Rants Tagged with “Silverlight”
In case you are converting older WPF/E code to Silverlight, here is an eminently useful link to the breaking changes since the February CTP to Beta 1.0
Here is a quick little Silverlight animation I put together with the new version of Blend (that supports Silverlight). Its a lot easier now to edit your Silverlight assets...its completely (as far as I've been able to tell so far) with Silverlight 1.0 Beta (haven't tried 1.1 yet).
Remember, I am no artist...but I thought this was fun:
Remember, you'll need the Silverlight 1.0 Runtime to make this work...
UPDATED: Changed to support Silverlight 1.0 RC
A myriad of new Silverlight content is now available including a Beta of the Javascript-based Silverlight development and an Alpha of the CLR-Based Silverlight development. As of this moment the SDK's aren't downloading but everything else is...expect it to work in the next hour or so as the MIX keynote isn't complete yet.
Just to be clear...yes, this means you will be able to create Managed Silverlight apps that run crossplatform...though this is an Alpha so don't expect to ship the code any time soon.
All the downloads are available here:
http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/
It includes:
Enjoy!
UPDATE: The 1.1 Alpha SDK seems to be working, but the 1.0 Beta SDK is still down...hopefully soon!
In partnership with O'Reilly, I've released a Short Cut titled "Getting Started with Silverlight". Short Cuts are PDF's that spotlight a specific technology.If you are interested in the basics of Silverlight, the Short Cut is a great place to start.
In partnership with
Microsoft (et al), I am authoring a series of how-to videos around
Silverlight. These videos will be 5-15 minute videos walking viewers through common
Silverlight tasks. I will be producing two per week for the next couple of months. Look here for links to the videos as they are released!
If you want to know more about Silverlight now, you can pick up Chris Sells and Ian Griffith's book, "Programming WPF: Second Edition". The rough cut edition is available now from O'Reilly with the final print edition coming soon. I wrote the Silverlight Appendix for that book. The Rough Cut includes the Appendix (as well as a great WPF) with its old WPF/E moniker, but the release will include the fully silver-lit version.
In addition, i'll have a "Silverlight Short Cut" available soon from O'Reilly in time for MIX (By end of April). I'll let you know in this space when that is available for download! If you're unfamilliar with Short Cuts, here's O'Reilly description from their website:
Short Cuts are PDF documents that spotlight one specific topic, usually in fewer than 100 pages. Whether it's a first look at a brand new technology, a quick reference, or a thorough explanation of a narrow but crucial subject, Short Cuts bring you focused information in an easy-to-use, portable package.
There will be a new home for Silverlight launch on April 30th (for MIX). That site will be at http://silverlight.net. I assume it will be a new site ala asp.net, windowsforms.net, etc.
Note the .net part of the web address...I was confused last night when they launched the new name and noticed that http://silverlight.com was a .mac hosted web page. I wonder if they couldn't get the rights to the domain or they have something tricky up there sleeve.
Speaking tricky, I have talked with the team for months about lots of topics, including the training class I did for them some months back on Silverlight (WPF/E). I asked several times why the host object was called "aghost". They seemed to always avoid the question...now I know why. Mike Harsh explains that they had they name for months now and the "ag" in aghost was in reference to the chemical name for silver (AG). Tricky...
I am really glad to hear the the WPF/E has finally released the real name of the technology as "Silverlight". I think I will grow to like it...it is certaily an improvement over WPF/E. I am just glad it isn't something like "Windows Internet Multimedia Presentation System" like I feared.
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I've created a simple template for creating a new WPF/E template for Blend. Simply download the .zip file and extract it your Blend directory (usually c:\program files\microsoft expression\blend 1.0\). Once you do that you can "Add New Item..." and add a WPF/E Asset like so:
Let me know if you have any problems...
Mike Harsh has announced the availability of the new WPF/E samples that are compable with the February CTP of WPF/E. Three new samples are added, including the very cool Grand Piano sample that shows how the new keyboard handling is done. Check out the Grand Piano sample live here (use the bottom two rows of characters on the keyboard to play the piano).
