Metro Theme

[Douglas]

Hi,

I have seen reference to the Metro Theme for Silverlight 2011 Q2. I have downloaded the trial version, should I expect to see this theme in the Themes folder?

Rgds
Douglas Woods

[Kalin Milanov]

Hello Douglas,

The non-existent Metro Theme from the themes folder is something we missed inluding in our installation. This error is already noted and will be fixed for the next service pack.

I apologize if this is causing you any inconvenience.

Best wishes,
Kalin Milanov
the Telerik team

[Douglas]

Ok, When is the service pack coming and how will I know?

Will I be able to apply the service pack to the trial version??

Rgds
Douglas

[Milan]

Hi Douglas,

The service pack will be available in a month but we cannot provide you with a specific release date at the moment.  Once SP1 is out you will be able to download a trial version. 

Regards,
Milan
the Telerik team

[Ken]

Hi,

Is it possible to have the theme xaml files available for download in the meantime somewhere?

Thanks,
Adrian

[Milan]

Hi Adrian,

We are currently working on providing those files but we need a bit more time. Once the files are ready we will release them publicly.

Sorry for the inconvenience.


All the best,
Milan
the Telerik team

[Douglas]

Hi,

Any date for when this may be available? I have been developing a demo app and have promised that it will have the metro look :-). I am trying to make a case for developing our client apps in silverlight using telerik controls

Rgds
Douglas

[Vanya Pavlova]

Hi Douglas,

 

We are still preparing these projects related to Metro theme for both platforms WPF/Silverlight.
I believe that they will be available for the next SP. For the time being I may suggest you to use the approach demonstrated in the following blog post in case you have to modify the default look and feel of Telerik Metro Theme.


Once again please excuse us for any inconvenience caused. 

Regards,
Vanya Pavlova
the Telerik team

[Jeff Taynton]

Hi -

With regard to this - I am adding a custom to the SL Map and am using the Metro theme.  Is there anywhere I can get the Metro command button DataTemplate so I can make the custom addition look exactly the same as the default Metro command button?

Thanks

[Evgenia]

Hi Jeff,

As I understand your requirement is to make the Map CommandBar appear as it has Metro Theme set. 
The new functionality within the Metro theme uses a new approach that will make customization much easier. You'll have to wait till the next Service Pack (after less than a month) when the Metro theme will be shipped. Then you'll be able to customize your controls as you wish.

All the best,
Evgenia
the Telerik team

[Douglas]

Hi,

Can you give a date for the delivery of the Service Pack for Silverlight Q2. I am expected to give a demo of a "metro" style SL app (which makes extensive use of Telerik controls). If the service pack is not available in the next week I need to start making alternative plans.

Rgds
Douglas

[Vanya Pavlova]

Hello Douglas,

 

For the time being I may sugggest you to use the approach demonstrated in the following blog post "Metro Theme Customization Made Easy". You may change the main brushes used in this theme in a few lines of code and you do not have to modify the template of particular control based on Metro. We will do our best to ship the project for that theme in the upcoming Sevice Pack (in the middle of Sept). 

Best wishes,
Vanya Pavlova
the Telerik team

[Padman]

Any update on the release of the Silverlight upcoming service pack which was mentioned in the last post with an ETA of mid-Sept?

Thanks.

[Vlad]

Hi,

 The release will be early next week.

Regards,
Vlad
the Telerik team

[Padman]

Thanks. Looking forward to it.

[Peran]

Hi,

I have downloaded sp1 and opened the Themes solution.  All but 5 of the xaml files are missing for the Metro theme.

Regards

Peran

[Vanya Pavlova]

Hi Peran,

 


Thank you for reporting this issue! Indeed you are quite right - the mentioned files do not output correctly. 
You may find it in the following order as it was shown here. I have updated your Telerik points accordingly! 



Please excuse us for any inconvenience caused! 

All the best,
Vanya Pavlova
the Telerik team

[Peran]

Hi Vanya,

When I started to use the sp1 metro theme binary I noticed several differences from the previous version 0712.  On inspecting the theme templates, the font size is now being explicitly set to 12, this is overriding the font size of my user control which I had set to 15.  This produces inconsistent font size between Telerik and non-Telerik controls contained in the same user control.  Is this expected behavior, or should the Telerik controls use the font size of its visual parent.

I was able to explicitly set the font size on a TextBox & RadComboBox to 15, but when I tried to do this on a RadDateTimePicker the font size of the date remained at size 12.

I also noticed that the font family is being explicitly set to various versions of Segoe which is good thing as it is the correct font to use with Metro style, but *I don't think* Segoe is a standard silverlight font, so you can not guarantee that a user will have this font on their system.  Other examples I have downloaded from Telerik have included the Segoe font as a resource file and have referenced the resource file when setting the font family.


Regards

Peran

[Peran]

bump

[Pana]

Hi,

We where forced to use a font size of 12 among the controls because that's what the metro does - using texts to show information. And to emphatize on the text they got bigger.

But we can not set FontSize on the application root so we ended up putting hardcoded FontSize-es all around. The RadDateTimePicker you mention show its text in a RadWatermarkTextBox. The RadWatermarkTextBox has FontSize set in its theme style so it no longer inherits the FontSize from outside.

This applies to several inheritance properties such as FontSize, FontWeight and Foreground. You would have problems setting these globally. I am sorry for the inconvenience.

I am really sorry for the inconvenience.

Best wishes,
Pana
the Telerik team

[Peran]

Hi Pana,

Thanks for the explanation regarding FontSize.

Please could you elaborate on the use of Segoe FontFamily in the templates.

1) There are no fallback fonts listed in the FontFamily settings of the templates.  What would happen if the local machine e.g. a Mac running Silverlight did not include the Segoe font.

2) Would a workaround be for me to recompile the Metro Theme with the font as an embedded resource and change all the templates to point to this resource file.

I am not an expert in Silverlight themes/styles so any help is appreciated.


Regards

Peran
 

[Pana]

Hi Peran,

We could have embedded the font ourselves but we had some legal issues with the font so we decided to use the font without embedding it. I believe users that do not have the Segoe would just fallback to the default Silverlight font.

Recompiling the Metro theme would be an option but I am not sure the Metro theme solution we have distributed with the last service pack is suitable for that. Its Style files are placed in the bin folder which is obviously a problem since they should be in the themes folder. We are working on that now but we will be able to ship the theme project as early as the next ServicePack or Q3.

If I were you I would not bother embedding the font and just left the users that do not have the font experience the default Silverlight font. As for the font sizes I believe you could still get the Metro theme styles from the installation folder:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Telerik\RadControls for Silverlight Q2 2011\Themes\Metro\bin\Silverlight\4.0\Release\Themes\Metro\*.xaml

(note that the installation path may differ)

Add the styles in your projects for the controls that differ from your application the most and hardcode the FontSizes in the ControlTemplates.


Best wishes,
Pana
the Telerik team

[Peran]

Hi Pana,

Thanks for the advice.

Peran