There is a new starter kit available out on CodePlex called BlogEngine.NET that has some very nice features to it. Its a lightweight blog application written in ASP.NET that has most of the usual features you would expect from a blog. The source code is a nice reference implementation of an ASP.NET app that uses themes, etc., for rendering. There are some good examples of http handlers and http modules in the code (such as a compressor) that are worth taking a look at.
I’ve been using WordPress to write this blog and I’ve been happy with it. It is also open source, written in php, and has the advantage of being a much more mature project.
Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible. — MC Escher
Absurd and impossible … why are all my ideas seeming that way lately? ;) –Andy
I’ve been playing around with formatting XAML for Silverlight on the server side and I decided to mash-up some XML from an Amazon web service and get it to display a list of books. Here’s a sample page …
I ran into a few limitations but overall it went pretty well. The plugin doesn’t display .gif’s yet (only .jpgs and .pngs) which is a big disappointment because at least half of the book images coming from Amazon are .gifs. Surely that will be addressed in the final release, whatever the issue is … licensing possibly? I also found that formatting the TextBlocks had to be done very manually, no style sheets or anything so the font changes had to be repeated for each row. If you would like to see the source code, use FireFox, FireBug, hit the Net tab and find the sp1.xaml file.
This is some cool stuff, I need to do some animation with it in my next sample.
ComponentOne is now showing off demos of it’s upcoming Sapphire Silverlight controls. After installing the plugin, click on the Show Me Sapphire button on the carrousel. The control gallery includes Flashy versions of buttons and listboxes and docking panels. These are still alpha versions of the controls (a few things don’t work yet, like the Tab key) but you can really start to see where we are headed with it now. I’m tempted to write some of my own similar controls here but it looks like in 6 months or so all of the basics should be available. Lots of people seem to be working on libraries.
I’ve been playing around with creating some XAML snippets and I needed a place to post my code so I created this little framework page to display them … ./silverlight/samples
I’d like to create a little XAML Sample Manger in ASP.NET … if only I can find the time!!! 