I’ve been thinking a lot lately on how different types of layout controls can be used make the tools and the framework do the heavy lifting for us in our Silverlight Development. Karl Shifflett recently posted an example creating a custom WPF control to make it easier to layout a data input screen and I decided to build out a Silverlight version.

The control extends an ItemsControl to use a custom container that provides a text label and layout for input controls.

The result is a custom control that allows me to add input controls such as TextBoxes and CheckBoxes and get labels and much of the styling for free. Silverlight’s DataBinding capabilities allow me to set a DataContext for the FormControl, and then simply specify an individual binding for each field.

<TextBox Zelt:FormItem.LabelContent="First Name" Text="{Binding FirstName}" Width="250"/>
<TextBox Zelt:FormItem.LabelContent="Last Name" Text="{Binding LastName}" Width="250"/>

Utilizing this type of markup allows for a lot of potential in tool support. I’m sure that Karl plans to support this type of content in his XAML Power Toys add-in.

I’ve got a few additions before I share out the code, but I’d welcome any feedback on this approach.

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In early December Montreal is hosting an exciting developer conference covering a wide range of topics from some of our industry's leading presenters. The 3 day conference is packed with information in 136 sessions. Pre and Post conference sessions are also available to increase your learning potential at the event. Attendees will also receive over $1000 in free software!

The fun starts Tuesday December 2nd with a key by Ted Neward. See you there!!!

http://www.devteach.com

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Did you miss PDC? Want to see some of the latest content relating to Cloud Computing, Silverlight 2, and the future directions of ASP.NET 4? Links are below for your FREE invite!

Introducing the MSDN Southern Fried Roadshow:

The MSDN Southern Fried Roadshow is a  ¾ day, free developer event with a southern flair where you will learn about some of the latest developments in Microsoft technologies. For this edition we will cover a broad range of the latest Microsoft Technologies:

· Take a tour of Microsoft’s cloud computing platform and the services that make it easy to give your applications the most compelling experiences and features.  Explore the journey a developer takes, from writing a service to launching that service in the cloud. Learn about the cloud services that enable developers to easily create or extend their applications and services.

· Microsoft Silverlight provides a powerful platform for building the next generation of rich interactive applications on the Internet. In this session, we take a look at the programming model and tools that developers and designers can leverage to build these true next-generation experiences for consumers and business, and demonstrate building a rich interactive application (RIA) using Silverlight and Microsoft .NET.

· ASP.NET is evolving a very rapid pace, come explore all the latest features of ASP.Net such as Dynamic Data, MVC, and even take a sneak peak at the upcoming features in ASP.NET 4.0!  We’ll look at some new features such as taking control of your Control IDs, using the DynamicImage control, and ViewState management options.   We’ll spend plenty of time talking about MVC and creating applications based on this framework, so if you’re wondering how to leverage MVC in your web applications, this talk is for you!

12/2/2008 -- Charleston

12/3/2008 – Wilmington

12/4/2008 - Raleigh

12/5/2008 - Charlotte

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