Silverlight is a lightweight but powerful plug-in for multiple web browsers on multiple operating systems that makes it easier than ever to create rich web-based content, applications, and controls. With support for vector graphics, animations, full-screen high-definition video, and more, Silverlight gives you the ability to create more compelling content than you dreamed possible for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Silverlight provides much of the power of Windows Presentation Foundation, but with less overhead and easy integration with HTML and AJAX-style applications. Silverlight 1.0 Unleashed is the authoritative book that covers the technology in a practical and approachable fashion, authored by Silverlight guru and Microsoft developer Adam Nathan.

* Covers everything you need to know about Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) in Silverlight
* Examines the Silverlight feature areas in depth: graphics, text, audio, video, animation, ink, events, and more
* Demonstrates how to create reusable controls and perform common tasks (such as drag-and-drop) using basic building blocks
* Explains how to download assets asynchronously to maximize your user experience
* Demonstrates how to create hybrid applications that mix Silverlight content with HTML or Flash content
* Highlights features scheduled for future versions of Silverlight while showing how to achieve your desired results with the current version

Silverlight–the hot new web technology based on the powerful WPF graphics platform that ships with Windows Vista–is the web developer’s choice for creating cross-platform interactive applications that work in multiple browsers. This one-of-a-kindreference shows you, with full-color illustrations, how to create rich interactive apps with Silverlight.

In these color-filled pages, a crack team of Wrox experts gives you a comprehensive introduction to Silverlight. You’ll see the vivid graphics and video images you can achieve. You will learn to use the component languages, tools, and techniques of Silverlight to create applications that enhance the user experience. You’ll also discover how to leverage existing technologies, such as JavaScript(r), XAML, ASP.NET, and AJAX, and incorporate them with development tools like Visual Studio(r), Expression(r) Encoder, and Expression Blend. Soon you’ll be building everything from basic static pages to Internet applications that integrate rich media and animation.

What you will learn from this book

* Easy ways to incorporate graphics, animation, audio, and video into Internet applications
* Methods for creating rich media apps that run on Windows(r) and Mac(r), as well as in Internet Explorer, Firefox(r), and Safari
* How to write standard JavaScript within an HTML page to manipulate and program against any XAML DOM element, storyline animation, or video
* Ways to integrate Silverlight within existing HTML pages, web sites, and ASP.NET applications
* How to handle data access in Silverlight applications using AJAX

Who this book is for

This book is for professional web developers who want to take advantage of Silverlight’s capabilities to create rich interactive applications.

Get a first look at Microsoft Silverlight with this practical introduction. This ideal reference delivers pragmatic advice, from in an insider s perspective, of how the tool was developed from concept to release. An expert on Silverlight and a Technical Evangelist on the Silverlight team delivers a first look at the new cross-platform, cross-browser plug-in and details the relationships among Silverlight and Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5 technologies. Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) are Web applications that have the features and functionality of full desktop applications. Processing tasks are performed on the client, but data is stored on the server, allowing a much richer experience. With Silverlight, RIAs install quickly via a small, on-demand plug-in. This book shows how the first release of Silverlight will help simplify development and deployment of RIAs. Includes a companion Web site with code samples in Visual C# and Visual Basic.

Key Book Benefits

Delivers practical advice, grounded in an insider s view of how the tool was developed from concept (Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere) to release

Provides context about the relationships among Silverlight and the various .NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5 technologies

Places RIAs in context for Web and Windows® developers

Features a companion Web site with code samples in Visual C# and Visual Basic

Microsoft Silverlight allows you to create rich multimedia interfaces with the power and flexibility of Flash, but with the extensibility and the great tools that .NET offers. With Silverlight and ASP.NET Revealed, you’ll learn to use Microsoft’s Silverlight technology in conjunction with ASP.NET and Visual Studio 2008 (codename Orcas). You will ultimately incorporate Silverlight into an ASP.NET web site and use the ASP.NET controls that render Silverlight content. But you’ll also get the basics of Silverlight, too, making this book a must-read for any web developer curious about Silverlight.

Silverlight and ASP.NET Revealed assumes a deep knowledge of ASP.NET, but no knowledge of Silverlight.

Beginning Web Development, Silverlight, and ASP.NET AJAX: From Novice to Professional aims to give you the skills you need to start building web applications with Microsoft’s next–generation technology as quickly as possible. Whether you’re interested in ASP.NET AJAX, Silverlight, or the technologies that support them (WPF, WCF, WF, etc.), this book is the starting point that you need.

It adopts a “zero to hero” approach that concentrates on achieving practical results you can use in real projects rather than presenting a deep academic treatment that can’t be immediately applied.

The aim is to give you, the reader, the knowledge you need to achieve the results you want with the minimum of fuss. When you’ve read this book, you’ll have a solid understand of all the techniques that are available, when to use them, and their relative strengths and weaknesses.

What you’ll learn

• Create next–generation web applications quickly and easily!
• Manipulate data, display information, and communicate with other services using the latest ASP.NET techniques and best practices.
• Discover how the .NET 3.0 extensions (WPF, WCF, and WF) can make your web applications faster, more efficient, and easier to code than ever.
• Understand how ASP.NET AJAX and Silverlight can be integrated into your ASP.NET websites in order to provide a cutting–edge user interface for your applications and the implications that such interfaces can have.

