Silverlight websites

There are two types of Silverlight web sites that you can create in Visual
Studio 2008:
Ordinary HTML web site: In this case, the entry point to your Silverlight application is a basic HTML file that includes a Silverlight content region.
ASP.NET web site: In this case, Visual Studio creates two projects?one to contain the Silverlight application files, and one to hold the server-side ASP.NET web site that will be deployed alongside your Silverlight files.

The entry point to your Silverlight application can be an ordinary HTML file or an ASP.NET web form that also includes server-generated content.
No matter which option you choose, your Silverlight application will run the same way,the client browser will receive an HTML web page, that HTML page will include a Silverlight content region, and the Silverlight
code will run on the local computer, not the web server.
However, the ASP.NET web approach makes it easier to mix ASP.NET and Silverlight content.

ATTACHED PROPERTIES IN SILVERLIGHT

OVERVIEW OF SILVERLIGHT

MICROSOFT SILVERLIGHT

• Silverlight was formerly known as Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere.


• It is a fast and a strong competitor to Adobe Flash.


• It is a cross-browser, cross platform plug-in, a light-weight subset of XAML, which supports Ajax, Python, Ruby, etc., and helps develop Rich Internet Applications (RIA) , and enables a rich .NET development platform that runs in the browser.

Features:
Cross-platform: Developers can write Silverlight applications using any .NET language (including VB, C#, JavaScript, IronPython and IronRuby).

Cross-browser: It runs on all major browsers(IE, FireFox, Safari, etc).

• Silverlight 2 does not require the .NET Framework to be installed on a computer in order to run.
• Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Studio tool support that enables great developer / designer workflow and integration when building Silverlight applications.
• Silverlight enables the display of high-definition video files.
• Silverlight framework allows the developer to create impressive animation effects in less time.

Some of the important features:

WPF UI Framework: Silverlight 2 includes a rich WPF-based UI framework that makes building rich Web applications much easier. It includes a powerful graphics and animation engine, as well as rich support for higher-level UI capabilities like controls, layout management, data-binding, styles, and template skinning.

Rich Controls: Silverlight 2 includes a rich set of built-in controls that developers and designers can use to quickly build applications.

Rich Networking Support: Silverlight 2 includes rich networking support. It includes out of the box support for calling REST, WS*/SOAP, POX, RSS, and standard HTTP services.

Rich Base Class Library: Silverlight 2 includes a rich .NET base class library of functionality (collections, IO, generics, threading, globalization, XML, local storage, etc).

GRID

The Grid control is the most flexible layout panel and supports arranging controls in multi row and multi column layouts.
It is similar to HTML table.
You can use the Grid layout to create fixed or relative sized cells and you can place controls within a cell or have them span a cell.

CANVAS

• Simplest and basic layout.
• It provides the simple ability to absolutely position child elements.
• It is used as a container for other Silverlight controls.

Canvas control has three properties:

• The Left property represents the distance between the left side of a control and its parent container canvas.
• The top property represents the distance between top of a control and its parent container canvas.
• The Z-Index property represents the z-order of a control. that is it determines whether the control is in front of or behind another overlapping control.

RULES OF ANIMATION

1.You can set the initial state, final state and duration of the animation.Silverlight calculates the frame rate.
2.That means a Silverlight animation can do only one thing. Modify the values of a property over an interval of time.
3.For eg., the button , Width property uses the double data type. To animate in, you use the Double Animation class .If you want to modify the color that's used to paint the background of your canvas,you need to use the ColorAnimation class.

ANIMATION

• Animation allows you to create truly dynamic user interface.
• Animation are a core part of the Silverlight model that means you dont need to use timers and events handling code to put them into action.
• Silverlight animations is a scaled down version of the Windows Presentation Foundation animation system.