Communicator “14” Silverlight controls

Creating a Silverlight app with presence using the communicator “14”client, is really as easy as can be.

After installing the SDK in Visual Studio 2010 you get a new project type.
Then you can create a silverlight 3 or 4 application.
Your newly created project has a sample page with all the controls.

The Controls

in the toolbar there is a new section with the available controls.
 
Everyone who has already seen the new Communicator “14” will see that the controls look really similar almost identical as the new Communicator ”14” Client

ContactCard

 
xaml
<controls:ContactCard Source="joachim.farla@e-office.com" />

ContactsList

 xaml
<controls:ContactsList Height="294" Width="600"/>

CustomContactsList and CustomContactsListitem

 
xaml
<controls:CustomContactsList Height="94" Width="297">
    <controls:CustomContactsListItem Source="Marc.Wetters@e-office.com" />
    <controls:CustomContactsListItem Source="Joachim.Farla@e-office.com" />
</controls:CustomContactsList>

PresenceAvailabilityIndicator

 
xaml
<controls:PresenceAvailabilityIndicator
     x:Name="Presence"
     Source="marc.wetters@e-office.com"
     Margin="10,0" />
<TextBlock
     Text="{Binding DisplayName, ElementName=Presence}"
     Margin="10,0,0,0"/>

SearchInput

 xaml
 <controls:SearchInput x:Name="SearchTextbox" Width="500"/>

SearchResults

xaml
<controls:SearchResults Width="500" Height="200"
    ResultsSource="{Binding Results, ElementName=SearchTextbox}"
    ResultsState="{Binding SearchState, ElementName=SearchTextbox}" />

StartAudioConcersation

xaml
<controls:StartAudioConversation Source="joachim.farla@e-office.com" />

StartInstantMessagingConversation

xaml
<controls:StartInstantMessagingConversation Source="joachim.farla@e-office.com" />

Hope this gives a good overview of the available silverlight controls. Next to these controls

Communicator “14” development

When starting to develop for Communicator client where do you start…

First you need to have the Communicator “14” client. Visual Studio 2010 with the tools for Silverlight and of course the Communicator “14” SDK.

Most developers who already want to start developing for the Communicator client don’t always have the possibility to setup a complete Communications server “14” environment.

So the big question is: can you use Communicator “14” with an existing OCS 2007 R2 environment?
Everyone who has tried and installed the client will say no, you can’t… It just doesn’t work. But this is only because the Communicator “14’" checks the server version!

But there is a way to disable the server check. This can be done with the following registry setting:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator]
"DisableServerCheck"=dword:00000001

Then you can use Communicator “14” and the SDK without the specific need for Communications “14” server. Specific Communications server “14” functionality won’t be available. But you can use the Silverlight and WPF controls.

sip:Marc.Wetters@e-office.com

It’s time to start Blogging again

Finally I have some time to start blogging again. And the upcoming Communications Server “14” and the new Communicator “14” are great Topics to blog about.

For client side development a lot has been changed in a very positive way. With the new Silverlight controls and the WPF controls which are included in the new Communicator SDK.

Server Side development with UCMA 3.0 has also made progress making the life for developers easier.