Silverlight 4 is the next generation of the fledgling RIA (Rich Internet Application) framework from Microsoft. Building on Microsoft’s proven track record of solid data layer and fantastic base tools, Silverlight itself was intended as a business-class framework to compete with flash in the RIA space. What had let it down in the past was highly restricted security stopping the development of business application. Silverlight 4 overcomes this with a new security layer allowing a user to opt-in to certain security-restricted features such as printer support and webcam and microphone.
The framework is merging more and more with Microsoft’s other rich application framework, WPF, so the lines between internet application and desktop application are becoming blurred. Indeed, a Silverlight 4 application can be downloaded from a website, installed to a desktop application and run as if it was a fully trusted application with access to your local files and network services. Sounds scary? Well there are a fair few hoops to jump through to get this working but it only speaks volumes for Microsoft’s security-conscious values and not wanting to cause headache for even the least savvy of users.
2010 saw a new version of Microsoft’s Rich Internet Application framework; Silverlight 4. A cross-browser application environment, Silverlight marries high-end visuals and animation with highly-available robust data access which can serve the next generation Line of Business applications.
Going head-to-head with Adobe’s suite of RIA tools, Silverlight is the ‘programmers’ Flash, building on Microsoft’s tried and tested data layers and adding snazzy looking front-end components via an XML-based mark-up language caller XAML.
With a new release every year since 2007, each offering more and more in terms of deliverable, Silverlight 4 is no exception. Here is a brief summary of new and extended functionality
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- Mac runtime now supports FireFox, Safari and Chrome
- Windows support for Internet Explorer, Firefox and chrome
- Out-of-browser
- Run web apps from your desktop, no need to open the web browser
- Allow extra privileges in certain circumstances
- Desktop support
- Printing from within the browser
- Webcam and Microphone (Out-Of-Browser only due to security)
- Inbuilt support for Mouse wheels
- Support for Office apps
- Excel
- Word
- Outlook
- Better Full screen support
- You can now interact with the keyboard when an application is running full scrren
- If you have multiple monitors, you can now interact with other application on other monitors with monitor targeting
- Richer controls
- Rich text box
- HTML browser
Silverlight 4 also opens up another type of application; Trusted applications. Blurring the lines between web and desktop, Trusted application can be installed from a website and be grated enough access to emulate a full-blown desktop application with rights to access local files (My documents/music/video/pictures), access to local network resources, live web resources without the need to add a cross-domain policy file as happens with current in-browser Silverlight applications. To bring it in line with desktop applications, you can even pop those little system message that appear when you get an email, but these can contain custom Silverlight controls, from simple labels to complex animations
To top it off, there’s multi-targeting support from with the new Visual Studio 2010 so you can target the new Silverlight 4 runtime, or drop back to Silverlight 3 if you really must. A new version of the XAML design tool, Blend. Version 4 of Blend offer much more than its predecessors in terms of databinding, service calls and the like. Triggers are the next big thing in XAML so event fired by XAML code can now form the starting points of UI changes, theme updates, service calls, and Blend makes this possible without even writing a single line of code
More information and some very informative videos are available from the Microsoft techdays http://www.microsoft.com/uk/techdays/daydev.aspx