Overview

Silverlight is a new technology developed by Microsoft and initially released in 2007. Silverlight is a web application framework that provides functionality similar to Adobe Flash. It is compatible with multiple web browsers used on Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS X operating systems.

Silverlight has to be downloaded as a plug in for it to function with a web browser. The plug in is free and easy to download from http://silverlight.net. Silverlight is not ideally suited to general websites but it lends itself very well to web-applications.

Silverlight does not use HTML or Javascript, both of which are the primary development languages for websites, instead Silverlight uses a subset of Microsoft C#. This offers huge benefits for web-application development.

Web-applications can now be compiled and managed pre-compiled code libraries can be used. This cuts down development time and makes the web-applications much more robust.

What do SAnDS use Silverlight for?

Being one of the first adopters of Silverlight, we have significant experience in developing Silverlight application. More notable examples of the projects that we've used Silverlight for is the ACCAT. With the latest release of Silverlight (version 4.0) we believe the technology is now mature enough to develop enterprise level web applications.

What are some of the features of Silverlight?

Integration with Windows Live maps

This is a powerful feature that allows applications to interact with Windows Live maps. This is very useful if the application has geographical information or if the data is best represented on a map.

Rich User interface

Until recently websites have been largely static and have very limited support for user interaction. AJAX has played a significant role in making websites much more interactive. Silverlight takes this interactivity to the next level. Complex applications that were previously only possible as Windows Applications can now be developed using Silverlight and be available online.

Multi – touch support

Multi-touch is an enhancement to touch screen technology, which provides the user with the ability to apply multiple inputs (finger gestures) simultaneously onto the screen. This is very useful for control-centre type applications where large video wall screens can now become highly interactive.

Media streaming

Silverlight provides the ability to stream contents both audio and visual. This can be used to stream training tutorials to users. Silverlight supports 1080p smooth streaming and can provide high quality visuals.

Mobile development

Silverlight will be included in Windows Mobile browser meaning that your Silverlight application will be available as a mobile application with little further development. This means that application functionality can be accessed whilst out on site at remote locations.