Silverlight Controls and the Visual State Manager

If you’re interested in writing custom controls for Silverlight but need a step-by-step tutorial to get you started, check out my latest column in MSDN Magazine: Craft Custom Controls for Silverlight 2. I had a load of fun writing this one and wrote it because there is so precious little information out there about Silverlight custom controls. The model is pretty simple once you get your arms around it, but as I said in the article, it can seem pretty confusing if you’ve never built controls for Silverlight or WPF before.

My explanation of Silverlight’s Visual State Manager (VSM) in the article was somewhat light because 1) magazine space is limited, and 2) I had to scramble at the last minute to add VSM converage. The article had already been edited and was about to go to print when I learned about the VSM. We considered just leaving the article as-is (as-was?) and putting a big “Beta 1” warning label on the first page. But I couldn’t sleep at night knowing the article would be obsolete before it was printed. So, with the support of my editors at MSDN Magazine, I stretched the deadline and did some 11th-hour rewriting. Now that the article is live, I’m really glad I did.

If you’d like to learn more about the VSM, let me suggest an EXCELLENT 4-part tutorial by Silverlight UX guru Karen Corby entitled Parts & States Model with VisualStateManager. Karen’s prose is sweet as honey. I wish I could write like Karen!