Scott Guthrie: Building a Silverlight 2 application

Posted By: Dan Fernandez | Oct 15th @ 10:49 AM

Note: Due to the screen resolution, we recommend you watch this in full screen mode or download the video.

Now that Silverlight 2 has released to the Web, we sat down with Scott Guthrie as he walks us through handcoding a basic Silverlight 2 application.

You'll see the Silverlight eventing model, controls and control databinding, how to reuse classes and C# 3.0 features, and how to call WCF Web services directly from Silveright.

For more information, visit www.silverlight.net

Tags: Silverlight 2, Windows Communication Foundation

Rating:

Views (56,268)

Comments (11)

Downloads

Devman
St. Joseph

I was very pleased to see (as mentioned in this video) that with the release of Silverlight 2, after installing it the user no longer has to close and relaunch their web browser as they had to do with the betas--well done!

One point of confusion for me is the Silverlight.js file: I am not using it and the beta 2 silverlight project I created didn't include it, but when I created a released silverlight 2 project, Visual Studio created this file and referenced it in the test html page it generated. Should I add this file as-is to my server files and include the reference to it in my html page?

Edit: I asked the above question on the silverlight.net forum and got an answer for it (in no time flat!).

Great job Microsoft team! Developing my game in silverlight was an excellent experience.

scottgu

In reply to Devman

#Oct 15th @ 11:56 AM

The Silverlight.js file is optional, but something we recommend adding to a page that hosts Silverlight. It includes automatic support to detect when Silverlight is installed for the first time, and handles automatically refreshing the HTML page and loading the content. You don't need to write any custom code to integrate these feaures - just adding the silverlight.js file to the page will do it.

Hope this helps,

Scott

spivonious

Great video. It really shows how easy Silverlight 2 is if you know your way around WPF. Assuming cross-platform support (Mac? Linux?) this is easily a Flash-killer.

One request though - can you please make a 64-bit Silverlight viewer? I don't like having to switch over to 32-bit IE7/8 when I come across a site that uses Flash or Silverlight.

eagle

In reply to scottgu

#Oct 15th @ 1:05 PM

Thanks for the video Scott and Dan.

I wish Silverlight could have been announced with a blog post and video for the community rather then the Microsoft PR Press release -Microsoft Releases Silverlight 2 on the 13th then Silverlight 2 Released on the 14th and now the video follows on the 15th

joechung

In reply to Devman

#Oct 15th @ 11:56 AM

Any ETA on the RTW version of the Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1? I've searched the Download Center and could only come up with the RC1 drop (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C22D6A7B-546F-4407-8EF6-D60C8EE221ED).

figuerres
???

In reply to joechung

#Oct 15th @ 2:40 PM

Joe: they are released, http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/

-- no I am wrong .... that does show an rc1 version.... but it is released 10/13 so it is the most current release.
so it is the one to use with the RTW bits of Silverlight and VS 08 SP1.

aL_
mm.. linq.. *arrggha*

cool stuff Smiley

got some questions though,
now that thr dlr and iron ruby/python is released (right?) how do you use it with regular apps? im pretty sure you can but i whould love to see some info on that

also, is silverlight really a compatible subset of wpf now? can i take my silverliht xaml and plop it into a desktop app and it will just work? how much stuff do i have to modify?

how about data/event triggers? i heard somewhere that silverlight didnt support all the trigger stuff that wpf supported, whats the difference there?

last one Smiley

, is the visual state manager availible in regular wpf? if not, will it?

Devman
St. Joseph

In reply to aL_

#Oct 16th @ 4:15 AM

Hi aL_,

Silverlight is in some ways a "compatible subset" of WPF, but in other ways it is not. You will most likely have to modify your XAML and backing code if they are of any complexity. The way you setup and run animations are different, data templates differ, many functions and properties available in WPF classes are not available in the corresponding Silverlight classes, etc.

I ported my Silverlight app (a game) to WPF and it took about 3 hours of fiddling. Going the other way (WPF to Silverlight) can be much more difficult because you may be using a feature of WPF that has no direct Silverlight equivalent and have to do a workaround.

I don't know the specifics about differences in triggers and the visual state manager availability. It would be great for Microsoft to publish a comprehensive diff of WPF classes/functions/properties and Silverlight. Right now the only way I know is to search MSDN for the WPF class then do the same with the Silverlight version and compare what is available, or use intellisense in the code!

BlackTiger
If you stumbled and fell down, it doesn't mean yet, that you're going in the wrong direction.

Very very good video! Clear and simple.