for Windows Phone 7.

Yesterday I took the exam, but today the last part of the series.

To start with one should be familiar with Silverlight of course, but refreshing some of the topics that haven’t be touched that often is always good. This is by far not the definitive learning guide for the exam, but it’s a start. If you know articles that should be in either one of the categories please let me know.

What Skills are being Measured?

You can start on the Microsoft Learning site first: Exam 70-506: TS: Silverlight 4, Development.

The are 7 main categories of topics that are measured. The last 1% is luck! 

Laying Out a User Interface (15%)

Enhancing the User Interface (14%)

Implementing Application Logic (16%)

Working with Data (17%)

Interacting with a Host Platform (11%)

Structuring Applications (13%)

Deploying Applications (13%)

Enhancing  the User Interface

Create or modify control styles.

Setting a style locally and at the page control level: http://www.visiblox.com/blog/2010/08/styles-in-silverlight-further-advanced-topics-2
Setting a style globally: http://blogs.silverlight.net/blogs/msnow/archive/2008/10/02/silverlight-tip-of-the-day-55-how-to-apply-styles-in-silverlight-part-i.aspx
Implicit styles, overriding styles and based-on styles: http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/Implicit-Styles-in-Silverlight-4.aspx

Create control templates.

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/pages/silverlight-tutorial-part-7-using-control-templates-to-customize-a-control-s-look-and-feel.aspx

Create or modify data templates.

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/pages/silverlight-tutorial-part-5-using-the-listbox-and-databinding-to-display-list-data.aspx

Manipulate visuals.

Skew Transformations: http://vbcity.com/blogs/canoz/archive/2010/04/25/beginning-silverlight-skewtransform.aspx
Rotate Transformations: http://vbcity.com/blogs/canoz/archive/2010/04/25/beginning-silverlight-rotatetransform.aspx
Scale Transformations: http://vbcity.com/blogs/canoz/archive/2010/05/02/beginning-silverlight-scaletransform.aspx
Translate Transformations: http://vbcity.com/blogs/canoz/archive/2010/05/02/beginning-silverlight-translatetransform.aspx
Perspective Transformations: http://vbcity.com/blogs/canoz/archive/2010/05/09/beginning-silverlight-planeprojection.aspx
Applying Pixel Shaders: http://www.andybeaulieu.com/Default.aspx?tabid=67&EntryID=145

Animate visuals.

http://www.silverlight.net/learn/videos/silverlight-videos/controlling-animations--storyboards/

Implement behaviors.

Trigger storyboard by using behaviors: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/expression/archive/2010/05/25/control-storyboards-easily-using-behaviors.aspx
Dragging and dropping elements: http://www.silverlight.net/content/samples/sl4/toolkitcontrolsamples/run/default.html

Manage the visual state.

http://www.silverlight.net/learn/videos/silverlight-videos/templates-and-vsm/

I’m currently studying for the Beta exam of Silverlight 4. So I thought, why not share what resources I’m using.

To start with one should be familiar with Silverlight of course, but refreshing some of the topics that haven’t be touched that often is always good. This is by far not the definitive learning guide for the exam, but it’s a start. If you know articles that should be in either one of the categories please let me know.

What Skills are being Measured?

You can start on the Microsoft Learning site first: Exam 70-506: TS: Silverlight 4, Development.

The are 7 main categories of topics that are measured (not sure what the last 1% is).

Laying Out a User Interface (15%)

Enhancing the User Interface (14%)

Implementing Application Logic (16%)

Working with Data (17%)

Interacting with a Host Platform (11%)

Structuring Applications (13%)

Deploying Applications (13%)

Implementing Application Logic

Handle events.

Handling routed events and bubbling events: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc189018(VS.95).aspx#routed_events
Implementing AddHandler: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms598899(v=VS.95).aspx

Consume services asynchronously.

Create Service Reference and handling asynchronous completed events: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/silverlight/4StepsSilverLight.aspx
Configure Service Endpoints http://wildermuth.com/2008/11/08/Controlling_Service_References_in_Silverlight_2
Handling service exceptions: http://www.netfxharmonics.com/2008/11/Understanding-WCF-Services-in-Silverlight-2#WCFSilverlightHandlingFaults

Work with background threads.

