.Net C# ASP.NET SQL Server.....Resource blog: March 2008

Background

Code named as "WPF/E" which is Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere. Published as extension to WPF framework which is a new UI representation technology based on markup language called XAML.
WPF has a capability of rendering high quality graphics and media.
WPF has been structured in such a way that designers and developers can work independently and later integrate their work seamlessly.

Objective / Mission

To deliver platform which can be used to render Rich Interactive Applications (RIA) on client side in browsers similar to Flash but with much more capabilities.
To be browser and platform independent.
Lightweight so that it can be downloaded quickly.
Use the existing technologies to develop applications for this platform.
Ability to deliver rich media experiences.
Ability to get .net code downloaded in client browser and execute it within browser space without requiring .NET CLR on desktop.

Product / Support

Current browsers supported are Internet Explorer (versions 6.0 and 7.0), Firefox 2.0 and Safari on Windows and Mac.
Currently two different versions available 1.0 beta which supports XAML rendering engine and 1.1 alpha which supports executing managed code in browser.
Sdk is available for both the available versions and add-in is available for Visual Studio 2008 beta.
Plugin sizes for windows are : 1.0 beta is approx 1.4 MB and 1.1 alpha is approx 4 MB.

Implementation

Silverlight control is an ActiveX control for windows which includes a subset version of .NET CLR called Silverlight CLR.
Silverlight CLR is a subset of desktop CLR and based on Desktop CLR 2.0. It doesn't expose functionality like Remoting, File IO, CLR hosting etc.
While a process can host only one version of desktop CLR at one time, Silverlight CLR has been modified so that multiple CLR version can be hosted in Silverlight control.

Development

Development Tools available for developing Silverlight applications are : Expression Studio and Visual Studio 2008 Beta.
Silverlight based application mainly consists of XAML code for UI and .NET code for client side programming like validations. Silverlight application gets downloaded to client browser before execution.
Expression studio can be used for designing UI and generating XAML and Visual Studio for writing functional code.
Silverlight control and other code on a web page can talk to each other using DOM model. Like Javascript and ASP.NET code can talk to Silverlight based code and vice-versa.
Silverlight code can interact with client file system only through an isolated storage and a file upload control.

Resources

.Net C# ASP.NET SQL Server.....Resource blog