Two Ways to Create High-Quality Glassy Controls in XAML

Sep 12, 2009

 However, there is one design trick that I'd love to master to give my applications that killer look -- the ability to give a control, be that a logo, a menu bar, or whatever, the ultra-glossy appearance, and especially the appearance that I've seen in these water ripples applications of the control having a shiny layer of water on them..  I don't necessarily need to achieve the ripple effect, but I'd love to know how to achieve the water layer appearance.

 

After receiving this in my e-mail box few days ago, I dug out two really amazing tutorials:

 

Blend Candy: Another Blue Glowing Glass Button in the style of Web 2.0

by LiquidBoy

 

Creating a Glass Button: The Complete Tutorial

by Martin Grayson

After clicking the above link, remember to check attachment CreatingTheGlassButton.zip that contains the actual complete tutorial on how to achieve the effect step-by-step in Blend.

This is the image from Martin's blog, just to get you hooked up! 

 

  

  

The Cool Windows 7 Selection in XAML

Aug 26, 2009

Here's the XAML to make a selection rectangle similar to the one in Win7:

        <Grid Height="22" Width="300" > 
            <Rectangle Stroke="#FF7DA2CE" RadiusX="2" RadiusY="2">
                <Rectangle.Fill>
                    <LinearGradientBrush EndPoint="0.5,1" StartPoint="0.5,0">
                        <GradientStop Color="#FFDCEBFC" Offset="0" />
                        <GradientStop Color="#FFC1DBFC" Offset="1" />
                    </LinearGradientBrush>
                </Rectangle.Fill>
            </Rectangle>
            <Rectangle Margin="1" Stroke="#FFEBF4FD" RadiusX="2" RadiusY="2" Fill="{x:Null}">
            </Rectangle>
        </Grid>

 

      

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