A Question to you the reader…Need your feedback here to decide if I should do a Tutorial

Hello Loyal Readers!

I started doing this all in Blend with no code-behind to show/hide panels in Silverlight but I used two identical Buttons, one to show the panel and one to hide it and made them either Visible or Collapsed depending on what state the panel was currently in.

My Good friend Todd Knudsen (Twitter: DataArtist) asked me if I could do it with just one Button.

I tried by turning the StoryBoards into Visual States, creating a DataStore and using Conditions. But as soon as I used the ChangeDataStoreValue Behavior (for a bool property named IsPanelShowing) it seemed to step on the toes of my conditionals and thus making it not work all together.

So my idea was to make a code-behind (C#) property whereby I kept the state of the panel in a Boolean and ran the correct StoryBoard based upon that. It worked perfectly!

A reader left a comment and said “why not just use a ToggoleButton”? Great idea! Why didn’t I think of it?!

So I think that will be my next tutorial maybe “How to use ONE Button and slide a panel in or out depending on its current state using the Visual State Manager, a DataStore, a Conditional and a ToggleButtton All in Blend!”

Sound like a good tutorial or are all of you done with sliding panels?

Let me know in the comments and your feedback will determine if I do the tutorial or not.

Thanks, Victor Gaudioso

PS: When you give your opinion please try and suggest a tutorial that has been giving your grief…I may just take it on and even mention you as the tutorial idea contributor. T

hank You All! Victor Gaudioso

AND, you can find my 70+ Silverlight/WPF/Windows Phone 7 step by step Video Tutorials here:http://wp.me/pWN5M-bu

Victor

7 Comments for this entry

• 
  

  teoman
  February 10th, 2012 on 1:46 pm
  

  Hello Victor,

  I could not watch all your tutorials, but the videos I watched was very very helpful and clear.
  Thanks for all that.

  If we come back your question, it would be great to see of all combinations of visual state manager, DataStore, togglebuttton in one tutorial.

  Thanks for your perfect help, keep going!
• 
  

  Victor
  February 11th, 2012 on 12:24 am
  

  I think that is a splendid idea and I will do just that Teoman!
  Victor
• 
  

  Victor
  February 12th, 2012 on 12:51 am
  

  Teoman, great idea and I did just that for you (and all other readers) This video shows how to make a Sliding Panel using a SINGLE ToggleButton with NO Code-Behind and ALL in Blend. Enjoy and remember to keep giving me ideas for new Video Tutorials (that goes for ALL Readers!) URL to new Post: http://wp.me/pWN5M-fy
• 
  

  Victor
  February 12th, 2012 on 2:51 am
  

  By the way, I happen to use Storyboards because in my opinion they give you more control. And then I used a ControlStoryboard Behavior but I just as easily could have used Visual States and a ControlVisualState Behavior. As for the DataStore, it is not needed as the ToggleButton, I fire one Storyboard on the Checked State of the ToggleButton and another Storyboard on the Unchecked State. So, a DataStore with Conditions are not needed. Make sense?
  Victor
• 
  

  DEBAL
  February 18th, 2012 on 6:32 am
  

  Hi Victor

  I need a video tutorial on Silver light Tree View Control . My requirement is very simple . I want to totally do this work in Expression Blend 4 (no code).

  Create a new project in blend and drag and drop a treeview control in MainPage.xamldesign page .

  Now I need a style for treeview , so that the connecting lines should be see all tree nodes, I have sent a mail to you in details at wpfauthor@gmail.com

  pl reply me , PL
• 
  

  Victor
  February 18th, 2012 on 6:35 am
  

  email me with more details at wpfauthor at gmail dot com. Victor
• 
  

  DEBAL
  March 1st, 2012 on 1:33 pm
  

  Thanks a lots
  for your reply , I have sent a mail at wpfauthor@gmail.com, pl reply me . I just want to see connecting lines between tree node using blend4. pl help me Sir

originally posted http://www.windowspresentationfoundation.com/?p=960#comments