Common Properties Expression Blend with Silverlight

Common Properties

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 12:21:50 | Expression Blend with

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The Common Properties bucket of the Properties panel, shown in Figure 2-51, contains properties common to all UI elements or controls. Here you can set properties such as

■ What cursor an object will display when the mouse is over it (by specifying a value in the Cursor field)

■ Whether the object can detect hits (by enabling the IsHitTestVisible option)

■ Whether the object will display a tooltip and what it will read (by specifying text in the ToolTip field)

: Figure 2-51. The Common Properties bucket of the Properties panel

One thing I want to cover in more depth is the Cursor property. In Silverlight, no control by default shows the hand cursor when you mouse over it—not even the Button control. However, the hand cursor creates a very good call to action for users; when they see the hand cursor, they know that they can click the object and something will happen. So, for any clickable object in my applications, I always set the Cursor property to Hand. You can set different cursor options (e.g., the arrow and the stylus, which are quite useful when creating interfaces), so I suggest you investigate them.

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