PasswordBox control
PasswordBox control is used to hide the characters a user is typing for privacy and security reasons. It is essential to use this control whenever you are receiving a password from a user.

Creating a Password in XAML
<PasswordBox Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="10,10,0,0" Name="PasswordBox1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="120" />
The Width and Height attributes of the PasswordBox element represent the width and the height of a Password. The Name attribute represents the name of the control, which is a unique identifier of a control. The default view of the PasswordBox control looks like this.


Creating a PasswordBox control at run time
PasswordBox pwd = new PasswordBox();    
pwd.Height = 30
pwd.Width = 200
pwd.MaxLength = 25
pwd.PasswordChar = "*"
LayoutRoot.Children.Add(pwd)

Properties - These are the following properties of the PasswordBox control.

• Width - The Width property of the Passwordbox control represent the width of a PasswordBox.
• Height -  The Height property of the Passwordbox control represent the width of a PasswordBox.
• MaxLength - The MaxLength property is used to get and set the maximum number of characters you can enter in a PasswordBox.
• Password property - The Password property is used to get and set the current password in a PasswordBox.
• PasswordChar - PasswordChar property is used to get and set the masking character for the PasswordBox. The default masking character is a dot(.).
• VerticalAlignment - VerticalAlignment is used to Gets or sets the vertical alignment characteristics applied to this element when it is composed within a parent element such as a panel or items control.
• HorizontalAlignment - HorizontalAlignment is used to Get or set the horizontal alignment characteristics applied to this element when it is composed within a parent element.
• Name - Name property is used to Get and set the identifying name of the element.

Using the property PasswordChar
The default masking character is a dot(.) but we can change masking character . to * or other char. For example we change property PasswordChar =* and then enter password in the box. It will looks like this.
Output looks like this.

Using MaxLength property
The maxLenth property Defines the maximum number of character that we enter in the PasswordBox control. For example - suppose we sets the MaxLenth property = 6 then it will take only 6 char after 6 char it will stop to take character automatically.
Output looks like this.

Using Background property
Set the background property to display the background color of the control. Output looks like this.

We can also select a background image in PasswordBox control.

<PasswordBox.Background>
<ImageBrush ImageSource="/SilverlightApplication34;component/Images/flowers-image.jpg" />
</PasswordBox.Background>

Using foreground property
Set the Foreground property to display the char color of the control.Output looks like this.

There are many other great articles and blog posts on how to create simple Silverlight Splash Screens. This article adds on top of them and helps you design a more complex splash screen with Story Boards and Floating Text Blocks. I am not a great designer and thus I am taking a design que from Telerik's Silverlight Demos splash screen. They have some amazing designers and their splash screen is an amazing example of that. If you have not already noticed it please visit http://demos.telerik.com/silverlight/ and have a look yourself. We will try to replicate the same behavior in our splash screen. Here is a step-by-step guide to do this.

1. Create your XAML
In order to add the splash screen you will first need to add a new Silverlight 1.0 JavaScript (we will refer to it as SLJS for the sake of writing simplicity) page on your server side code.

Since you cannot modify this file in Blend, I created a new Silverlight project and created a new Silverlight User control in it.
Once I had completed the design of this page in Blend, I copied the content to the Silverlight JS page on the server side.
I had to make a few modifications that are listed below.

• First delete the x:class namespace as that is not supported on a SLJS page
• Also delete the underlying code file (in my case it was SplashScreen.xaml.cs)
  
• I added a storyboard animation to float the text from left to right

<Grid.Resources>
  <Storyboardx:Name="sb1"RepeatBehavior="1x"Completed="onCompleted">
    <DoubleAnimationDuration="0:0:5"To="255"
    Storyboard.TargetProperty="X"Storyboard.TargetName="myTranslate"d:IsOptimized="True"/>
  </Storyboard>
</Grid.Resources>
 
