Introducing Silverlight 1.1

Understanding Silverlight 1.1

Before you can begin to understand Silverlight 1.1, you first need to understand Silverlight in general. As Microsoft succinctly puts it, “Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in developed by Microsoft for delivering the next generation of .NET-based media experiences and Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) for the Web.” But where did this technology come from and how does it compare to other new technologies like WPF? In this section, we’ll review the history of the Silverlight project and compare Silverlight 1.1 to Silverlight 1.0 and WPF to gain a clear understanding of this new rich client framework.

A Short History of Silverlight

Microsoft unveiled Silverlight for the first time in late 2005 at PDC 2005. At the time, it was introduced as Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere (WPF/E), a subset of WPF technology that would work across platforms, delivered by the browser.

Almost a year later Microsoft released the first Silverlight CTP to the public. The December 2006 CTP version of Silverlight was very basic, enabling only JavaScript and XAML declarations to develop Silverlight applications. The February CTP improved upon the December release and for the first time attracted serious attention from the Microsoft developer community. It added many new features, such as keyboard input (KeyUp/KeyDown), mouse cursor support, simple text metrics, and a unique full-screen mode. The February CTP in many ways kicked off the Silverlight buzz, ...