What is Silverlight 1.0 ?

Silverlight

• What the heck is Silverlight?– Web Platform for Rich Interactive Applications

• Web Platform is a euphemism for Plug-in

• Wow factor stuff like vector-based graphics , animations, audio and video integration

• Cross browser, cross platform (!)

• It’s a stand-alone framework. Not dependant on any prior .NET version. Clients need nothing but the plug-in.

• Sounds familiar…– Doesn’t Macromedia (er…Adobe) already give this to us?

Its called Flash?• Well…kind of. But Silverlight is better. Trust me.

Why Now?

• HTML + CSS + JavaScript is too limiting

• The Browser as a development platform is, well, less than ideal

• More applications are becoming web-ified, but at the cost of user experience

• End user expectations are changing. They want richness and interactivity (yes, even in LOB’s)

Great...

• So another platform I have to learn…

– Sort of…but you get to leverage a lot of your existing skills• UI parts are based on .NET 3.0 (read ‘XAML’)

• Programming model is JavaScript

• Feels good to both rich client and web developers

And so as not to confuse you

• There really are two platforms

• Two versions of Silverlight currently available

– 1.0• Does the basic XAML stuff, but still requires you to work (sorry)

• JavaScript is the programming model…feels warm and cozy to web developers

• ~ 2 MB download

– 1.1 Alpha• Does way more XAML-ish stuff (less work for you )

• Brings in a managed programming model (woot!)

• Silverlight + .NET Alpha ~ 4 MB (cross platform)

Lets begin the tour…

Obligatory Architecture Diagram

Browser Plug-In

Presentation Runtime

Presentation Core

Media Support (Audio/Video)

XAML

Native DOM API JavaScript DOM API

Operating System (Windows, Mac)

Silverlight 1.0

And it runs on Windows too!

• Browsers

– Internet Explorer 6 and 7 (Windows)

– Firefox 1.5.0.8, 2.0+ (Windows and Mac)

– Safari 2.0.4+ (Mac)

– Opera (through Mono implementation)

• Operating systems

– Windows XP SP2, Vista

– Mac OS X (10.4.8+)

– Mono Project working on Linux implementation

DEMOSilverlight Basics

So what’s in the bag?

• 1.0 Major Features

– XAML Subset:• 2D Graphics (shapes, transformations, clipping, masking)

• Animations

• Input: Mouse and Keyboard

• Media (WMV, WMA, MP3)

• Imaging (JPG, PNG)

• Text (static and flow)

– HTTP downloader

– XAML Parser (includes CreateFromXAML API)

– JavaScript DOM

Graphics and Animations

• 2D Graphics

– Standard shapes, masking and clipping

– Transformations: skew, rotate, scale, translate, matrix

• Animation Basics

– Animations change properties over time

– Support linear, discrete and spline animation

– Animatable property types:• Double, Color, Point

• Animations and graphics are defined using XAML

Media

• Media Features

– No OS dependencies. Everything ships inside the platform• Video: WMV V7, V8, V9, VC-1

• Audio: WMA V7, V8, V9 (standard), MP3

– Multiple options for deploying media• HTTP progressive download

• Integration with Windows Media Server

Text

• Glyphs

– Fixed text

– Full Unicode glyph rendering support

– Does not support layout (word/line breaking)

• TextBlock

– Basic layout support• Left-aligned, English based text wrapping

– Support font encryption and compression

– V1 supports 64K Unicode Basic Multi-langual Plane

– Post V1, increased language support

Remember this is a still a web app

• All apps run in the sandbox

– Conceptually similar to the HTML DOM sandbox

• Apps run just like HTML pages – just click a URL

– No elevation prompts.

– No way to get out of the sandbox

• Includes some additional functionality:

– Safe isolated storage

– Client based file upload controls

– Cross domain support in-work

So…how do I?• Tools

– Developer

• Visual Studio 2005 minimum for v1.0 development

• Firebug (HTML, CSS and JS monitoring)

• Any text editor

– Designers

• Expression Blend and Design

• XAML exporters

– Adobe Illustrator, Office (good for font subsetting), Others…

• Knowledge

– Silverlight development is similar to HTML development• Presentation format for Silverlight is XAML - XAML is XML (markup)

• Silverlight V1.0 programming language is JavaScript

Silverlight JavaScript Basics

• Silverlight XAML elements are scriptable via the browser script engine (JavaScript)

• Scriptable objects are obtained via findName

– Scriptable objects (elements) can be controlled via properties and methods

– Models JavaScript and HTML DOM interaction

– findName is equivalent to document.getElementById()

– Supports tree walking via children collection

• Position set using "Canvas.Top" and "Canvas.Left"

Size can be scaled or set via Height/Width

Downloader and CreateFromXAML

• HTTP Downloader

– V1.0 supports HTTP gets (async and sync)

– Provides download progress

– ZIP packaging

– Similar to XMLHTTP

• CreateFromXAML

– Primary way in V1.0 to dynamically create content

– Supports namescopes (for name collisions)

DEMOVideo, JavaScript, etc …

And now for something completely different…

• Well..not completely…

• Silverlight 1.1 – the superset

– Adds managed programming model running on client-side (aka client-side CLR, even on the Mac)

• Use C# (or VB.NET, or any managed language) to code Silverlight instead of JavaScript

• Managed stack includes a broad set of familiar .NET features:

– See next slide….

Legend

V1.1

Legend

V1.0

.NET for Silverlight

XAML

Pre

sen

tati

on

C

ore

Networking

JSON

RESTPOX

RSS

Data

LINQ XLINQ

DLR

Ruby Python

WPF

Extensible Controls

BCL

Generics Collections

Inputs

Keyboard Mouse Ink

Media

VC1 WMA MP3

Browser Host

MS AJAX Library

DOM Integration

UI Core

Images

Vector Text

Animation

DRM

Media

Controls

Layout Editing

CLR Execution Engine

Deploy

Friction-Free Installer

Auto-Updater

ApplicationServices

SOAP

The missing link(s)…

Another demo

Problems Solved

• Makes prototyping applications simpler

– Use of XAML by developer and designer enhances workflow

– Common tooling brings application design closer to original concept of designer - Reduces “throw away” art work

• Rich, Interactive Graphics

– Vector, Composition, Animation

• Improved User Experience

• Sophisticated Interactions Reduce Human-Computer Impedance Mismatch

Challenges Ahead

• Learning Curve of new Tooling, Language, Syntax

• Hardware Requirements – Performance

• Limited Visual Studio Support

• Blend 2.0 in CTP

• Developer to Designer Ratio Gap

• Limited Guidance, Best Practices

• No Familiar Tools that Developers are Familiar with

Timeline

• WPF – Part of WinFX (.NET 3.0) – RTM in November 2006

• Expression Blend 1.0 Released

• Expression Blend 2.0 in CTP

• Visual Studio Orcas Q4 2007

• .NET 3.5 Q4 2007

• Silverlight 1.0 Released ~Q3 2007

• Silverlight 1.1 Beta at the same time

Timeline

• Expression Blend 1.0 Released

• Expression Blend 2.0 in CTP

• Visual Studio 2008 Q4 2007

• .NET 3.5 Q4 2007

• Silverlight 1.0 Released Summer 2007

• Silverlight 1.1 sometime in 2008