Latest Listings

Input Validation

"I miss ASP.NET. With the 2.0 Microsoft had the world best technology for creating applications of all kind. Small or large, ASP.NET 2.0 have features for all. Now several years later we have Silverlight 2 (no 2.0) and should be good as ASP.NET 2.0!? I don't think so- Silverlight have some great advantages but even more missing features. And some of them essential and important. For me user input validation is one of them. To get the right data from user in correct format is a huge challenge and costs a lot of development time. ASP.NET have rich and easy validator controls to do the job. Silverlight have not." [More]


http://weblogs.asp.net/hpreishuber/archive/2008/11/23/input-validation-with-silverlight.aspx

Silverlight Extentions

If you have not checked out the Silverlight Extentions lately, you might give a look at:

http://weblogs.asp.net/lduveau/archive/2008/11/22/silverlight-extensions.aspx

Jeff Prosise's Enigma Simulator

"Thursday is National History Day at our local high school, and just in time for the competition, my son and I put the finishing touches on a German Enigma simulator to complement his display—written, of course, in Silverlight. Here's what it looks like: " [More]

http://www.wintellect.com/CS/blogs/jprosise/archive/2008/11/12/silverlight-enigma-simulator-updated.aspx

Simple Cable Simulation

"I thought it might be fun to have an actual cable hanging down the screen where you could grab either of the two plugs with the mouse and move them around. The interaction is simplified considerably if you keep the plugs pointed in a uniform direction and don't allow rotation" [More]

http://www.charlespetzold.com/blog/2008/11/Simple-Cable-Simulation.html

Silverlight 2 Feedback Survey

What is your SL experience been like as a developer?  Give them the good and bad:

http://deploy.ztelligence.com/start/survey/survey_taking.jsp?PIN=13AQC8W8EAHZP

A Better Multi-Page solution

"I've posted on multi-page Silverlight applications, and in fact have two videos (here and here) that show an approach that works quite well and that I was happy to steal at the time.

I recently received email from Lucas Stark (Senior Web Developer at Delta College) who suggested (quite correctly) that the pages should not have to find the PageSwitcher each time they want to navigate to another page, but rather they ought to be able to call a static method." [More]

http://silverlight.net/blogs/jesseliberty/archive/2008/11/21/a-better-multi-page-solution.aspx#135573

SL Tip: New SL 2 Web Site Clean Up Check List

"When creating a Silverlight application with a web site there are a number of cleanups you will want to perform. I have created a little check list here that I will maintain and update as I get new ideas." [More]

http://silverlight.net/blogs/msnow/archive/2008/11/17/silverlight-tip-of-the-day-72-new-silverlight-2-web-site-clean-up-check-list.aspx#135467

Enable SL support on Win2003 Server

"Silverlight is a client side technology, which means nothing has to be installed on the Web Server, and it would work regardless of the type of Web Server in use. However, I ran into a small issue when trying to activate the first Silver Light enabled Website in our Hosting environment. The Server must have the MIME types specified for the following file types: " [More]

http://www.haiders.net/post/How-to-Enable-Silverlight-Support-on-Windows-2003-Server.aspx

SL 2.0 offers high resolutions capabilities

"The new Silverlight upgrade is Microsoft's answer to Adobe Flash. Silverlight 2.0 offers a new addition of Silverlight DRM. It is powered by Microsoft's own PlayReady digital-rights-management software. The software giant said it will offer a robust content protection solution." [More]

http://www.newsoxy.com/silverlight/article11335.html

Where to find good Silverlight Apps

"In my Silverlight 2 review, I neglected to discuss where to find good Silverlight applications. While you can find thousands of Flash applications (good and bad) all over the Web, Silverlight is still new enough that you need to know where to look to see worthwhile examples. This says a lot about product maturity, but nothing about product capabilities." [More]

http://weblog.infoworld.com/stratdev/archives/2008/11/where_to_find_g.html

Monolight coming soon!

