Sometime we need to show a circular loader in WPF and/or Silverlight. We may need it in Windows Phone 7 too. In simple statement, we need to show a circular loader in various XAML applications like Silverlight, WP7 and WPF.

In this article, we will learn how to create a Circular Loader as shown in the screenshot. I will not use a single line of C# code to create this loader. Everything will be in the XAML file itself to keep the code behind file clean. Read to know more about it step-by-step and after reading this article, you will be able to create and use a circular loader like this. Source code is also available for download at the end of the page. Feel free to use it.

Input Scope of a TextBox defines the information related to the scope of the data provided by the input method and use to define the layout of the onscreen keyboard of the device. It is present in the "System.Windows.Input" namespace and exposed in TextBox as a property called "InputScope".

You might be wondering what is this property and why should one use it. Ok, let us discuss this in depth with a small sample. After reading this chapter, you will be able to understand it more and use it on your business requirement. Don't forget to share this tutorial links to others as this will help them to learn more.

On coming Saturday, 9th July 2011, I am going to take an hour session on "MVVM from Scratch using Silverlight" in the Pune User Group's (PUG) monthly meeting. The session will start from 10 AM and will continue for one hour. Also there are two more sessions on Windows Phone 7 and Parallel Programming.

In this one hour session, I will demonstrate what is MVVM pattern, how a designer/developer will get the benefit of using it. I will also demonstrate how this will help you to clear up the code behind file and make a fully loosely coupled & maintainable code. Read more to find the Agenda and Venue of the event. Entry is FREE, hence you can join it directly at the venue. Will meet you there.

Here comes the weekly digest of Silverlight-Zone.com from 26th June 2011 to 2nd July 2011. We have completed 6 months of this site with more than 2000 news items. We received some good feedback too including a huge hit to the site. This motivates us to serve you better in future.

In this post, I am going to share the top 5 posts of this week. Windows Phone 7 is trending in this site. Top 5 posts are "The news of distribution of WP7 Mango to developers by Microsoft", "Windows 8 Rumour to Future for WP7", "A Screen Recorder application in WP7", "Hosting HTML App in WP7 Mango" and "Betting the House on LightSwitch". Read to find out these links as well as the link to daily news digest of the week in case you missed to read them.

Microsoft released Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2 on 29th June 2011. Earlier it was named as Windows Phone Developer Tools. While releasing the beta 2 version of the Software, they renamed it to Windows Phone SDK 7.1.

Today I downloaded the SDK and installed it in my laptop. Sharing the same experience here just in case you want to read it. This will also help a beginner to kick start on the same.

Last three days we learnt about the new feature of Windows Phone 7 (Mango) called "Local Database Support". Yesterday we discussed it in depth by building a small demo application. While working with the demo you might noticed that, we used a connection string to connect with the local database present in the Windows Phone storage.

In this post, we will discuss more on the connection string. After reading this post, you will be able to know what are the various types and parameters available for connection string.

In the last two chapters of the tutorial series, we discussed about the local database support in Windows Phone 7 (Mango). We learnt how to create a DataContext class from existing SQL CE database and also we learnt about the issues that arises once we add the class file in the project to build. We learnt the steps to resolve those issues too.

In this article, we are going to discuss about the CRUD operations that we can do using the DataContext class with a small application. We will learn how to create and delete a database, we will also learn how to insert or fetch records. After reading this tutorial you will also be able to do other operations like edit, search etc.

Microsoft released Windows Phone 7.1 SDK Beta 2 today, 29th June 2011. It has a no. of new features as well as some breaking changes respect to previous Beta 1 release.

In this post, find the link to download the Beta 2 SDK of Windows Phone 7.1 (Mango) which includes both the web and standalone offline installer. Also find the links towards new and breaking changes.

Hope you read my previous post on Windows Phone 7.1 (Mango) local database support. If you didn't read the earlier post, you need to read it before reading this one. You can find it here: "Create DataContext". That will give you the basic context about the same.

In this post (I will rather calling it as a Tip), we will configure the project by adding the generated DataContext class and in the next post, we will learn what are the various CRUD operations we can do with a sample application. That will give you complete visibility to this new feature implementation.

Do you know that, Windows Phone 7.1 (Mango) now supports local database? Yes, you can now use local database inside your Phone 7 device and use it to CRUD operations. You can now create a DataContext class from an existing database and use it as the entry point class to do DB operation.

