There have been many times I’ve needed a simple/generic loading control for Silverlight. After a few frustrating google searches resulting in nothing, I decided it was time to create my own. Normally I love creating controls, but, in my mind, a loading control is something that I don’t want to devote much time to. It’s usually a control that just says “Loading…” with the honest intent to come back and make something cool. As projects go, time is against our side and the Loading control gets the shaft.
So, below is the control and how it was created. If nothing else, this will be the starting point for you to run with. Enjoy!
This is what the control looks like in Expression Blend:
To download the XAML, click this link. (The XAML is too lengthy to paste in the post).
Finally, to make the animation run, you’ll need to modify the code behind to look similar to this code block:
Click the below image to see it working.
March 11th, 2009 at 7:40 am
Nice control, Corey. Do you intened to use this for a pre-loader or for some other loading notification? I’ve had a few pre-loaders, all of which I had to create myself, too, as there are few via google that I found. Perhaps it would be nice to add some of these to SilverlightContrib as a set of pre-loaders.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:26 am
[...] Generic XAML loading control (Corey Schuman) [...]
March 11th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Thanks John, this is intended for both a loading application indicator and for an ansyc data call. I would like to submit this and the loader from a previous post to Silverlight Contrib. Do you know who i should contact?
March 11th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Nice site with great info, but your use of embedded scrolling makes for a terrible user experience. What are you trying to achieve with internal and external scrollers? I found myself reloading the page to get back to the top when I could no longer find one of them.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Let me know what you find out Corey - I’d be happy to include the ones that were in my Silverlight Write and Win entry (http://designwithsilverlight.com/writeandwin/jan_09/) as well - they can be used as preloaders, indicators, etc.
April 7th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Corey, Jeff … you can contact Page Brooks of the Silverlight Contrib fame to add them to his community collection. If you needmore info, feel free to email me.