Based on your design, the following content may change (I designed it to match the same as Telerik's splash page):
<Grid Background="#FFF4F4F4" RenderTransformOrigin="0.5,0.5"> <Grid.RowDefinitions> <RowDefinition Height="120"/> <RowDefinition Height="32"/> <RowDefinition Height="8"/> <RowDefinition Height="20"/>
 <RowDefinition Height="375*"/> </Grid.RowDefinitions> <TextBlock HorizontalAlignment="Left" TextWrapping="Wrap" Grid.Row="0" Text="Silverlight" VerticalAlignment="Top" Height="153" Width="806" FontSize="133.333"
Foreground="#FFEEEEEE" Grid.RowSpan="3"/> <!--<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Grid.Row="1" Margin="100,0,0,0" >
<Image Source="/Content/np_logo.PNG" Margin="0,0,5,0" Width="32" />
<TextBlock Text="Netpractise" FontSize="26.667" Foreground="Black"  FontFamily="Moire Light" x:Name="editing" FontWeight="ExtraBold" Height="32"/>
</StackPanel>--> <Image Source="/Content/np.PNG" Grid.Row="1" Margin="100,0,0,0" HorizontalAlignment="Left" /> <Rectangle Height="5" Fill="#FFA0DA0A" Width="200" HorizontalAlignment="Left"  Margin="100,0,0,0"
Grid.Row="2"/> <!--<TextBlock Text="digital communication innovation" Loaded="onTextBoxDigitalLoaded" Margin="100,0,0,0"  HorizontalAlignment="Left" FontFamily="Moire" FontSize="13.333" Height="16" Grid.Row="3"/>-->
<Image Source="/Content/baseline.PNG"  Margin="100,0,0,0" Width="300"  HorizontalAlignment="Left" Grid.Row="3"/> <!-- Progress bar--> <Rectangle Fill="#FF24A9F3" Height="5" HorizontalAlignment="Left" x:Name="uxProgress"
Grid.Row="2"/> <!--floating text boxes--> <TextBlock x:Name="textBlock" HorizontalAlignment="Left" TextWrapping="Wrap" Text="Be it Videos, Images, Flash or Audio we support all."
VerticalAlignment="Center" Grid.Row="4" Height="400"
Width="510" Foreground="#FF24A9F3" FontSize="48" FontFamily="Segoe WP Light" RenderTransformOrigin="0.5,0.5"
Loaded="onTextBoxLoaded" Margin="20,0,0,0"> <TextBlock.RenderTransform> <TransformGroup> <TranslateTransform x:Name="myTranslate"/> </TransformGroup> </TextBlock.RenderTransform> <!--The story board can be placed
within this to run from XAML or JS functions can be used.--> <!--<TextBlock.Triggers>
<EventTrigger RoutedEvent="TextBlock.Loaded">
<BeginStoryboard>
</BeginStoryboard>
</EventTrigger>               
</TextBlock.Triggers>--> </TextBlock> <TextBlock x:Name="txtProgressPercentage" Grid.Row="4" HorizontalAlignment="Right" Margin="0,-150,-170,0" VerticalAlignment="Center" TextWrapping="Wrap" Height="358" Width="651"
FontSize="300" Foreground="#FFE4E4E4"/> </Grid>

2. Code the logic in JavaScript file
When you add a new SLJS page in your application, it also creates an underlying .js file where you can write your code logic.
All I had to do was to create 3 functions in it ; they are:

onSourceDownloadProgressChanged
This is to update the progress bar and the big textblock that shows % update in numbers.
var i = 0;
function onSourceDownloadProgressChanged(sender, eventArgs)
{
sender.findName("txtProgressPercentage").Text = Math.round(Math.round((eventArgs.progress * 1000)) / 10, 1).toString();
//get browser width   var width = window.document.body.clientWidth;
sender.findName("uxProgress").Width = (width * eventArgs.progress);
}
 
onTextBoxLoaded
This is to trigger the first story board.
function onTextBoxLoaded(sender, eventArgs)
{
// Retrieve the Storyboard and begin it.     sender.findName("sb1").begin();
}

onCompleted
This is to change the Text of the floating Text box and start the Storyboard again with updated text.
function onCompleted(sender, eventArgs)
{
try{
i++;
sender.findName("myTranslate").X = 0;
switch (i) {
case 1:
sender.findName("textBlock").Text = "This is my first content";
break;
case 2:
sender.findName("textBlock").Text = "This is my second content";
break;
case 3:
sender.findName("textBlock").Text = "This is my third content.";
break;
case 4:
sender.findName("textBlock").Text = "This is my fourth content";
break;
case 5:
sender.findName("textBlock").Text = "This is my fifth content.";
break;
case 6:
sender.findName("textBlock").Text = "This is my sixth content";
i = 1;
break;
}
}catch(e){
}
sender.findName("sb1").begin();

I have 6 text block contents that show up on the screen one by one. You can have as many as you want and can also pull them from a collection if that's what you need.

