>DevExpress has a WPF Metro Style Tile control - see their online demos &
videos (I have been doing some research lately on this -but haven not
purchased or implemented the control as yet).

 

I see they have a Tile Layout
<http://devexpress.com/Subscriptions/DXperience/WhatsNew2012v1/index.xml?pag
e=2>  control, but the whole expensive kit is gigantic overkill for us.

 

It took about an hour to find the latest Blacklight
<http://blacklight.codeplex.com/>  library and source and tweak it to our
needs. It was last officially published in 2008, but it looks like some
hobbyists have fixed a few bugs, including the one I experienced where the
min/max buttons clicks did nothing. As I said yesterday, the default
appearance is absurdly impractical, so I stripped the generic.xaml way down
to an acceptably plain appearance. I still have to delete all the controls
and classes I don't want from the library to pare it right down to the
single DragDrop control.

 

The "tiles" cannot span multiple rows or columns, so you can get "holes" for
certain tile counts. The minimised tiles are too cramped because the tile
layout doesn't change. However, the animation of the tiles feels lovely and
it's a neat way of presenting a portal of choices. You have to deal with
having the tile content changing between small, medium or large area for
display. I made child controls that automatically flip between 3 appearances
as their size changes.

 

I still look forward to finding a more realistic metro style tile control
for WPF, when one appears (I'm not writing it!)

 

Greg

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