Moonlight (Silverlight for Linux) is coming out within days.  This is the SL 1.0 compatible version, the 2.0 compatible version is expected to beta test in March 2009.


http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10101687-56.html

http://www.betanews.com/article/Novell_and_Microsoft_sanction_Silverlight_workalike_for_Linux/1227124377

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS4960496541.html

Silverlight Installation Methods

"This article goes over the Group Policy method which is used to install Silverlight on a corporate network. This is the first of the three installation options that you have." [More]

http://www.exforsys.com/tutorials/silverlight/silverlight-installation-methods.html

SL and Azure

"In my last article I was discussing Silverlight and Amazon's new CloudFront service.  I wanted now to discuss what the options with Azure are?" [More]

http://silverlightuk.blogspot.com/2008/11/silverlight-and-windows-azure.html

ICONICS GENESIS64 Features Silverlight Technology

"ICONICS GENESIS64 V10.5 incorporates new Microsoft Silverlight cloud services technology, providing "a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device capability delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web." Silverlight is able to combine multimedia, graphics, animation and interactivity into a single runtime environment. It has the ability to work along with XAML code in presenting vector graphics and animation and can be used to create Windows Sidebar gadgets for Windows Vista. Such capabilities help dramatically bolster overall visualization capabilities of user applications." [More]

http://www.plantautomation.com/article.mvc/ICONICS-GENESIS64-Features-Silverlight-0001?VNETCOOKIE=NO

SL for real this time

"Microsoft's RIA framework offers client-side programming with .Net languages and tools, plus high performance" [More]

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/111808-silverlight-for-real-this.html?hpg1=bn

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/11/18/47TC-silverlight-2_1.html

Quick and Direty LIve MEsh SL app

"After the LiveFX application I showed yesterday, I will now do the same but for a Silverlight Mesh App, so this would actually appear in your Live Desktop. Like yesterday’s tutorial, this is only really for those who have been given access to the LiveFX and Mesh SDK ‘bits’ at the moment, but when it does eventually go live for all developers, then you’ll be able to use the same tutorial.

Again, I will make the assumption you have all the SDK bits installed. Now, first off you need to create a Mesh-enabled project on the Azure Services Developer Portal. Then create a new Mesh Silverlight project in Visual Studio 2008:" [More]

http://www.liveside.net/developer/archive/2008/11/18/a-quick-and-dirty-live-mesh-silverlight-application.aspx

SL and ADO.NET Data Services

"SIlverlight 2 allows you to talk to RESTful services as well as SOAP based services. You can pass/consume XML or JSON with these web services too. All stuff we would expect at some pointto expose a basic domain entity model for business applications. Microsoft also has a technology called ADO.NET Data Services (codenamed Astoria). I still like the Astoria nickname as its easier to say and in my opinion the title "ADO.NET Data Services" implies a heavy connection to a data layer. While there is some truth to that, the reality is that Astoria simply exposes a domain entity model through a RESTful model over HTTP. The model could have nothing to do with ADO.NET. In fact the model could be any entity model written in .NET code as long as it exposed IQueryable. This means that a standard class library in .NET code can be exposed through a RESTful set of web services over HTTP using Astoria very easily." [More]

http://www.insideria.com/2008/11/silverlight-and-adonet-data-se.html

Create a Visual WebGui SL App

"In this “How to” we are going to learn how to create a Visual WebGui Silverlight Application. After installing Visual WebGui we will open Visual Studio and create a new Visual WebGui Silverlight application." [More]

http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/How-to-create-a-Visual-WebGui-Silverlight-application.aspx

Adding Scripting to C# SL App

"At Microsoft, the people I work with and I are definitely the minority, preaching about the benefits of dynamic languages and using the right tools for the right jobs, as in don't use static languages where you don't need it -- though there are plenty of times where you need it." [More]

http://blog.jimmy.schementi.com/2008/11/adding-scripting-to-c-silverlight-app.html

Three's the Charm with SL

"Well, if the third time's really the charm in Redmond, we should all be pretty excited about the early news on the next version of Microsoft's Silverlight rich Internet application (RIA) platform and runtime. Scott Guthrie, Microsoft's corporate VP of the .NET Developer Division, offered a sneak peek at what's to come in Silverlight 3 in a blog post on Sunday." [More]

http://reddevnews.com/blogs/weblog.aspx?blog=2950

SL2 - Over 100 Million Served - look at SL 3

Managed to someone miss Scott Guthrie's posted a couple days ago.  Things are looking GREAT for SL.  In the first four weeek of SL2, it has beem installed in over 100 million machines! Wow!

With Netflix now pushing Video for both PC and Mac with SL.   Blockbuster is replacing Flash with SL in MOvieLink too! Even that old three letter word, AOL, is getting in on SL, Maybe developers will get the message..  SL is BIG.. No.. BBBIIIGG!

