Rants Tagged with “Silverlight”
I've been contacted by a couple of potential customers about how the AIR story compete with Silverlight. This has also come up at several talk i've done recently. I am not an Adobe or Flash guy so I may be the wrong one to broach the subject, but it feels like they are not necessary competing. In a large way it feels like Microsoft is trying to get into the web space and compete for RIA, whereas AIR seems to be attempting to get onto the desktop.
From my casual observation, AIR is solution looking for a problem. AIR in some ways is the second attempt by Flash to get on the desktop but the last time they tried this it was a bad experience for users. I am not sure this is true now as the web is the real story IMHO. In fact, AIR seems poised to fight with Java (write-once, run-anywhere) and Google Gears (write for the web, run it offline). I don't know that Silverlight is a competitor here (though you never know what MS has in store for us at MIX next week).
AIR and Flex seem to be gunning for WPF or XBAP in the Microsoft world but not Silverlight.
Where do you think it fits?
My new article is now up on TechTarget's SearchWinDevelopment site. This article will walk you though creating your first Silverlight 1.0 project from scratch including preparing your machine. Enjoy.
Scott Guthrie and Tim Heuer have put together an eight-part tutorial on Silverlight 2.0! The bits are not available yet, but if you're intrested in what is coming in the new version, spend some time looking at this good tutorial.
I am speaking at the Alabama Code Camp tomorrow and I will be talking through many of the same features, but I can't demo any of it. You'll just have to join me at MIX if you want to see it working!
Here are the links:
Scott Guthrie's Blog - First Look at Silverlight 2.0
Enjoy!
My apologies but due to circumstances out of my control, I have had to cancel my "A Taste of Silverlight" event in Dallas. The event will be rescheduled. Watch here for the announcement of the rescheduling once we have confirmed a date.
I didn't realize that Moonlight had created prepackaged installs already. If you want to try out Moonlight (and you're running Linux of course), check out these builds. Note that they builds do not have any Multimedia support (no video codecs or audio support, though they are working on it).
Its been a crazy weekend. I've moved into my new servers at MaximumASP and I could not be happier. On the new server, I have full control over the box so I can make it work the way it should have. In the old system, I was doing all sort of re-routing tricks to host 8 sites under a single web site. It was a nightmare that made it difficult to use new technology (e.g. if the root site was using AJAX 1.0, I couldn't have one of the sub sites use 3.5). All that is over and hopefully you will see some new stuff on this site soon! .
Here comes the favor...there is likely some parts of the site that do not work as they did on the other server because I missed a file or two in the transfer...if you see anything that should work that doesn't, please email me at shawn@wildermuth.com.
One thing I noticed was that when using the VS 2008 Publish function, some files were inexplicably not transferred. It may have been the "Content" type or the Silverlight links in some of the project...I don't know. But I've attempted to find all the holes that the "Publish"'s missed but I could have skipped something.
Lastly, this new server has come at the kindness of Maximum ASP. They have graciously offered to give me a machine at a discount for my community sites including this one, GeekDinners.com, SilverlightData.com and SilverlightGuy.com (not all of these are active yet).
Last note: GeekDinners.com is almost fully functional. Look for an announcement this week when you can register your own GeekDinners and schedule event nights!
Wow, after only 24 hours, the Dallas "A Taste of Silverlight" is already getting full. If you want to attend, please register now. As of 6pm EST, there were only 14 seats (out of 32) left!
The Silverlight Tour is proud to announce "A Taste of Silverlight" to be held on February 18, 2008 in Dallas, TX. Shawn Wildermuth is bringing his Silverlight chops to Dallas to discuss the big picture of Silverlight and answer the following questions:
- Why should I care about Silverlight
- What is Silverlight?
- When should I use Silverlight?
- What is the Silverlight story on the Server?
- How do developers and designers work together?
This event takes place in the afternoon of February 18th (starting at 1pm) at the Microsoft Office in Dallas.
There are only 32 seats available for this free event so sign up early! You can see event details and register at www.silverlight-tour.com/freesignup.aspx.
I've gotten the question a number of times about problems getting intellisense with Visual Studio 2008. If your XAML looks like this in Visual Studio 2008 then I can help you:
The problem stems from the fact that VS2008 wants to open .xaml files in the WPF Designer. Instead you can get intellisense and a better-faster experience if you open your Silverlight XAML files in the XML Editor. Most people assume that the intellisense is the lack of the Silverlight XSD file in the installation, but in fact VS2008 includes the Silverlight XSD document (but is unaptly named WPFE.XSD). To solve the problem of opening the file in th wrong editor, right click your XAML file in the solution explorer and pick "Open With..." (see right).
Once that dialog is open, you can pick the "XML Editor" and it will open the file with full intellisense. I usually click the "Set Default" button as well to always open XAML files (for both WPF and Silverlight) in the XML editor. I use Blend to edit these files and I am not a big fan of the built-in editor (as it seems to be designed mostly for Windows Forms developers to create simple experiences. You can see the "Open With..." dialog below:
Let me know if you have any questions!
I've written a quick example of a Google Gadget. There is nothing really special about it as its hosted in an IFrame so that I could get at local assets (like my RSS feed) to the Gadget. It isn't a lot to look at, but if anyone is interested in the process or want to add it to their iGoogle page, feel free. Here's the Gadget in action:
UPDATE: The BrowserHttpWebRequest doesn't look like it works right in Firefox (though the control does render). I'll have to look into it, but I think it may be a bug (since I am using Silverlight 1.1 in this case).
ANOTHER UPDATE: Should be working for Firefox now. I found an oddity I am still trying to work out.