3. Updating the Default.html or Default.aspx page
This is an important and the last step to hook the splash screen we created to our Silverlight application.
Just add a few parameters and a link to the JavaScript file just below the </head> tag.
<script type="text/javascript" src="splashscreen.js"></script>

The following new parameters go in <div id="silverlightControlHost">:
<param name="splashscreensource" value="SplashScreen.xaml" /> <param name="onSourceDownloadProgressChanged" value="onSourceDownloadProgressChanged" />

The first parameter just tells your app which splash screen to load at startup and the second one calls the js function that eventually updates the progress bar and % progress textblock with numbers.

Today while testing we encountered a strange scenario in our Silverlight Web App. We were getting a System Win 32 error when running the deployed application. unfortunately the error was not reproducible when running the app in debug (F5) mode.

Here is a snapshot of the exception message.

When starting a new instance of Visual Studio to debug this JIT issue all we got was that there was a Stack Overflow causing this issue. But that's all; no source code or stack trace to pinpoint the exact code that was causing the trouble.

How often do you get in a scenario where you can see a bug in deployed or published code but not in debug mode giving you no option to pinpoint the exact code causing the trouble? Believe me, it happens to me all the time.
 
I pop-in many Message Boxes in the methods that I feel could be erroneous & keep deleting them when I am sure that the method is not the one I am looking for.
 
Returnng to the issue today, I have a record in my Silverlight Grid, which when double-clicked should open a child window having the details & this part of the code was the culprit. Feels great to zero-in & find the guilty.
 
So the problem is in the child window looking forward tells me it's a TextBox that has the ValidatesOnDataErrors property set to true.

Here was how it was layed out on the screen:
<TextBox Text="{Binding ProfileName,ElementName=RadWinEditMenuProfile, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True,ValidatesOnDataErrors=True, TargetNullValue=''}"
 x:Name="txtBoxProfile" MaxLength="50" />
 
Notice the  ValidatesOnDataErrors=True property. So next step was to remove it & Voila! It worked. No error this time.  But wait, we have that property set for a reason. We want to force the TextBox to show an error on all data validation errors. Having that figured out I knew the next thing we need to look into was the code that was doing the data validation.

Here is the code used for it:
Public ReadOnly Property [Error] As String Implements System.ComponentModel.IDataErrorInfo.Error
    Get
        Return _Errors
    End Get
End Property

Default Public ReadOnly Property Item(propertyName As String) As String Implements System.ComponentModel.IDataErrorInfo.Item
    Get
        Select Case propertyName
            Case "ProfileName"
                If String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(ProfileName) = False Then
                    'ProfileName = ProfileName.Trim
                    If context.MenuProfiles.Any(Function(t) t.Id <> SelectedProfile.Id AndAlso t.ProfileName.ToLower.Trim = ProfileName.ToLower.Trim) Then
                        _Errors = _ErrorsText
                        Return "Profile Name is already in use."
                    ElseIf Regex.IsMatch(ProfileName.ToLower.Trim, CustomDeclaration.REG_NAME) = False Then
                        _Errors = _ErrorsText
                        Return CustomDeclaration.INVALID_NAME
                    End If
                End If
                Exit Select
        End Select
        Return Nothing
    End Get
End Property
Private _ProfileName As String
Public Property ProfileName() As String
    Get
        Return SelectedProfile.ProfileName
    End Get
    Set(ByVal value As String)
        _ProfileName = value
        SelectedProfile.ProfileName = value
        NotifyPropertyChanged("ProfileName")
    End Set
End Property

This is a standard implementation of IDataErrorInfo, so I will not get into the gory details of it and go directly to the code that was the issue.
Note that I have commented-out the line:
'ProfileName = ProfileName.Trim
 
This was the exact line of code causing the issue. I was trimming the property & then assigning it back, that in turn was calling the setter of the property & that in turn was calling the validation again.
 
Evidently, these two caused an infinite loop L L Not a good deal. This was the reason why we were getting the Stack Overflow error.  Commenting out that line & using trim wherever we were actually using the property.