Read more about what is happening along with a glympse at SL 3:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/11/16/update-on-silverlight-2-and-a-glimpse-of-silverlight-3.aspx

Will it support 3D?  Will it do hardware acceleration?...

Hmm..  Can you handle it?  Can you?  Drum roll....  Visual Studio will be getting a full SL/WPF editor (Blend'ed maybe?)

Can hardly wait for next August and a new release of SL!

Zignals?

"If you have, I’m not surprised given the great visibility and publicity they’ve received for their unique, innovative application and beautiful set of controls, all done in Silverlight.  They also do a great job informing customers through their actively updated blog and recently started sending updates via Twitter as well." [More]

http://blogs.msdn.com/martharotter/archive/2008/09/17/new-irish-silverlight-showcase-app-zignals.aspx

Win 7 grows WPF & SL

The ‘lightweight version of WPF’, Silverlight, will also form a key part of the upcoming Office 14 online suite. The suite will include for the first time cut-down online versions of core applications like Word, Excel and OneNote.

“We’re using Silverlight heavily in building out those web versions,” said Sneath.

“For example, to build a rich text rendering experience in Word, the zoom-in and zoom-out functionality is all being built in Silverlight.”

[More]

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/89119,windows-7-fronts-wider-growth-trend-for-wpf.aspx

Silverlight V 3.0 coming soon!

"The next version is expected to arrive sometime in 2009, but the roadmap of how exactly Microsoft will get there still hasn't gone public. If you want to help the software giant improve Silverlight, take the recently posted Silverlight 2 survey. The battle between Flash and Silverlight is intensifying, and us consumers will be the ones to benefit the most from the competition." [More]

http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2008/11/17/microsoft-starts-to-talk-about-silverlight-3-coming-in-2009

Utilizing SL on a corporate network

"To successfully utilize Silverlight via a corporate network, there are four basic steps that will need to be followed. First, you will need to plan the deployment, and after the planning phase, you will next need to test it. Once you have tested your deployment strategy, you will next need to deploy Silverlight on the network. The last and final step is to maintain Silverlight inside your environment." [More]

http://www.exforsys.com/tutorials/silverlight/utilizing-silverlight-corporate-network.html

Uploading SL 2 Content to SL Streaming

A basic walkthrough of posting to sliverlight.live.com:

http://vincenthomedev.wordpress.com/2008/11/15/uploading-silverlight-2-content-to-silverlight-streaming/

Finding the default style

"One of the things I like about Silverlight is the ability to customize existing controls. Just about every control that ships with Silverlight has a default style. You are free to override the default style, create a new style from scratch or if you so choose edit a copy of the default style. Using the new style is as simple as setting the Style attribute  Style="{StaticResource StyleName} where StyleName is the name of the style. For further information on styling refer to the following post.

But where can you find the default style for a control?

Excluding third party tools, I know of at least three ways;" [More]

http://cynotwhynot.com/blog/post/Silverlight-Finding-the-default-style.aspx

How to communicate between Silverlight controls

"A while back I discovered a great post about how to establish communication between Silverlight controls on the same page. I had already known how it could be accomplished using Javascript and an example of this approach is used by my Silverlight Gallery. But this other way caught my attention and I have decided to post about it. Jeff Prosise's Blog contains a series of posts called  Cool Silverlight Tricks. Currently there are only 5 tricks, but, they are all great. Make sure you check them out. I will not be discussing the Javascript approach in the blog post. The reader is referred to this post " [More]

http://cynotwhynot.com/blog/post/How-to-communicate-bewteen-Silverlight-controls.aspx

Line of Business app made easy

"Jamie shows what’s coming in a next version of Silverlight: a new framework to help you build business focused applications:

•Data access with client side ObjectDataSource!
•Silverlight Business Logic Class (used inside Silverlight without adding a service reference!!)
•Validator controls, validation rules enforced by server–side business class
•Navigation workflow, browser history integration
•Login control, roles
" [More]

http://weblogs.asp.net/lduveau/archive/2008/11/15/silverlight-futures-line-of-business-app-made-easy.aspx

Are sockets only suitable in intranets?

