imageSilverlight 5 was released to the web yesterday, finalizing the feature list that many of us have been tinkering with in 2011. I’m excited that a product I had a very small part in shaping is now out. The team members are amazing and did a fantastic job amidst unusual circumstances over the past year, and I applaud them all. Fantastic job Silverlight crew!

The question many have already asked me is if they should install this release. If you are a Silverlight dev, then absolutely you should install this! There are a ton of great features in here and the backwards compat is solid., as usual

# Download Silverlight

You can download Silverlight 5  from this page. Instructions are a bit unclear, but most developers should certainly should install the Silverlight5 Tools download which includes the Silverlight SDK, Silverlight tooling for Visual Studio 2010, and Silverlight Developer Runtime itself.

# Other downloads I recommend

You most certainly will want to install the Expressions Blend 5 Preview, too, if you do any Blend work … which I highly recommend for Silverlight dev’s. You may also want to install the latest versions of RIA Services, the toolkit, and/or Mac runtime for Silverlight.

 

# Summary of the features

(from the Silverlight 5 download package)

# Improved media support

  • Low Latency Audio Playback
  • Variable Speed Playback
  • H/W Decode of H.264 media
  • DRM Key Rotation/LiveTV Playback
  • Application-Restricted Media

# Improved Text support

  • Text Tracking & Leading
  • Linked Text Containers
  • OpenType and Pixel Snapped Text
  • Postscript vector printing
  • Performance improvements for Block Layout Engine.

# Building next-generation business applications

  • PivotViewer
  • ClickCount
  • Listbox/ComboBox type-ahead text searching
  • Ancestor RelativeSource Binding
  • Implicit DataTemplates
  • DataContextChanged event
  • Added PropertyChanged to the UpdateSourceTrigger enum
  • Save File and Open File Dialog
  • Databinding Debugging
  • Custom Markup Extensions
  • Binding on Style Setters

# Silverlight 5 performance improvements

  • Parser Performance Improvements
  • Network Latency Improvements
  • H/W accelerated rendering in IE9 windowless mode
  • Multicore JIT
  • 64-bit browser support

# Graphics improvements

  • Improved Graphics stack
  • 3D

# "Trusted Application" model

  • Multiple window support
  • Full-Trust in-browser
  • In-browser HTML support
  • Unrestricted File System Access
  • P/Invoke support

# Tools improvements

  • Visual Studio Team Test support