Silverlight 1.1 in Action - Blend

I would like to begin this post by SINCERELY thanking everyone that posted a comment on the last post. Your comments were sincerely helpful and provided valuable insights.

After reviewing all of the comments, I wanted to provide an update with the direction that I think (no guarantees) I am going to take in regards to incorporating Blend within my "Silverlight 1.1 in Action" book.

Today, I thought of a different approach which I think is a happy medium between the two options mentioned in the last post. I believe I am going to end each chapter in the first part of the book with a section called "Blending It All Together". This section will add value by:

• Giving readers the option of learning Blend as they progress through the book
• Keeping the focus of each chapter squarely on Silverlight
• Reiterating chapter contents in an interactive, optional fashion.

I'm going to play around with this to see how it works, but I'm pretty excited about it. It feels right.

Also, somebody asked, "when will the book be available?" As of right now, I have completed approximately 6 or 7 chapters. Because the book is targeting Silverlight 1.1 the availability of the book will be dependent upon the timeline of the Silverlight 1.1 release. The book is targeting Silverlight 1.1 because, this is the version that provides the powerful .NET Framework. At the moment Silverlight 1.1 is in an Alpha state so it is difficult to squarely answer the "when" question.

I want to make sure I am providing quality content that you can use. I plan on providing Chapter 1, for free, on this blog very shortly. I know this does not squarely answer the "when" question, however, if I were to give an estimate, I would say an electronic version will be available in October with a printed version being available around the February timeframe. Please bear in mind this is only an estimate.

Disclaimer: The items discussed regarding the Silverlight in Action book are merely thoughts and will not necessarily be in the final version of the book.

Silverlight 1.1 in Action - The Book

Hello!

I am currently working on a book that will target Silverlight 1.1, called "Silverlight 1.1 in Action" and I am seeking some feedback from the community. The first half of the book will address the UI elements of Silverlight, while the second half will discuss the .NET Framework provided with Silverlight 1.1.

Because the first half of the book is squarely focussed on UI components, I thought it would be nice to add some additional value to the book by explaining how to create the various UI components using Microsoft Expression Blend. The incorporation of Blend has caused some internal debate between me and myself. However, I feel that incorporating Blend is important because it may introduce readers to a new, productive tool, while at the same time, helping readers build a vocabularly that can help to communicate with designers more effectively. Essentially, for each UI element, I want to provide the following:

• An illustration that shows the UI element that is created
• The XAML that corresponds with the illustration
• A walkthrough of how to use Blend to create the UI element.

My debate is as follows:

Option 1 - Provide all three items (the illustration, the XAML, and the walkthrough) for each UI component. Here are the advantages/disadvantages I see with this approach:

• Advantages
  • Readers do not have to flip to the back of the book for Blend content.
  • Encourages the use of Blend while reading the text
• Disadvantages
  • Takes up a lot of space. This may cause the reader to skip pages to get back into the developer focussed content.

Here is a sample of creating a MediaElement to give you a feel for how this may look in the text if Option 1 is used.

Option 2 - Provide only the illustration and the XAML in the text. Then, reference a walkthrough which is provided in an appendix, instead of in the actual text. Here are the advantages/disadvantages I see with this approach:

• Advantages
  • Keeps the reader focussed on the developer related content.
• Disadvantages
  • Treats Blend as a second-rate citizen (it's not, it is especially helpful if you are creating animations)
  • Causes the reader to flip between the actual text and an appendix, this searching can be annoying.

Here is a sample of creating a MediaElement to give you a feel for how this may look in the text if Option 2 is used:


Personally, I am leaning towards Option 2, however, I wanted to seek some feedback before going too far down this path. I look forward to your comments and thank you for your help!