John Papa

ScottGu Announces Silverlight 2 Due Out Tomorrow

John Papa -

Today Scott Guthrie of Microsoft announced the release of Silverlight 2 is coming tomorrow, Tuesday October 14th. I’ll be updating all of my book’s code samples to the Silverlight 2 RTW version. I expect very few issues other than a few styling changes I know of already from  Beta 2. There were many good questions after the live conference call today. I paraphrased some of these below.

Disclaimer: For those of you who caught the call too, please let me know if I made any mistakes below … I was typing like mad while listening. Any typos are purely unintentional.

  • What’s up for Silverlight 3?
    • No announcements made today on this. But they did say they are very happy with the direction.
  • How do they feel about the current 1 in 4 market penetration of Silverlight?
    • They are very happy about having 1 in 4 with Silverlight 2 just coming out. No earth shattering specifics about how to increase it were announced though.
  • If a developer has been in another environment his/her whole life, how will Microsoft offer tools for this person to jump over the bridge to develop with Silverlight?
    • They are trying to make the Expression suite an easy jump to people familiar with client development. Visual Studio should be familiar to developers who are expecting similar tooling. Basically, they said they expect one of the 2 should help make the transition for new developers.
    • Silverlight tooling requires features only in VS 2008. But VS Web Dev Express is free, though.
  • How is Silverlight 2 helping cross platform development of .NET apps?
    • Trying to gear it to developers who want to build a variety of applications: media rich, data entry, line of business, etc.
    • New Silverlight controls toolkit is coming out later this quarter. More controls will come after this point, too.
  • Are you going to support mobile?
    • They are committed to bringing Silverlight to mobile devices.
    • Working with some partners (no specific announcements on this yet)
  • What are the changes between release candidate RC0 and the final release?
    • RC0 was a developer only release (no Silverlight client available for it).
    • Purpose of RC0 was to get developers to convert their beta 2 apps to RC0 to be ready for RTW
    • No API nor behavior changes from RC) to RTW
  • Offline support for Silverlight 2?
    • Silverlight 2 supports supports isolated storage and supports cached data on the client
    • Typically Silverlight 2 focuses on browser apps, which are mostly online
  • Will all users of SIlverlight 1.1 be upgraded to Silverlight 2
    • If you are an end user who installed Silverlight, by default they will auto upgrade you to the next release.
    • They also support a packaged deployment model via WSUS which allows an administrator to control when a new version or patch is deployed.
  • When will full release for Linux be available?
    • Sometime soon, but no roadmap dates
  • Any conversations with Apple regarding iPhone or Google with Chrome?
    • They have talked with Apple and are interested in running on the iPhone. They said Apple says today at this time this is not an option (regarding 3rd party plug ins like Silverlight or Flash).
    • The latest Google Chrome developer release supports Silverlight (the first release had problems with Silverlight).


 

Here are some of the highlights, from their press release:

  • .NET Framework support with a rich base class library. This is a compatible subset of the full .NET Framework.
  • Powerful built-in controls. These include DataGrid, ListBox, Slider, ScrollViewer, Calendar controls and more.
  • Advanced skinning and templating support. This makes it easy to customize the look and feel of an application.
  • Deep zoom. This enables unparalleled interactivity and navigation of ultrahigh resolution imagery.
  • Comprehensive networking support. Out-of-the-box support allows calling REST, WS*/SOAP, POX, RSS and standard HTTP services, enabling users to create applications that easily integrate with existing back-end systems.
  • Expanded .NET Framework language support. Unlike other runtimes, Silverlight 2 supports a variety of programming languages, including Visual Basic, C#, JavaScript, IronPython and IronRuby, making it easier for developers already familiar with one of these languages to repurpose their existing skill sets.
  • Advanced content protection. This now includes Silverlight DRM, powered by PlayReady, offering robust content protection for connected Silverlight experiences.
  • Improved server scalability and expanded advertiser support. This includes new streaming and progressive download capabilities, superior search engine optimization techniques, and next-generation in-stream advertising support.
  • Vibrant partner ecosystem. Visual Studio Industry Partners such as ComponentOne LLC, Infragistics Inc. and Telerik Inc. are providing products that further enhance developer capabilities when creating Silverlight applications using Visual Studio.
  • Cross-platform and cross-browser support. This includes support for Mac, Windows and Linux in Firefox, Safari and Windows Internet Explorer.