Design rich Internet applications (RIAs) for the Web using Silverlight 2, the latest version of Microsoft’s hot new runtime application — without waiting for the official release. With this unique new book, you not only get a concise, easy-to-understand introduction to Silverlight 2, but thorough coverage of the CTPs, betas, and RTM releases as they become available. Once you buy the book, you’ll be able to download free PDFs of all the revisions to Silverlight that you can print and insert right into the book’s unique binder format. Pre-printed updates will also be available for purchase.

Now you can design rich Internet applications (RIAs) for the Web using Silverlight 2, the latest version of Microsoft’s hot new runtime application — without waiting for the official release. That’s right. With Essential Silverlight 2 Up-to-Date, you not only get a concise, easy-to-understand introduction to Silverlight 2, but thorough coverage of the CTPs, betas, and RTM releases as they become available.
Once you buy this Up-to-Date edition, you’ll be able to download free PDFs of all the revisions to Silverlight — pages that you can print and insert right into the book’s unique binder format. Pre-printed updates will also be available for purchase. It combines the the speed of technology with convenience of a book.

With Essential Silverlight 2 Up-to-Date, you learn to take advantage of Microsoft’s cross-browser Silverlight plug-in with tools for animation, vector graphics, and video playback, as well as new .NET support for web services, networking and LINQ (language integrated query). This guide gives you complete step-by-step instructions for using everything Silverlight has to offer, along with:

• Clever ways to create interactive UIs that are more robust and easier to debug and test than what you can achieve on other platforms
• Scores of tested JavaScript and C# code examples that you can reuse in your own applications
• Expert guidance from an author who understands RIA technologies, including ASP.NET, Flash, PHP, and JavaScript

Ready to deliver a more complete Web experience? Now there’s no reason to wait. Essential Silverlight 2 Up to Date offers a whole new world of possibilities.

In this book, you’ll:

• Learn the Blend 2 and Visual Studio 2008 development environments
• Create designs using Blend 2′s unique tools
• Use XAML and C# to add interactivity to your designs
• Publish your Rich Media Applications to the Web using Silverlight

The only real tool available for creating Rich Media Applications, web-based animations, and games has been Flash‚ until now! WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) and Silverlight have opened the door of Rich Media Application development to Microsoft .NET developers. With Microsoft’s new Blend 2 and Visual Studio 2008, you can now create compelling Rich Media Applications complete with animations and even 3D! This book shows you how to take full advantage of Blend’s new interface, together with and Silverlight’s vastly improved designer-developer workflow, guiding you through every step of development from downloading and installing of the development environment through creating finished, functional projects. You’ll learn how to create simple drawing applications with the InkCanvas, make tabbed and scrollable interfaces, as well as build fully featured media players, photo galleries, and interactive 3D designs. Each chapter discusses major WPF and Silverlight features, provides a hands-on tutorial, and explains how that feature is implemented in the real world. In the end, you will have a collection of impressive WPF and Silverlight applications that can be added to your portfolio. Whether you’re an experienced .NET or web developer, or you’re just starting out, this book will provide you with all you need to create Rich Media Applications with Expression Blend 2.

InnerWorkings .NET Training provides practical, self-paced training for .NET developers. Using hands-on coding challenges, you learn about key .NET techniques in a realistic learning environment.

With this sample, you get one hour of FREE hands-on learning material on programming Silverlight 2. In the first task, you will learn how to use the new MediaPlayer ASP.NET control for Silverlight to display video in a Web application. In the second task, you’ll learn how to bind simple data values to XAML elements and implement one-way data binding on a custom class.

All the material is fully integrated with the Visual Studio environment and is ready for you to use right away. As the offer is available for a limited time only, why not check it out today!

Microsoft describes Silverlight as a “cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.” That’s a really boring description for a really exciting new technology. Anyone who has looked at the demos and gotten a taste of what Silverlight can do knows that Silverlight represents an entirely new level of rich web interface technology for Microsoft developers. With Silverlight 2, developers can use JavaScript, VB, C#, Python, and Ruby to build user-friendly, interactive, and visually-dazzling web applications that work in most major browsers.

Silverlight 2 in Action is the first book to cover Silverlight 2, a far more robust implementation of Silverlight than the current 1 release that supports only JavaScript. The much-anticipated 2 release adds powerful new features along with the ability to code in multiple languages and integrate your work with Visual Studio and the new Expression suite of tools. This book delivers real-world examples and in-depth walkthroughs to help you confidently enhance your web applications using Silverlight

Silverlight is a lightweight browser plug–in that frees your code from the traditional confines of the browser. It is a rules–changing, groundbreaking technology that allows you to run rich client applications right inside the browser. Even more impressively, it is able to host true .NET applications in non–Microsoft browsers (like Firefox) and on non–Microsoft platforms (like Mac OS X). Silverlight is still new and evolving fast, and you need a reliable guidebook to make sense of it.