For example:
Changed ProfileName.ToLower to ProfileName.ToLower.Trim fixed the issue once & for all. Nice & Cool.
 
So the next time you hit a stack overflow in your published code try to pin point the code & check if you are not implementing IDataErrorInfo or any other 2 properties that are dependent on each other like I was implementing it.

This article explains how to add Silverlight into a web page using HTML. Use the following procedure to do this.

• Create a Silverlight application
• Add some TextBox and button to the XAML file
• Write the logic on the click event of the button in the .cs file
• Add a HTML page and add some tags to access the Silverlight generated .xap file
  

  

Step 1: Create a new project of Silverlight application named "SilverlightExample".

Uncheck the checkbox to not create a web project for hosting the Silverlight.

Step 2: In the default page named "MainPage.xaml", add 2 Textboxes for getting the input named "txtvalue1" and "txtvalue2" with blank text by default ( text=””) and add a button named "btnAdd" with content "Add". Then create onClick event of the button.
<TextBox Name="txtValue1" Text="" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Height="23" Margin="130,34,0,0" TextWrapping="Wrap"  VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="120"/>
<TextBox Name="txtValue2" Text="" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Height="23" Margin="130,85,0,0" TextWrapping="Wrap"  VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="120"/>
<Button  Name="btnAdd" Content="Add" Click="btnAdd_Click" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="150,154,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="75" />

Step 3: Write the code in the section of the onclick event of the button in "MainPage.xaml.cs" that will add the values of the textboxes and show the addition via alert message.
int value1 = Convert.ToInt32(txtValue1.Text);
int value2 = Convert.ToInt32(txtValue2.Text);
int result = value1 + value2;
MessageBox.Show(result.ToString());

Step 4: Now add a HTML Page named "MYPage.html" into the application.

Add an <object> tag to the HTML page with data, type, width and height attributes and <param> element with name and value attributes.
<object data="data:application/x-silverlight-2," type="application/x-silverlight-2"
     width="500" height="500">
    <param name="source" value="Bin/Debug/SilverlightExample.xap" />
</object>

• data attribute and its value are recommended to avoid performance issues on some browsers.
• type attribute and the specific value shown are also required. This value uses the Silverlight MIME type to identify the plug-in and the required version.
• width and height attributes are required for cross-browser compatibility.
• the <param> element named source is required and indicates the location and name of your application file.

Note: .xap exists in the bin/Debug folder, that's why value="Bin/Debug/SilverlightExample.xap".

Open the HTML file using a browser.

Open the html file via browser
Enter the 2 integer values into the textboxes respectively and press the button to see the ouput.

You can also create the .html file anywhere in your system and put the Silverlight generated .xap file with in the same folder, but in this case you need to write the value="SilverlightExample.xap" because now the .xap and .html files are in the same folder or location.

Update Data Using Silverlight RIA Enabled ServiceToday, in this article let's play around with one of the interesting and most useful concepts in Silverlight.

Question: What is update data using Silverlight RIA enabled service?
In simple terms "This application enables to update the data in the database with help of Silverlight RIA enabled service. It uses base platform of entity framework to communicate with database".

Step 1: Create a database named "Company" with employee table in it.

