Apr 08 08

MIX is an annual conference for developers, designers and business professionals to learn all about the current and forthcoming technologies from Microsoft, particularly targeted at the Web and Web applications.

This years conference was held from March 5-7, 2008 in Las Vegas.

Sessions presented at MIX 08 can now be found at

http://sessions.visitmix.com/

together with those from previous years.

For Mix 08 there are a total of 89 presentations which are summarised in the following list:

Page 1

  • Accessing Windows Live Services via ATOM Publishing Protocol (APP)
  • Anatomy of a Dynamic SharePoint Website
  • Adding Instant Messaging To Any Site
  • Applications = Designers + Developers
  • Advanced Cross-Browser Layout with IE 8
  • Beneath the Surface: The Natural Experience Vision
  • Advanced Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): Generating More Site Traffic from Search.
  • Bring Your Data to Life with Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)

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Mar 08 06

Microsoft have provided the first Beta version of their toolkit for developing Silverlight applications with Visual Studio 2008.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E0BAE58E-9C0B-4090-A1DB-F134D9F095FD&displaylang=en

This package is an add-on to the RTM release of Visual Studio 2008 to provide tooling for Microsoft Silverlight 2 Beta 1. It provides a Silverlight project system for developing Silverlight applications using C# or Visual Basic.

This download will install the following:

  • Silverlight 2 Beta 1
  • Silverlight 2 SDK Beta 1
  • KB949325 for Visual Studio 2008
  • Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008

Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008 includes:

  • Visual Basic and C# Project templates
  • Intellisense and code generators for XAML
  • Debugging of Silverlight applications
  • Web reference support
  • Integration with Expression Blend

Oct 07 04

An easy to use 2D Physics engine, originally designed for the Microsoft XNA framework, is also available for Silverlight.

Side Note: Microsoft XNA is composed of industry-leading software, services, resources, and communities focused on enabling game developers to be successful on Microsoft gaming platforms.

Features provided by the Farseer Physics Engine include:

Collision

  • Support for Concave and Convex poygons
  • Multiple Collision geometries per body
  • Collision Categories For Complex Interaction Between Physics Objects
  • A Collision Callback Mechanism

Dynamics

  • Joints
    • Revolute Joint (body to body or fixed to world)
    • Angle Joint (body to body or fixed to world)
    • Slider (Prismatic) Joint
    • Pin (Distance) Joint
  • Force Controllers
    • Linear Spring
    • Angular Spring
    • Easy To Build Custom Force Controllers (Explosions, Steering Behaviors, etc.)

Full details are available from the project page at CodePlex

http://www.codeplex.com/FarseerPhysics

Details of the current release are available at

http://www.codeplex.com/FarseerPhysics/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=7066

A demo implementation is available from here

http://www.bluerosegames.com/farseersilverlightdemos/

Sep 07 29

A full description of what you need to do to add Silverlight to a web page is described in the Silverlight QuickStart Guide at

http://silverlight.net/quickstarts/silverlight10/FileSetup.aspx

I used the default Silverlight Project item in Visual Studio (Visual Studio 2008 beta 2 and Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Refresh) to generate the following example files which I’m calling a Silverlight Template.

Silverlight Template Files

TestPage.html is the main entry point for the web page.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns=“http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” >
<!– saved from url=(0014)about:internet –>
<head>
    <title>Silverlight Project Test Page </title>

    <script type=“text/javascript” src=“Silverlight.js”></script>
    <script type=“text/javascript” src=“TestPage.html.js”></script>
    <style type=“text/css”>
        .silverlightHost { width: 640px; height: 480px; }
    </style>
</head>

<body>
    <div id=“SilverlightControlHost” class=“silverlightHost” >
        <script type=“text/javascript”>
            createSilverlight();
        </script>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

It references Silverlight.js and TestPage.html.js and embeds the Silverlight control on the page.

Silverlight.js is a Javascript helper file that enables Silverlight content to be viewed on multiple platforms and handles everything from checking if the correct version of Silverlight is installed to ensuring that the control is inserted correctly. It is available from the Silverlight Software Development Kit (SDK) and copied into the project location when using Visual Studio.

