implementing the WP7 chatting style

Question

I'm trying to design a chatting app, I want the sender/receiver's text to be shown inside these text balloons that's in the native messages app in WP7.

I can put each conversation in a textblock and color it like the current used theme, but still it won't have the pointy thing of the balloon here:

So how can I implement this to my app?

Answer 1

Check out these links:

http://www.scottlogic.co.uk/blog/colin/2011/07/a-wp7-conversation-view/

http://shawnoster.com/blog/post/Recreating-the-Windows-Phone-7-message-e2809cbubblee2809d-style-in-Silverlight.aspx

They should have all you need to get started.

Answer 2

Read up on Shapes and Basic Drawing.

What you want to do , is to define two shapes (one being a mirror of the other), with the "triangle" popping out as part of the polygon.

I'll recommend a tool like Expression Design or Expression Blend for creating the polygon.