Building the Ultimate Lync Presentation Tool Helper - Part 3

In this week's article we are going to delve into the WPF components we want to use for our Ultimate Lync Presentation Tool Helper.  Given the upcoming rename to "Skype for Business" I have decided to theme the app in a baby blue style.

The Window

So let's start with the window header.  In our case we want to make sure we are using the Lync WPF controls, then the rest is pretty basic with the exception of an icon and tag to make the app auto size and scale itself.

<Window x:Class="UltimateLyncPresentationTool.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:controls="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Lync.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Lync.Controls"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        Title="ULPT" Height="800" Width="200" SizeToContent="Height" Icon="planning-employee.ico" SizeChanged="Window_SizeChanged" Loaded="Window_Loaded">
   

From here we will use a grid, and our grid is going to contain 5 rows.  Those are defined here.

        <Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
            <RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
            <RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
            <RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
            <RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
        </Grid.RowDefinitions>

As we mentioned before we are going to house the individual parts inside Expander controls, so you can auto shrink the program as much as you like.  Each of those will look something like this.

<Expander Width="185" ExpandDirection="Down" IsExpanded="True" Grid.Row="1">
            <Expander.Header>
                <TextBlock Text="Whiteboards" Foreground="DarkBlue" FontWeight="Bold" Background="Transparent"></TextBlock>
            </Expander.Header>

            <StackPanel Margin="5">
                
                <TextBlock Text="Whiteboard Name"></TextBlock>
                <TextBox Name="tbWBName" ></TextBox>
                <Button Name="bnAddWhiteboard" Content="Add Whiteboard" Click="AdWhiteboardButton_Click"></Button>
                
            </StackPanel>
            
        </Expander>

So that's how we are going to break down our WPF window, and the end results will look something like this.

Now once the conference is connected, we can share and present items.

As you can see I have chosen a small footprint for a layout, similar to GoToMeeting for users who are familiar with that application.

Here is a full layout.

Next week we'll start writing the button code, Lync functions an other pieces needed to make the app the perfect companion for Lync presenters.

Doug Routledge, C# Lync, SQL, Exchange, UC Developer