Silverlight / WPF - Explain Silverlight and XAML

Hi Friends,
         I dont have any idea about silverlight and XAML.

Silverlight:

1) What is meant by Silverlight?
2) What is the purpose of using Silverlight?
3) What are the things required to run and implement the Silverlight?

XAML:

1) What is the abbreviation of XAML?
2) What is the purpose of using XAML?
3) What are the things required to implement the XAML?

hi rama,

Hi check this articles:

HI

1. What is Microsoft Silverlight?

• Silverlight is a web based technology, launched by Microsoft in April 2007. Silverlight is considered as a competitor to Adobe's Flash.
• Silverlight is Microsoft's implementation of a cross-browser, cross-platform client framework that allows designers and developers to deliver Rich Internet Applications (RIA) embedded in Web pages.
• Silverlight is a browser plug-in approximately 6MB in size; it is client-side free software, with an easy and fast (less than 10 sec) one time installation available for any client side browser.
• It supports advanced data integration, multithreading, HD video using IIS Smooth Streaming, and built-in content protection. Silverlight enables online and offline applications for a broad range of business and consumer scenarios.
• One of the design goals of the Silverlight technology is to fill the gap between Windows applications and Web applications in terms of creating Graphical User Interfaces (GUI).
• Silverlight applications are run as client-side applications without the need to refresh the browser to update the UI. However, because of the built-in .NET framework, Silverlight applications can easily integrate with server-side controls and services. Using Silverlight's implementation of the .NET framework, developers can easily integrate existing libraries and code into Silverlight applications.

2. Why use Silverlight?

• Support for the .NET Framework – if you are already a .NET developer, it is easy to start programming on Silverlight.
• Support for managed code – you can write programs in your favorite language which .NET CLR supports like C#, VB.NET, dynamic languages (IronPython, IronRuby).
• Better development tools -Visual Studio 2010, Expression Blend.
• Large community-  More learning resources available compared to Flash.
• Integration with Enterprise based technologies like WPF, LINQ etc…
• Silverlight integrates the XAML declarative language with the .NET framework.
• It is a cross-browser, cross-platform technology which provides a consistent user experience everywhere it runs.
• The Silverlight plug-in installs in seconds, and leaves a very small footprint.
• After you install the plug-in, users no longer need to install anything on their workstations to run Silverlight applications. The applications are available to them from whatever browser they are accessing.
• It runs a client-side application that can read data and update the UI without interrupting the user by refreshing the whole page.
• It can run asynchronous communications with the server, allowing the UI to continue to function while waiting for the server response.
• It delivers rich video, audio, and graphics.

3) What are the things required to run and implement the Silverlight

The system requirements for Microsoft Silverlight and associated technologies are listed below.

Windows

• Operating System: Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP Service Pack 2
• Intel® Pentium® III 450MHz or faster processor (or equivalent)
• 128MB of RAM

Mac OS

• Operating System: Apple Mac OS X 10.4.8 or above
• Intel Core™ Duo 1.83GHz or faster processor
• 128MB of RAM

Linux

• Moonlight

Hi

1)What is the abbreviation of XAML?

XAML-Extensible Application Markup Language

XAML (pronounced as Zammel) is a declarative XML-based language by which you can define object and properties in XML. XAML document is loaded by a XAML parser. XAML parser instantiates objects and set their properties. XAML describes objects, properties and there relation in between them. Using XAML, you can create any kind of objects that means graphical or non-graphical. WPF parses the XAML document and instantiates the objects and creates the relation as defined by XAML.
So XAML is a XML document which defines objects and properties and WPF loads this document in actual memory.
 

 2)

      Why Use XAML?

• XAML allows the programmer to separate the user interface (UI) definition from the underlying business logic.
• XAML, since it is parsed, offers the possibility that a single UI definition can be used on different platforms
• XAML allows the user to edit the presentation layer (not necessarily directly, but with a simple tool) without requiring the usual development tools or programming knowledge

3)

   What Tools Are Available?

Laszlo

Laszlo provides a Laszlo Presentation Server that compiles the XML and JavaScript into a bytecode format supported by a Flash Player. It appears that the actual XML is edited using a text editor.

Microsoft

Microsoft does not provide any designers but has released a Community Technology Preview (CTP) edition of Avalon usable on WinXP SP2 with the VS2005 beta 1 release.

