Getting the Root Visual in Phone7

ok, so this should have been easy for me but for some reason it took a half hour to figure it out so I figure it must be something that some one else might struggle just in case. That being the case if you are in some nested set of user controls and need to get a reference to the top level of your phone 7 UI here is the code:

PhoneApplicationFrame Temp = Application.Current.RootVisual as PhoneApplicationFrame;
MainPage TheUI = Temp.Content as MainPage;

now main page is the loaded PhoneApplicationPage is this could change pending your code and further 'TheUI' is something I made up but all things the same the reference to TheUI would then allow you to call any instances of the root visual. and the best part is this is admittedly a bit hacky... :)

Interact and Seattle Silverlight Videos Online

in the 5 minutes of free time I have each month I finally managed to get some videos that were takening with a flip cam at some of the local user group meetings posted on vimeo:


Summer Series Touch and Beyond: The Psychology of Future Interactions
http://www.vimeo.com/14095704

Summer Series - Windows Phone 7 Development Going Deeper (Session 2)
http://www.vimeo.com/14101547

10 Ways to Attack a Design Problem And Come Out Winning
http://www.vimeo.com/14105139

Accessibility Makes the Experience More Usable by More People - IxDA Interact
http://www.vimeo.com/14125563

Modern UX Creation from the Eyes of a Developer
http://www.vimeo.com/14370107

The Difference Between Silverlight and Silverlight Based Phone 7 Apps

The past week I was asked a couple times about the difference between Silverlight and Silverlight for phone 7. Really? Other then a few minor technical differences in the most current version of Silverlight vs a bit more limited version in phone 7. The cool thing is that Silverlight for phone 7 really is Silverlight so the same code base can be used on just about anything. But back to the details. Phone 7 is just a 'specific' more limited version so most stuff you can normally do work fine. There are no new skills, not really anything new save maybe a few api's specific to the phone. The biggest diffence is really just the basic pages and user control names. In phone 7 you really have a set size and 2 orientations. That being the case the phone 7 silverlight team has built these controls to deal with the 2 orientations of the screen and the specific size for phone 7. With that start making phone 7 apps its easy and fun just like any other Silverlight app. ok well you will need to download the special wizbang version of visual studio for phone 7 from http://www.Silverlight.net/ just click on 'Get Started' and go from there.