Chapter 19. A little UI work: user controls and Blend
This chapter covers
- Creating a shape in Blend
- Creating and using a UserControl
- Creating dependency properties
- Setting view states
In the previous chapter, we created a chat app with the understanding that it would be more game-like in subsequent chapters. The focus was on sockets networking in that chapter, so it made sense not to include graphics and other game functionality. But our app has a giant unused area to the right that’s just begging for us to fill it with something cool.
In this chapter, we’ll flesh out the game a bit more. Maybe “amusement” is a better term, because this game has no actual gameplay, just movement of elements onscreen in a multiplayer context. (Of course, that makes it better than half the games I downloaded to my older Kindle Fire.)
Figure 19.1 shows the app as it will appear at the end of this chapter, complete with three copies of the little Asteroids-inspired ship.
