What is Microsoft Silverlight? - More New Silverlight 3 Features
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Elements in Silverlight 3 also now support element-to-element binding, which allows one element to be bound to the state of another element, as well as a validation mechanism for data binding. Unlike Silverlight 2, which allowed the applications to save files only to the local iso storage, Silverlight 3 applications can save to any location on the file system through the system Save File dialog.
Despite that improvement, it should be pointed out that the path where the file is saved will still be hidden from the Silverlight application. Also, any external assemblies used by Silverlight applications are cached too, so that they do not need to be downloaded again for subsequent uses of the application.
Silverlight 3 also includes a Local Connection API to communicate among multiple running applications on the same machine, no matter what network or browser is currently being used for network connectivity events. Microsoft’s new program also has the option of being able to use Binary XML to communicate with WCF services.
Microsoft’s very long laundry list of new Silverlight features isn’t quite done with yet. Silverlight 3 also supports Out-of-Browser experiences. This means that Silverlight applications can be installed on a system for offline access, provided the application manifest is designed to allow local installation outside the browser. In order to install applications offline, they must be launched using the Start Menu or desktop shortcuts and run without the browser window. These applications can check whether they are running inside a browser or not, and when running out of browser, HTML interop is disabled. Access to the Function Keys is also now enabled, but locally installed Silverlight applications still run in a sandbox. Lastly, installed Silverlight 3 applications automatically check for updates at every launchandupdates are automatically installed. Running instances of the applications are informed when updates are available.
It could be said that Silverlight is essentially nothing more than Microsoft's vision of a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in designed to be the source of rich online user experiences. It’s no surprise that Microsoft’s other intention may have been to dislodge Flash from its current dominant position on the market, and when the Redmond company said “cross-platform,” they indeed meant it. Silverlight, it seems, is the future, and is designed to deliver the next generation of .NET-based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.
Microsoft continues to present both new products and a new vision for how services and software will interoperate in the Microsoft and Silverlight ecosystems. Microsoft is providing not only the tools and software, but they are complementing it with new services from their Live division. Microsoft has also demonstrated today that their vision is for all browsers and all web users, not just users of Internet Explorer, which has been a common complaint. The new Silverlight, as previously mentioned, has been designed to perform with both Firefox and Safari, and also works with the Mac OSX platform. Basically, if you haven’t heard of Silverlight or haven’t used it, it’s time to get on board, because you’ll be seeing and hearing a lot more about it.
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