TestPage.html.js is an auto-generated Javascript file which contains the function createSilverlight.

// JScript source code

//contains calls to silverlight.js, example below loads Page.xaml
function createSilverlight()
{
        Silverlight.createObjectEx({
                source: “Page.xaml”,
                parentElement: document.getElementById(“SilverlightControlHost”),
                id: “SilverlightControl”,
                properties: {
                        width: “100%”,
                        height: “100%”,
                        version: “1.1″,
                        enableHtmlAccess: “true”
                },
                events: {}
        });

        // Give the keyboard focus to the Silverlight control by default
    document.body.onload = function() {
      var silverlightControl = document.getElementById(‘SilverlightControl’);
      if (silverlightControl)
      silverlightControl.focus();
    }

}

The createSilverlight method is called to insert the Silverlight control onto the web page. If you want to insert more than one Silverlight control onto a web page there are instructions in the Silverlight QuickStart guide mentioned above or there is another approach described at

http://blog.paranoidferret.com/index.php/…/how-to-embed-silverlight-into-a-webpage/

And last, but not least, we have the XAML file which describes the content of the Silverlight control

<canvas x:Name=“parentCanvas”
        xmlns=“http://schemas.microsoft.com/client/2007″
        xmlns:x=“http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml”
        Loaded=“Page_Loaded”
        x:Class=“Silverlight_Template.Page;assembly=ClientBin/Silverlight_Template.dll”
        Width=“640″
        Height=“480″
        Background=“Black”
        >

</canvas>

This sample is using C# for the code behind so there is an associated DLL (created by building the project) which is located in the ClientBin sub-directory (relative the the HTML file not the XAML file).

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Sep 07 13

Michael Foord (known about the Python community as Fuzzyman) presented a session on Python in your Browser with Silverlight at the recent MIX:UK. His blog is available at

http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/weblog/

The presentation was made using the S5 slide show format

http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/

which is a format based on XHTML , CSS and JavaScript.

The presentation can be viewed at

http://www.voidspace.org.uk/ironpython/silverlight/pycon.html

Although I find it easier to view as a “normal” html page. This can be switched to from the slide version by selecting the 0 (zero) option from the bottom of the page (move your mouse to the bottom of the page and wait a few seconds for the options to appear).

IronPython is a Python compiler originally created by Jim Hugunin which runs on .NET and is now supported and developed by Microsoft.

To experiment with using IronPython in conjunction with Silverlight you can use the IronPython Web IDE sample created by Foord at

http://www.voidspace.org.uk/ironpython/webide/webide.html

Sep 07 13

I’ve been experimenting with Microsoft Silverlight for a few months now and have just returned from the MIX:UK conference held in London Sep 11-12 to a “sell-out” crowd of 500. This is a Microsoft sponsored event where people get the opportunity to learn more about new and forthcoming technologies.

I found the talks by Scott Guthrie of particular interest which helped to consolidate my understanding of the Silverlight technology

(btw, He also writes an interesting and useful blog at http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu)

He gave a number of talks at the conference, and makes the slides freely available. The slides can be obtained directly from Scotts Blog or from the following links

Building Silverlight Applications

silverlight_slides.zip

silverlight_samples.zip

and

Building ASP.NET 3.5 Applications with VS 2008
Building ASP.NET 3.5 Applications with VS 2008 (Part 1 and 2).

aspnet_slides.zip

northwind_sample.zip

Note: All samples are built using the current Silverlight 1.1 Alpha and VS 2008 Beta2 with the Silverlight Tools Alpha Installed.

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Aug 07 23

One of the more interesting applications using Silverlight to appear recently.

Tafiti, which means “do research” in Swahili, is an experimental search front-end from Microsoft, designed to help people use the Web for research projects that span multiple search queries and sessions by helping visualize, store, and share research results. Tafiti uses both Microsoft Silverlight and Live Search to explore the intersection of richer experiences on the Web and the increasing specialization of search.

Tafiti.png

If you already have Silverlight installed (or don’t mind installing it) find out more at

http://www.tafiti.com/

Apparently developed by a company called Jackson Fish

http://www.jacksonfish.com/

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