This release is the biggest for .NET developers who want to create Silverlight apps. Since the release of Silverlight 3 in July last year, Microsoft has been pushing the platform not just as a video player, but as an application runtime. In fact, Microsoft is making Silverlight a main platform for Windows Phone 7 Series apps. Here are some of Silverlight 4’s features:
- Tooling
- Printing API
- Right-click event handling
- Webcam/microphone access
- Mouse wheel support
- RichTextArea Control
- ICommand support
- Clipboard API
- HTML Hosting with WebBrowser
- Elevated trust applications
- Local file access
- COM interop
- Notification (“toast”) API
- Network authentication
- Cross-domain Networking changes
- Keyboard access in full screen mode
- Text trimming
- ViewBox
- Right-to-left, BiDi and complex script
- Offline DRM
- H.264 protected content
- Silverlight as a drop target
- Data binding
- IDataErrorInfo and Async Validation
- DependencyObject Binding
- StringFormat, TargetNullValue, FallbackValue
- Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF)
- DataGrid enhancements
- Fluid UI support in items controls
- Implicit theming
- Google Chrome support
Additionally, at this week’s National Association of Broadcasters Show in Last Vegas, Microsoft will show off Silverlight Media Framework 2.0, which allows media companies to make complex media players – like the one NBC used for its Olympics coverage – with little coding.
“Our vision is to bring Silverlight to every screen, and as we continue to expand the capabilities and resources for Silverlight and IIS Media Services, it’s exciting to see the amazing ways our customers use these technologies to deliver outstanding media experiences for their end users,” said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Platform at Microsoft. “We’ve brought together great tools and a great platform to provide content owners and broadcasters a great business opportunity.”