By Oleg Zhukov on 10/3/2008 8:33 PM

Icon editing capabilities embedded in Visual Studio 2008 are rather limited. Particularly when it comes to creating 32-bit XP or large (256x256) Vista-style icons. Of course, there is a variety of commercial icon-editing tools available, but they all include an excessive number of sophisticated features which a layman like me would never need. Instead, I was searching for a simple tool which would allow me assembling my existing graphics into 32-bit XP and Vista-styled icons for a fair price. And I found it: Axialis IconWorkshop™ Lite comes as a free plugin to VS2008 and offers basic icon creation capabilities which are, nevertheless, sufficient for common tasks.

By Oleg Zhukov on 9/7/2008 4:31 AM

Attractive and professionally-looking graphics, primarily comprised by icons for buttons and toolbars, is a crucial part of every application

... Read More »

By Oleg Zhukov on 7/11/2008 1:51 AM

In WinForms controls' overlapping (z-order, in other words) is adjusted easily by calling Control.BringToFront() and Control.SendToBack() methods. In Silverlight 2.0 the way to change z-order is not as straightforward although quite simple too.

First of all the default overlapping is controlled by the order in which controls appear in XAML: each subsequent element is placed on the top of the previous ones, like in the example below:

 

For changing the z-order in the XAML markup the Canvas.ZIndex attached property should be applied to elements. Higher property values place the control on the top of others: 

The same effect can be achieved through the C# code by using Canvas.S ... Read More »

By Oleg Zhukov on 12/20/2006 5:39 AM

My new article is about creating Multi-valued cells with Developer Express grid. See it here.