Spawning a background thread to execute code: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc221403(VS.95).aspx
Return data to the UI thread by using the dispatcher object: http://mark.mymonster.nl/2008/07/12/silverlight-threading-getting-back-to-the-ui-thread/
Implementing the dispatcher timer: http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/Tip-Asynchronous-Silverlight-Execute-on-the-UI-thread.aspx

Work with dependency properties.

Creating dependency properties, specifying dependency property metadata, getting and setting dependecy property values: http://www.kirupa.com/blend_silverlight/dependency_properties_pg1.htm
http://www.kirupa.com/blend_silverlight/dependency_properties_pg2.htm

Interact with attached properties.

Setting attached properties in XAML, getting and setting attached properties programmatically: http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/Attached-Properties-in-Silverlight.aspx

Implement ICommand.

Executing, Implementing, Binding and Passing a parameter to an ICommand: http://johnpapa.net/silverlight/5-simple-steps-to-commanding-in-silverlight/

I’m currently studying for the Beta exam of Silverlight 4. So I thought, why not share what resources I’m using.

To start with one should be familiar with Silverlight of course, but refreshing some of the topics that haven’t be touched that often is always good. This is by far not the definitive learning guide for the exam, but it’s a start. If you know articles that should be in either one of the categories please let me know.

What Skills are being Measured?

You can start on the Microsoft Learning site first: Exam 70-506: TS: Silverlight 4, Development.

The are 7 main categories of topics that are measured (not sure what the last 1% is).

Laying Out a User Interface (15%)

Enhancing the User Interface (14%)

Implementing Application Logic (16%)

Working with Data (17%)

Interacting with a Host Platform (11%)

Structuring Applications (13%)

Deploying Applications (13%)

Structuring Applications

Create and consume resource dictionaries.

Utilizing sample data: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff602279(VS.95).aspx
Select resources: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc903952(v=VS.95).aspx#referencing_resources_from_xaml
Merge resource dictionaries: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc903952(v=VS.95).aspx#merged_resource_dictionaries

Implement localization and globalization.

Translating strings: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd882554(v=VS.95).aspx
Configuring right-to-left and FlowDirection: http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2009/11/18/whats-new-in-silverlight-4-complete-guide-new-features.aspx#bidi-rtl http://www.silverlight.net/learn/videos/all/bidi-right-to-left/

Handle application-level events.

Application Exit Event: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.application.exit(VS.95).aspx
Application Startup Event: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.application.startup(VS.95).aspx
Application UnhandledException Event: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.application.unhandledexception(VS.95).aspx

I’m currently studying for the Beta exam of Silverlight 4. So I thought, why not share what resources I’m using.

To start with one should be familiar with Silverlight of course, but refreshing some of the topics that haven’t be touched that often is always good. This is by far not the definitive learning guide for the exam, but it’s a start. If you know articles that should be in either one of the categories please let me know.

What Skills are being Measured?

You can start on the Microsoft Learning site first: Exam 70-506: TS: Silverlight 4, Development.

The are 7 main categories of topics that are measured (not sure what the last 1% is).

Laying Out a User Interface (15%)

Enhancing the User Interface (14%)

Implementing Application Logic (16%)

Working with Data (17%)

Interacting with a Host Platform (11%)

Structuring Applications (13%)

Deploying Applications (13%)

Deploying Applications

Configure the Silverlight plug-in.

Initialization parameters: http://www.dotnetspider.com/resources/36465-How-use-InitParams-Silverlight.aspx
Configuring Windowless mode: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc838156(VS.95).aspx
Background color: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc838148(v=VS.95).aspx
Change size of plugin: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc838268(v=VS.95).aspx
Splash screen: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc838130(v=VS.95).aspx
Enable GPU Acceleration: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd833062(v=VS.95).aspx
Set the frame rate: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc838147(v=VS.95).aspx

Dynamically load application resources.

Downloading and extracting a zip file: http://pagebrooks.com/archive/2008/03/17/downloading-and-extracting-silverlight-resources-at-runtime.aspx
Enable Assembly Caching: http://www.wintellect.com/CS/blogs/jprosise/archive/2009/04/06/silverlight-3-s-new-assembly-caching.aspx

Create a client access policy.

http://www.devtoolshed.com/explanation-cross-domain-and-client-access-policy-files-silverlight
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/gduthie/archive/2009/04/28/gotchas-for-web-services-in-silverlight.aspx