With the release of Silverlight 2, a new set of standard controls have been introduced. Kathy Kam has built a nice sample that shows off these controls. Below are a few key points that I took away from watching Scott Guthrie's Silverlight Keynote:
- Controls are open source
- Unit tests for controls included
- Unit test framework for testing UI and non-UI functionality included
- More controls from Microsoft on the way
- DataGrid and DatePicker controls included
- Control layouts can be changed using Templates
- Control look can be changed using Skins
- Split-View for XAML editing / live preview in VS (Cool!)
- Deep Zoom is awesome!
My First Impressions:
- Out of the box controls are aesthetically lacking. I guess I can't complain because the controls can be altered with skins and templates.
- Controls have tab support, this is great for applications that are heavy on the keyboard.
- Textbox keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-P, and Ctrl-Z work. Ctrl-A doesn't appear to work (yet).
- Textbox doesn't appear to have a password entry mode.
- No Combo Box (yet).
- Out of the box, the anti-aliased text is terrible. I'm sure this can be adjusted though.
In the next few days, I'll take a closer look at each of these controls. Later!