If you are new to Silverlight, this article will be very helpful for you; you will find a complete understanding of Silverlight introduction. In this article, I have started with the definition of Silverlight, the purpose of the Silverlight technology. You will see development tools required to work with Silverlight and you will also see how to download and install the software developer's kit.At the end of this article, you will get a complete understanding of Silverlight.
1. Silverlight is the new Microsoft technology on the web platform for Rich Internet Applications (RIA), launched by Microsoft in 2007.
2. Silverlight supports multiple browsers called cross-browser technology, which includes Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari, Opera etc…
3. Silverlight supports multiple Operating Systems (a cross-platform technology) which includes the Windows family of OSs, Mac, and Linux with Moonlight technology (Moonlight is an Open Source implementation of Silverlight, primarily for Linux and other Unix/X11 based Operating Systems).
4. Silverlight also supports multiple devices (across-device technology), which includes mobile devices to desktop browsers to 720p HDTV video modes etc…
5. Silverlight is a browser plug-in approximately 4MB in size; it is a client-side free software, easy and fast, and has a less than 10 sec one time installation available for any client-side browser.
6. Silverlight supports display of high-definition video files, and sending them over the internet.
7. Silverlight applications are delivered to a browser in a text-based markup language called XAML. XAML is a declarative markup language that you can use to define UI elements for your Silverlight-based applications.
8. Silverlight is considered as a competitor to Adobe's Flash technology.
9. One of the design goals of the Silverlight technology is to fill the gap between Windows applications and web applications in terms of creating Graphical User Interfaces (GUI). So far, web developers were not able to make clients happy in terms of UI, but now web developers will be able to fullfill this with the help of the Silverlight technology.
Why is the best place Silverlight?
Here is the list of advantages and why we should go with Silverlight over Flash and other technologies already available:
1. Support for the .NET framework – if you are a .NET developer, it is easy to start programming on Silverlight.
2. Support for Managed code – you can write programs in your favorite languages which the .NET CLR supports, like C#, VB.NET, dynamic languages (IronPython, IronRuby).
3. Better development tools - Visual Studio 2010, Expression Blend.
4. Large community -lot of learning resource are available as compared to Flash technology.
5. Integration with Enterprise based technologies like WPF, LINQ etc…
Silverlight 4.0 features
Now on to the details. This is a long post intentionally to provide you with details to the framework. In each area I’ll be sure to point out if there are existing resources (labs, videos, etc.) for that specific feature and be as concise as I can as to be “to the point” about what it provides.
Silverlight 4.0 development tools
To be successful in your evaluation of Silverlight 4 you are going to need some tools. Here’s the link dump of everything:
1. Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 or Visual Web Developer Express 2010 Beta 2(pick one)
2. Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2010
3. Expression Blend for .NET 4 Preview – for authoring Silverlight 4 and WPF 4 applications
4. WCF RIA Services (formerly .NET RIA Services) (NOTE: This is actually included in the SL Tools for Silverlight 4)
5. Silverlight 4 SDK CHM (offline documentation) – optionally online here as well
6. Updated Silverlight Toolkit for Silverlight 4
7. Developer runtimes: Windows and Mac platforms
8. Silverlight 4 SDK only – not needed if you install the tools above
9. Silverlight Media Framework – a new, Open Source media player framework for you to use.
These are the full set of tools to help you evaluate Silverlight 4. At a bare minimum for a developer you’ll need/want Visual Studio 2010 and the Silverlight Tools for VS.
NOTE: [When you install the Silverlight Tools for VS, you get the Windows developer runtime, the Silverlight 4 SDK and the Visual Studio tools/templates. It is NOT necessary to install the SDK and developer runtimes again if you are using the tools installer. The developer runtimes are provided for you to put on other developer test machines to help test your applications. Additionally, RIA Services is also included in the Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2010. If you have a version of RIA Services already installed, you will need to uninstall it.]
Go ahead and get the tools starting to download. In the meantime, here’s some other helpful information for you.
There are a few places for you to go to learn some things:
1. Silverlight 4.0 and WCF RIA Services forums.
2. View initial Silverlight 4 learning videos with sample code in C# and Visual Basic.
3. Walk through some hans-on labs.
You should bookmark and subscribe to the above sites for constant updated Silverlight information.
Click on the following link to install the Silverlight 4.0 version from here. Follow the steps given in the installation wizard and complete the installation. If you have already installed this version, it will say the installation has failed, then don’t worry about it.
I hope you enjoyed my article. This is just an introduction to Silverlight. Please stick with me for more articles on Silverlight in the future. Thank you.
Thank You for the wonderful post.
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