Silverlight 4 in Action

Chapter 18. Graphics and effects

This chapter covers

• Creating basic shapes and geometries

• Painting with brushes

• Working with effects

• Creating pixel shader effects

In previous chapters, you've seen interesting controls that include text, rectangles, and sometimes even more complex shapes. Even the lowly button, for example, has text, a couple of rectangles, and a gradient background. Controls such as the popup ChildWindow control have drop shadows to enhance their appearance and help them stand out in the eyes of the user. Those buttons and other controls use vector graphics, brushes, and effects.

Graphics within Silverlight are vector-based; they're mathematically based objects. They're ideal for Internet distribution because vector-based graphics can ...