Gaudioso V. - Foundation Expression Blend 3 with Silverlight [2009, PDF, ENG]

Foundation Blend 3 with Silverlight – Updates
Two very astute and awesome readers found a bunch of errors in my latest book that were more often than not due to newer releases of Blend 3. Further, they wrote down each issue and how they were able to overcome it. Below is the list they compiled. Thanks Guys!
Victor Gaudioso
Chapter 2:

Page 47- Problem: You state that after completing the tutorial the reader should press F6 to return to the design workspace and then F5 to run the application, however, this failed to work.

Solution: We found that we needed to add “StoryBoard1.Begin();” in cs code behind in order to get the program to actually compile and run.

Chapter 3:

Page 67 – Inconsistency: Under task 15 you state that the reader should see a message box with the two fruits but not their actual colors. That step was to be implemented next. The image file you place below task 15, however, shows the color (the actual completed program) as compared to the actual message box they should recieve.

Solution: Obviously the book has been published! So maybe just a note.
Chapter 5:

Page 98- Mistype: Task 2 says “In the InitializeComponent method….”

Solution: We believe this should be “Under the initializeComponent method…” minor issue but we are telling you everything!

Page 98- Mistype:Task 3 you ask the reader to begin by typing “the name of the Rectangle (MyRectangle). Then type += and press the tab key twice…”

Solution: Although in the sample code you correctly input the code, we felt that this should instead state “the name of the Rectangle (MyRectangle) then period and MouseEnter. Then type += and press the tab key twice..”

Page 103- Confusion/Update?: Task 1 you ask the reader to “right click the project and click Add>class.” our intitial response was to add the class to the StoryBoardProject.site since the image below the task seems to imply this is the correct action.

Solution: Instead we felt this should read “right-click the Silverlight project and click Add>class” This reduces confusion.

Chapter 6:

Page 113- Update:Task 6 Figure 6-3 states to make certain the New Project Dialog box is the same, obviously Blend 3 has been updated with a new interface for the new projects so this image is out of date. (As a note, some of the keyboard shortcuts have been changed as well, such as pressing F7 to switch to the Animation workspace in Blend3)

Page 116 – Mistype: Task 1- you ask the reader to taype the name of the rectangle(MyButton)…obviously this should be (MyRectangle)…

Solution: we changed the name

Page 117- Inconsistency: your code correctly implements your actions, however, the Loaded+= new RoutedEventHandler(Page_Loaded); was never mentioned and is not placed in bold when printed…

Solution: we added it.

Page 122- Update/Inconsistency: Task 24 you group the 3d button you create (Very cool by the way) into a canvas, however we found that this caused problems for our program and prevented it from running correctly.

Solution:We ended up having to switch this to a grid in order to make it function properly… Im not sure if this is an error on your part, or just a new update that made the tutorial not work… either case its worth looking into…

Page 124- Lack of Information: Task 28 you instruct the reader to configure the ContentPresenter of the button, however you don’t go into how to make the text on the button Center correctly, which took some trial and error on our part… Minor but we thought worth mentioning.

Page 128- Mistype: you copy in a bunch of code for the reader to copy, however, you forgot to open the Ellipse.Fill 3 lines down… it reads Ellipse.Fill>
<RadialGradientBrush GradientOrigin=…….>

Page 138- Mistype: task 1 you ask the reader to select the background and copy it, this however fails to provide the result you are looking for.

Solution: we believe that you meant to ask them to select the backplate instead…

Page 140- Mistype: Task 5 you have some typos… 3 lines down you say that when the mouse enters the player the animations should disappear instead of appear… this train of thought continues incorrectly. Essentially the actions are backwards…

Chapter 7:

Although this is not an error, On page 169 we were a bit confused about the DependencyProperty you were having us create and we thought a small paragraph explaining what one was would be nice… obviously not something neccesary for this book but maybe for your next it could be an addition…

Page 175- Mistype: the “private UIElement draggedElement;” should be “private UIElement _draggedElement;”
this error appears again on page 177 4 lines down into your code…

Chapter 9:

Page 201- Mistype: Task 1 you state that the reader should type click then += and tab twice… this should read “type MyButton.Click+= then tab twice”

Chapter 10:

Mistype: Despite telling the reader to name his methods “ShowModeOfTransportation” and “ShowNumberOfSeats” for the rest of your code you don’t actually include the Show prefix… This remains true for your entire chapter.

Chapter 13:

Page 299- Update/Mistype: Task 4 you say to open the application Flow panel… We believe this has been renamed to SketchFlow Map and instead of Start being the default page it is now Screen1…

Page 303- Mistype: Task 18… WigglyStyles no longer exists… I think its been changed to sketchButtons and such…

page 304- Update/Mistype: task 21 you ask the reader to select “Make into Composition Screen” this should read “make into Component Screen”

Chapter 14

Page 321- Update: Task 5 you ask the reader to delete MainControl.xaml… this has been renamed to MainPage.xaml… This is pretty common mistype though… Like in VS the Page.xaml is now MainPage.xaml… I dont know that this is much of a concern…

Page 327- Inconsistency/Mistype:Task 34… This code is all messed up.. I would definately take another look! You don’t do anything under InitializeComponent yet you have a routedEvent… We just ignored the entire thing…