Mobiform

From their website (this seemed an excellent description): "Mobiform has an visual XML Editor (Aurora) that can produce XAML documents..., a Browser (Corona) that can read and render Avalon XAML documents, and .NET user controls for using XAML and Avalon in your .NET Programs." There are also alpha builds of their 3D builder and viewer.

MyXaml

MyXaml has a Visual Studio plug-in and a stand-alone form designer. MyXaml also provides a Lint utility to edit, validate and view the UI. For 2D VG, MyXaml relies on the full featured VG designer from VG.net.

Xamlon

Xamlon has a Visual Studio plug-in and a stand-alone Xaml-Pad editor but no VG designer.

Hope this information helps you..

To start with if you are aware of Flash which has all the rich looks and UI aspects that decorate a website and provide easy and ready made controls for creating webapps on the fly. Somthing that .NET applications were missing since long time. That is were WPF/Silverlight has been brought into picture the former as a sort of replacement for windows applications and the later for web based Rich Internet Applications.

Silverlight is a plugin for  powerful development platform for creating engaging, interactive user experiences for Web, desktop, and mobile applications when online or offline. Silverlight is a free plug-in, powered by the .NET framework and compatible with multiple browsers, devices and operating systems, bringing a new level of interactivity wherever the Web works

XAML is an XML-based syntax for separating user interface definition from program logic code. Put another way, XAML is a declarative syntax that provides user interface control while relegating programmatic functionality and application logic to "code behind" files that use structured languages.

With XAML developers can quickly create and easily modify Windows application interfaces. Markup development is fast. It requires less code and results in fewer bugs than traditional structured programming. The separation of user interface code from application logic provided by the XAML model means that programmers can easily modify interfaces without changing the underlying application code. The interface/logic separation also protects code; changes to the user interface cannot introduce new bugs into the application logic.

The following example shows how you might create a button as part of a UI.

<StackPanel>
  <Button Background="Blue" Foreground="Red" Content="This is a button"/>
</StackPanel>

What is Silver Light?

Microsoft's Silverlight technology, launched at the NAB conference two weeks ago and pitched hard to developers at the Mix '07 conference this week, is being taken as a competitor to Adobe's Flash. Since it is a framework for providing rich applications to the Internet browser, it is indeed that. But though Silverlight and Flash are competing technologies, Microsoft's offering is different from Adobe's in key ways.

More than just a platform

Silverlight is being pushed side-by-side with Microsoft's Live services for developers. Microsoft is opening up APIs (application program interfaces) for its search engine, for Virtual Earth, for its instant messaging service, and for other services, under generous, but not unlimited, licensing terms. These services will allow the creation of interesting online applications that take advantage of existing Microsoft networks and resources. For example, Match.com today demoed a new version of its service that can connect directly to other Match.com subscribers who are MSN Messenger users. Mash-ups are nothing new, of course, but it is important that Microsoft is giving developers access to its computing resources as well as its user base.

Silverlight supports the display of high-definition video files, and importantly, Microsoft will do the heavy lifting of sending them over the Net. Streaming large media files is expensive, but Microsoft will (optionally) host Silverlight media files and applications. This will enable smaller developers to deliver large and high-definition files quickly and reliably, without paying content distribution network fees. Microsoft is promising reliable 700kbps throughput for media files, and free distribution of all content on its network for one year. After that, distribution will continue to be free up to 1 million streamed minutes a month. Fees after that have not been set.

Also, Silverlight applications are delivered to a browser in a text-based markup language called XAML. That's no big deal for Web users once they land on a site. But search engines, like Google, can scan XAML. They can't dive into compiled Flash applications. Flash-heavy sites do often wrap their applications in Web code that search engines can crawl, although it's extra work for developers and designers to do it, and may not yield search results that are as good as they would be if the search engine was indexing the actual application instead of keywords tacked on after the fact. Silverlight applications will be more findable.

One thing Silverlight isn't though, is a competitor to Apollo (hands-on), Adobe's technology that lets developers take their online applications and make them into standalone desktop apps. Apollo developers will be able to take advantage of capabilities that make applications behave properly whether they are online or not. Silverlight does not yet offer those capabilities, although I heard that apps written in Silverlight will be able to modify the "chrome" or basic user interface of a browser while they are running, to further obscure the difference between a browser-based app and traditional software.