What is Microsoft Silverlight?

Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform technology for implementation on the .NET Framework, and is purportedly intended to deliver stunningly rich internet applications and visually stimulating media experiences. Operational virtually on all of the popular browsers, its plug-in is pretty light-weight and easily deployable. Essentially a combination of technologies on a single platter, it allows developers to pick and choose tools and languages for development. Interestingly, it complements and gels seamlessly with existing ASP.NET AJAX code as well as JavaScript to enhance the application’s inherent properties and functionalities. In many ways, it is a dazzling answer to Adobe Flash or even to that of Sun’s JavaFX. Versions 1.0 and 2.0 (earlier referred to as 1.1) are the two major releases till date.

The first release consisted of the core presentation framework, responsible for generation of the rich user interfaces, interactivity, user inputs and basic user interface controls, graphics, animation and media playback, DRM support, with DOM API integration. It has inherent support for MP3/WMA audio as well as VC-1/WMV video formats and optionally supports built-in media streaming. It has the ability to download and play audio-visual media content from any web server, progressively. It not only provides for blending of vector graphics and HTML to create persuasive content experiences but also assists in throwing up gorgeous user interfaces, animation and rich interactive video player experiences. 

The version 2.0 takes the experience a few notches up. Much to delight of the Silverlight developers this version comes with the complete CLR (.NET Framework 3.0), with the facility to host multiple instances of the CLR in a single process, and has this uncanny ability, built-in, to execute any of the .NET languages including C# and VB.NET. With these benefits, the associated XAML files, containing the programming logic, could easily be augmented by code-behind code, written in a choice of .NET languages. The super-strong CLR engine drives high-performance execution on browsers. This version comes with a plethora of user interface controls including CheckBox, TextBox, ScrollViewer, Slider, DataGrid, ListBox, StackPanel, grid, etc. – not less than atleast thirty of various UI, data-binding support, layout management and data management skinnable, encapsulated, template-driven controls. The rich library of built-in classes associated with the framework, with its support for Windows Phone Foundation user interface programming model, makes it one of the most potent technologies for developing superior web browser-based and SmartPhone applications. The Deep Zoom feature on the latest version allows smooth zooming in-and-out of images using the user’s mouse wheel. The amazing scaling up-and-down range, from megapixels to a few gigapixels, is optimised and managed efficiently by the technology feature. The Version 2.0 allows limited ‘filesystem’ access, using the operating systems’ native file dialogue box. In fact it does not mandatorily require ASP.NET to be deployed and utlised on the web-server and can easily leverage Linux or even PHP, if Silverlight programmers intended or required it to. 

Microsoft Silverlight 2.0, in association with Visual Studio 8.0 empowers programmers to produce striking applications on any browser or operating system. Developers can finally focus on the back-end application core without bothering about the visuals those could simultaneously be taken care of by the graphic designers using the power of XAML. Licensing is pretty simple while developers can pull weight of the powerful CLR to use Ruby, Python or even EcmaScript, etc., leveraging the .NET Framework! Dramatic improvement in browsing and operational speed on AJAX-enabled websites makes Silverlight development such a craze amongst the global developer community. No wonder this emerging cross-platform / cross-browser technology promises to throw-up tons of promises and opportunities ensuring enriching client experiences.