I developed MuvUnder Cover: The Album Art Sleuth, a WPF application, and with the latest nVidia drivers it displays erratic rendering of the interface. Graphical elements are missing, are half showing, when you mouseover them they appear and then randomly disappear, etc.

I have tested this on a Geforce 7800 GTX and GeForce 7300 LE with the following driver versions:

8.15.11.9038 – tested and broken
8.15.11.8618 – tested and broken
8.15.11.8585 – tested and broken (this was the first of the GeForce/ION drivers)

I tracked it down to the following cause, with a solution:

I had the following DropShadowEffect set on a lot of controls:

<DropShadowEffect x:Key=”DropShadowEffectDefault”
ShadowDepth=”4″
Opacity=”0.75″
BlurRadius=”5″ />

All of the controls that had that set where the ones that were showing the erratic missing, showing on mouseover, half rendered issue.

I then switched back to the following software rendered dropshadow:

<DropShadowBitmapEffect x:Key=”DropShadowBitmapEffectDefault”
ShadowDepth=”4″
Softness=”0.4″
Opacity=”0.75″
Noise=”0.01″/> <!– Setting Noise forces it so it isn’t automatically changed to DropShadowEffect (nVidia bug with DropShadowEffect)–>

and everything rendered correctly.

You can follow the Microsoft Connect bug I reported to see if/when there is a fix and which side of the fence (nVidia or Microsoft) it comes from at: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=478676

“Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.Expression.DesignSurface, Version=2.1.1693.0, Culture=neutral,…”

The issue was caused by the fact that even though I was running SP1, I had v2.1.1760.0.  I’ve recompiled BlendSense against this version which resolved the issue.

You can download it here.

Using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), we’ve been able to create a unique experience that fits well within the “album cover” concept

To become a beta tester, please send an email that includes your system specifications (OS, CPU, RAM) to beta@muvenum.com requesting to be a part of the “MuvUnder Cover Beta Testing Team”.

Each active beta tester will receive a free copy of both MuvUnder Cover: The Album Art Sleuth and MuvAudio2.

Once we have 20 beta testers, testing will begin. We’ve ironed out a lot of issues with our current internal testing team and hope to have the beta last for only a few weeks.

If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment and we’ll be sure to answer it

Here’s a quick sneak peek (user interface subject to change):

In the 2nd part of the tutorial I noticed he included a “WatermarkedTextBox“.  This is an out-of-the-box (OOTB) control which basically adds the fancy faded text inside of a textbox that disappears when you start typing in it, to allow you to forego a label and minimize UI space needed.  In my current project I use the “InfoTextBox” provided by the WPF Bag O’ Tricks which does the same thing.  Having a control OOTB is always a nice thing, especially for those people that don’t know what the heck you would call this type of TextBox and therefore would never be able to find it using Google.

Silverlight 2.0 is definitely some cool stuff.  And for those of you that prefer something other than C# or VB, “Developers can write Silverlight applications using any .NET language (including VB, C#, JavaScript, IronPython and IronRuby”.

The good news is that I’ve found a free Explorer Plugin that lets you set Vista to use the XP style of deselection: QT Tab Bar

Vista Default Sample:

If I click on the date column in this case, Music
remains selected.

Vista w/ QT Tab Bar Sample:

If I click on the date column in this case, Music
is deselected, the same way it would work in XP.

To set the option, please do the following:

1. Install QT Tab Bar (requires log-off).
2. Open Explorer.
3. Hit Alt to show the default file menu.
4. Right-click in the empty space to the right and check QT Tab Bar.
5. Right-click next to one of the tabs that now appears and choose Options.
6. Click the Misc. tab and make sure that Full row selection in details view is unchecked.
7. Make sure that Hide menu bar(Vista) is checked on this tab as well. (hit Alt+M to toggle the menu bar)
8. Click OK. (If you get an error, just click Continue and everything will work fine).
9. Close and re-open Windows Explorer.
10. Note: If you switch from a different view to details view, it will possibly show full-row selection in the current directory. Once you change directories and go back, it will correctly show without full-row selection.

There are a bunch of other features that QT Tab Bar provides. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Tabs! – Very cool way to organize your numerous open Explorer windows. As a developer, I have way too many explorer instances open. This allows me to become better organized and save time. It also doesn’t require me to use a different program that is meant to be an explorer replacement but lacks much of the functionality I already depend on.
   
2. Tab Groups – Again, as a developer switching between different projects, I can have preset groups of folders I need open while developing. QT Tab Bar gives me that functionality.
   
3. Restore Tabs – When I close Explorer I lose my open folders. This makes it so I can close Explorer, go do something else and re-open Explorer with the same folders I previously had open.
   
4. Application Groups – I haven’t used this one yet, but I’m sure it will help. An easy way to startup a set of applications that you need for a specific task.
   
5. Plugins – Create your own additional functionality to plugin without having to do everything yourself (the download comes with some plugins which I have yet to use – If I find one that stands out, I’ll make sure to add it to this post).
   
6. Shortcut Keys – For all the QT Tab features: undo last closed tab, clone tab, forward, back, next tab, etc.
   
7. Change Selection with F2 – A nifty feature that toggles the filename selection when renaming. Hit F2 to rename, in Vista, it selects the filename without the extension. Hit F2 again and it changes the selection to no selection but with the cursor at the end of the filename in front of the .ext. Hit F2 again and now the extension is selected. This will save a bunch of time when all I want to do is change the extension.
    

Sample of Tabs added by QT Tab Bar:

It’s definitely a tool to add to your collection if you’re using XP or Vista. Did I mention that they also created a plugin to add the Vista Breadcrumb Bar to XP?

Download QT Tab Bar