Ivan Dragoyev from Microsoft introduces participants to the technology.
A completely free flash plugin for numerous browsers. It works with Linux as well, though one version back. The entire .NET experience applies to Silverlight. Silverlight is no longer a subset of WPF. It integrates seamlessly into HTML.
What can we expect from Silverlight? There's an enormous package of tools and features. Users have the ability to install it on their own machine with a single click in the browser. It will automatically check for newer versions and updates easily. High quality video and audio that can be streamed. HD at full screen is used without any problems. It supports data protection and copyright protection. 3D can be emulated in 2D reality. Pixel shader effects. Bitmap API – for image processing. All controls are subject to theming and can be changed according to user preference. Animation effects, a pleasant set of animations, as well as animations that help create a more realistic interface. There is the ability to create absolutely any animations. Part of theming is control skinning. Parameters of the skins themselves can be changed. Improvement in texts and fonts – they can be added and reused from other programs.
More than 60 controls. Provides navigation capabilities. Many more technical possibilities in terms of business applications. Performance is also improved from the library perspective. Deep zoom allows working with a larger set of images.
It can be installed and run outside the browser. It works in a sandbox, doesn't use any resources, doesn't operate on the basis of the entire machine. No client installation is required. The auto-update moment is important here as well. It saves effort from installation programs and other moments from this scenario. In the application itself, it provides information on whether there is an internet connection or not.
With the tools that Microsoft provides, two groups are targeted. One is for writing code in Visual Studio. Separately, there is the Silverlight Toolkit, which has even more controls. All of them are easy to master. The second group, the designers, also use the toolkit. Expression Blend 3 provides even more possibilities together with SketchFlow.
When is Silverlight used? There's no set recipe. Everyone decides on their own when and for what to use it.