Slide Show in Silverlight

When my friends come and ask me how to start with Silverlight, I always point them to http://silverlight.net/ But when they ask me to give them some kind of a task so that they can have hands on, then I always tell them to make a simple slide show. Slide show is a thing which is very easy and which can be made equally complex. I find that from the making of this simple show to its conversion to a complex carousel, we get to learn Silverlight and in turn gain confidence over it.


For a beginner it’s always good to start with some static images put in some layout element, when we explore further to see what will be the best container for a stack of images we in turn explore different layouts. Then to make things look better and to add a Silverlight touch to it, I tell them to add little animations on mouse over and out events. Then I tell them to add few buttons and control the slide show using them. By now they ask me how they can do the entire thing dynamically. Then a series of events and changes are done on the same old slide show and in the end a wonderful carousel is made. If you are a beginner in Silverlight then I would suggest you to start learning it by making a slide show. People have made thousands of slide shows but each has a different touch. Here is my version for you to start with.


In this I am locally maintaining an XML that has links to images of some cute dogs. I am reading this xml and then displaying them in the age old filmstrip fashion. To read the xml I have used Linq. The slide show is controlled by a pair of forward and backward buttons.

So, now when everything is all set, why don’t you Download Source Code and get started!