Step 2: Open up Visual Studio and create a new Silverlight application enabled with RIA Services
Step 3: When the project is created. Right-click on RIA Service project and add new entity data model framework and set it up for previously created database.
Step 4: Again right click on RIA service project and add Domain Service Class as new item.
Step 5: Complete code of EmployeeDomain.cs looks like this (Domain Service Class)
namespace SilverlightRIAInsert.Web
{
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
using System.Data;
using System.Linq;
using System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.EntityFramework;
using System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Hosting;
using System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Server;
// Implements application logic using the CompanyEntities context.
// TODO: Add your application logic to these methods or in additional methods.
// TODO: Wire up authentication (Windows/ASP.NET Forms) and uncomment the following to disable anonymous access
// Also consider adding roles to restrict access as appropriate.
// [RequiresAuthentication][EnableClientAccess()]
public class EmployeeDomain : LinqToEntitiesDomainService<CompanyEntities>
{
    // TODO:// Consider constraining the results of your query method.  If you need additional input you can
    // add parameters to this method or create additional query methods with different names.
    // To support paging you will need to add ordering to the 'Employee'
    query.public IQueryable<Employee> GetEmployee()
    {
        return this.ObjectContext.Employee;
    }
    public void InsertEmployee(Employee employee)
    {
        if ((employee.EntityState != EntityState.Detached))
        {
            this.ObjectContext.ObjectStateManager.ChangeObjectState(employee, EntityState.Added);
        }
        else{this.ObjectContext.Employee.AddObject(employee);
        }
    }
    public void UpdateEmployee(Employee currentEmployee)
    {
        this.ObjectContext.Employee.AttachAsModified(currentEmployee, this.ChangeSet.GetOriginal(currentEmployee));
    }
    public void DeleteEmployee(Employee employee)
    {
        if ((employee.EntityState != EntityState.Detached))
        {
            this.ObjectContext.ObjectStateManager.ChangeObjectState(employee, EntityState.Deleted);
        }
        else{this.ObjectContext.Employee.Attach(employee);
           this.ObjectContext.Employee.DeleteObject(employee);
        }
    }
}
}

Step 6: Now rebuild the solution file.
Step 7: The complete code of MainPage.xaml looks like this:
<usercontrolx:class="SilverlightRIAInsert.MainPage"xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"mc:ignorable="d"
d:designheight="300"d:designwidth="543">
<Gridx:Name="LayoutRoot"Width="608">
<TextBlockHeight="23"HorizontalAlignment="Left"Margin="152,29,0,0"Name="textBlock1"Text="Id"FontFamily="Verdana"FontSize="15"VerticalAlignment="Top"/>
<TextBoxHeight="23"HorizontalAlignment="Left"Margin="252,25,0,0"Name="textBox1"VerticalAlignment="Top"Width="120"/>
<TextBlockHeight="23"HorizontalAlignment="Left"Margin="150,72,0,0"Name="textBlock2"Text="FirstName"FontFamily="Verdana"FontSize="15"VerticalAlignment="Top"/>
<TextBoxHeight="23"HorizontalAlignment="Left"Margin="252,68,0,0"Name="textBox2"VerticalAlignment="Top"Width="120"/>
<TextBlockHeight="23"HorizontalAlignment="Left"Margin="150,113,0,0"Name="textBlock3"Text="LastName"FontFamily="Verdana"FontSize="15"VerticalAlignment="Top"/>
<TextBoxHeight="23"HorizontalAlignment="Left"Margin="252,113,0,0"Name="textBox3"VerticalAlignment="Top"Width="120"/>
<ButtonContent="Update"FontFamily="Verdana"FontSize="19"Background="DeepSkyBlue"Height="44"HorizontalAlignment="Left"Margin="252,206,0,0"Name="button1"VerticalAlignment="Top"Width="120"Click="button1_Click"/>
<TextBoxHeight="23"HorizontalAlignment="Left"Margin="252,155,0,0"Name="textBox4"VerticalAlignment="Top"Width="120"/>
<TextBlockHeight="23"HorizontalAlignment="Left"Margin="152,155,0,0"Name="textBlock4"Text="Age"FontFamily="Verdana"FontSize="16"VerticalAlignment="Top"/>
</Grid>"
</usercontrol>

Step 8: The complete code of MainPage.xaml.cs looks like this:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Client;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Documents;
using System.Windows.Input;
using System.Windows.Media;
using System.Windows.Media.Animation;
using System.Windows.Shapes;
using SilverlightRIAUpdate.Web;
namespace SilverlightRIAUpdate
{
public partial class MainPage : UserControl
{
    public MainPage()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }
    EmployeeDomain objDomain = new EmployeeDomain();
    private void button1_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        EntityQuery<Employee> query = objDomain.GetEmployeeQuery();
        objDomain.Load(query, UpdateLoad, null);
        MessageBox.Show("Data Updated Successfully");
    }
    public void UpdateLoad(LoadOperation<Employee> emp)
    {
        foreach (Employee e in objDomain.Employees)
        {
            if (e.Id == int.Parse(textBox1.Text))
           {
                e.FirstName = textBox2.Text;
                e.LastName = textBox3.Text;
                e.Age = int.Parse(textBox4.Text);
                objDomain.SubmitChanges();
                break;
            }
        }
    }
}
}