In this chapter we will learn how to create a DataContext class for local SQL CE database. At the end of this tutorial our data context class will be ready for further DB operations.

Last two days we learned about Accelerometer class, it's base class and the accelerometer tool that comes with the Phone emulator. Hope those posts gave you some basic idea about it.

Here in this post, we will learn the use of this feature with a small demo application. We will also learn how to use the phone to write application that depends on the gravitational force applied to the sensors. This will give you better idea to create game application that will work when the user moves his phone device.

Here comes the weekly news digest of Silverlight-Zone.com from 19th June 2011 to 25th June 2011. We have submitted 72 article links during the week on various topics like Silverlight, Windows Phone 7, LightSwitch, Expression Blend and even Windows 8.

During this week, top news was on Windows 8 Rumour to Windows Phone 7 future followed by several Windows Phone 7 related articles. In this post, I am going to share the top 5 posts as well as the links to daily news digest at Silverlight-Zone.com. Read to know more.

Yesterday, we came to know about Accelerometer of Windows Phone 7. We also learnt about the structure of the Accelerometer class and it's base class. Now, it's the time to see how to run the same inside the Phone emulator. In this post we are going to see the accelerometer tool that comes with the Phone 7 emulator.

Read more to know how to run the accelerometer tool and what customization we can do with this tool. This will be beneficial for you when we discuss more about the topic with a sample application.

Accelerometer defines the force applied to the Windows Phone 7 device which can be used to determine the measure of direction that has been applied by the user by moving the device. This values are represented as a 3D vector coordinates in X, Y and Z axis. Using the Accelerometer class present in the library, we can programmatically control the device's 3D acceleration.

In this article we will learn about the class that we will use to demonstrate the same feature. Read to learn more about it.

Last two days, we learnt about Alarm and Reminder class present for Windows Phone 7 application development. We came to know about the class structure and demoed the implementation with small application created in step-by-step process. We also learnt about the use of Task while discussing the same.

In this tutorial chapter we will learn more about the tasks present for Mango devices. After reading this part you will be able to understand the different tasks and their uses. Read more to learn about them with visual code snippet and huge screenshots.

Yesterday we discussed about the Alarm class and also demonstrated the use of it using a small demo app. Today in this post we will learn about Reminder class and will see the structure of the same. We will also demonstrate the implementation with a small demo.

Like Alarm class, Reminder class is also part of the "Microsoft.Phone.Scheduler" namespace and inherits the same base class. Let's read more about it and explore each and every step to create a simple Windows Phone 7 Reminder application.

Windows Phone 7.1 now supports scheduled tasks which runs even the application is not running. We can now schedule a task and when the bell hits, it starts executing the said task. In this chapter of the tutorial series, we will explore this using the Alarm class.

Alarm class creates an instance which runs in the background using the task agent and at the specified time, it will raise the event to execute. If your application is not running at that time too, it will execute and show the alarm screen. Read to know more about the class with a small demonstration.

In our last chapter of Windows Phone 7 Tutorial, we learnt about detecting network information using the static class called DeviceNetworkInformation. We also demonstrated it with a small demo application.

In this new chapter of the tutorial series, we will learn how to detect the device information using the APIs present inside the SDK. We will learn how to detect whether any Keyboard has been installed with the device, whether the device is running under battery or using any external power supply. We will also learn the way to detect about the memory of the device and other device information.

Read more to know about the class and it's properties with a small demonstration of the code.

During the week 12th June to 18th June, we posted 63 new article links at Silverlight-Zone.com which consists of Silverlight, Windows Phone 7, LightSwitch, XAML and Blend.

In this weekly news digest, I am going to share the popular 5 posts of the week and links to all the daily digest pages. Most popular posts are on "Google Maps for WP7 using Bing Map control", "HTML5 and Silverlight5 discussion", "Tips & Tricks on Office with Mobile 7", "HTML5 based WP7 Application" and "Release date for WP7 Mango devices".

Read more to find those interesting posts of this week and the digest links in case you missed them.

User can now detect the mobile operator and other network information's in Windows Phone 7.1 Mango devices programmatically. The new APIs to detect these information will help you to identify the mobile operator, availability of network, Wi-Fi access etc.

Let's jump into deep drive to know more about these APIs and the integration to your application using a small demo. Read to learn about it.