"The fact is that Silverlight Sockets requires the policy file to be served on port 943 and sockets only work on ports 4502-4534.  This means that your customers must have those ports open on their Firewall.  In a world of locked down security is this really likely?  I think not!" [More]

http://silverlightuk.blogspot.com/2008/11/are-sockets-only-suitable-in-intranets.html

Billy Hollis: XAML for Developers Part 1

"The one and only Billy Hollis comes to dnrTV from the PDC in Los Angeles to show us some basics of XAML and also some things you may not know. " [More]

http://www.dnrtv.com/default.aspx?showNum=128

Rating Control with Theme Support

"If you play around with the toolkit you will quickly stumble on a new assembly called: “Microsoft.Windows.Controls.Theming”.  In a nut shell what this class does is give control developers access to the ability to theme their controls.  One of the key elements of this assembly is the “ImplicitStyleManager”. This class exposes some attached properties that allow designers to specify an external resource file (.xaml) containing styles which can be applied to a control and each of the controls children.

Here is what i did to get my RatingControl to use the implicit style manager. First I added a reference in my page.xaml to the Theming namespace." [More]

http://joel.neubeck.net/2008/11/ratingcontrol-theme/

Infinite hoizontal panning for maps - with source

"The HDView team released a gem of a sample app this week from ICE that amongst other things provide a solution for showing 360 degree panoramas. The solution uses three MSI controls to provide a seamless panning experience.

Now what could be a bigger 360 panorama then the Earth itself?"
[More]

http://www.soulsolutions.com.au/Blog/tabid/73/EntryID/522/Default.aspx

styling a SL Twitter app with Exp Blend 2, to easy!

Just too easy looking!  Take a blah looking application and in a matter of a few minutes, have a friendly looking app without one line of code changed!  Check out this video:

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Dan/Celso-Gomes-Styling-a-Silverlight-based-Twitter-application-with-Expression-Blend-2/

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/11/14/styling-a-silverlight-twitter-application-with-expression-blend-2.aspx

Blend Tips & Tricks

Here is the video listed from Scott's post above:

"See how Expression Blend can be used to design user interfaces for the desktop and the Web using both Windows Presentation Foundation and Microsoft Silverlight 2. Learn how to design consistently for both technologies and how the resulting XAML provides elegant workflow between developers and designers." [More]

http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/PC47/

Laurent Bugnion on WPF and SL

"Jon talks to Laurent Bugnion about WPF and Silverlight. Laurent’s an expert on WPF and Silverlight, and is the author of Silverlight 2 Unleashed.

Topics

•Differences between WPF and Silverlight
•Thoughts on Silverlight offline
•Model-View-ViewModel pattern and applications in Blend
•WPF Disciples mailing list
•Why use WPF instead of Winforms
•Non-visual benefits of WPF and Silverlight
•Benefits of the XAML format
•Silverlight’s VisualStateManager compared to WPF triggers
•Laurent’s experiences writing Silverlight 2 Unleashed
" [More]

http://herdingcode.com/?p=91]

Adobe: Do not underestimate Microsoft

"Comments from a meeting last week with journalists at Adobe's (ADBE) headquarters indicate that Adobe's CEO, Shantanu Narayen, thinks Adobe has already won the online video platform battle and that Flash can survive any threat from Microsoft (MSFT). That's a dangerous assumption to make and underestimating Microsoft's ability to challenge any company, in the long run, is never a good idea." [More]

http://seekingalpha.com/article/105867-adobe-do-not-underestimate-microsoft-s-ability-to-compete-with-flash

SL 2 App Dev with LINQ to SQL & WCF

"This is my third article in a series focusing on Silverlight 2.0 (RC 1) development using Visual Studio 2008. In this article, we will create a simple “LINQ to SQL” model, access the model with a WCF Service and consume the same using a Silverlight 2.0 application. Technically, we will have Silverlight 2.0 controls accessing a regular WCF Service and fetch information from the database using the “LINQ to SQL” model." [More]

http://www.aspfree.com/c/a/Windows-Scripting/Silverlight-20-Application-Development-with-LINQ-to-SQL-and-a-WCF-Service/

Fix for simply HTML display in SL

"I updated my HtmlTextBlock sample for RTW last night and got an email from kind reader Ed Silverton this morning pointing out a problem setting FontSize on a standalone instance of the control. (Background reading: HtmlTextBlock Announcement for the Alpha, Improvements, Beta 1 Update, Data Binding Support, Beta 2 Update, RTW Update) Unfortunately, this problem does not demonstrate itself in the sample project, so I missed it. :( Sorry about that! " [More]

http://blogs.msdn.com/delay/archive/2008/11/12/a-fix-for-simple-html-display-in-silverlight-htmltextblock-bug-fix-for-silverlight-2-rtw.aspx