Silverlight 1.0

Introduction

In the age of Web 2.0, AJAX, and RIA, web developers continue to push the boundaries of the browser platform, yet remain locked in a world limited by HTML. Silverlight 1.0 aims to change this by bringing a new paradigm of web development to the table, giving you more powerful tools in your web development arsenal, while simultaneously allowing you to leveraging your existing development skills. This book introduces you to the Silverlight 1.0 platform through example and explanation. Reading it will give you a thorough understanding of the capabilities of Silverlight 1.0, will allow you to begin to integrate it into your applications, and will even show you a real-world example of building a Silverlight 1.0 web application.

Who This Book Is For

This book is written for the professional developer looking to create web-based applications that include a rich, interactive user interface, which can include high-resolution graphics, animation, or integrated high-definition audio or video media. Silverlight 1.0 is the perfect platform for developers looking to create these applications while leveraging their existing development skills and not having to suffer a long and steep learning curve.

The book is designed to educate both traditional web application developers who are familiar with existing web technologies, but need to understand new XAML-based development technologies, as well as rich client developers who are familiar with XAML but want to create web-based applications. Because Silverlight is primarily a web development platform, it is recommended that you have a basic familiarity with HTML and JavaScript before reading this book. Additionally, prior familiarity with ASP.NET will help you better understand how you can leverage the power of ASP.NET’s server-side development model with Silverlight.

What This Book Covers

The Internet has changed dramatically from its early days of vanilla, static HTML pages, and Silverlight represents a revolutionary step forward. In this book, you will find everything you need to make the transition to the newest development platform for the Internet.

This book covers the initial release version of Microsoft’s Silverlight 1.0 platform, a new browser-based development platform created by Microsoft to enable the creation of Rich Internet Applications. The platform leverages existing familiar technologies such as JavaScript, XAML, ASP.NET, and AJAX, and delivers a powerful new browser plug-in “player” to give developers the power to create highly immersive, interactive web-based applications. Additionally, enhancements to existing development tools like Visual Studio and Expression Blend, combined with new tools like Expression Encoder, make it easy for developers to create applications that can far exceed the traditional HTML-based web user experience, allowing easy integration of rich media and animation into Internet applications.

This book demonstrates the use of this platform with its supporting technologies (XAML, JavaScript, and ASP.NET) as well as discusses the tools available for developing Silverlight applications, including Microsoft Expression Blend, Microsoft Expression Encoder, ASP.NET 2.0, ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions 1.0, and Visual Studio 2005.

This book shows developers exactly how to build everything from basic, static Silverlight-enabled HTML pages, to advanced, Silverlight-enhanced ASP.NET applications. Along with these various applications, this book addresses security, data access using AJAX, and the latest tools for building Silverlight applications, including Visual Studio 2008, Expression Blend 2.0, and Expression Encoder.