Four months ago, in December 2010, we held the Silverlight
Firestarter in Redmond - an entire event dedicated just to
Silverlight, with great speakers from inside Microsoft and from the
Silverlight community. In that event's keynote, Scott Guthrie
showed off some of the plans we have for Silverlight 5 (as well as
the secret location of his tattoo).
For information on the newer September 1, 2011 Silverlight 5
Release Candidate, please see my Silverlight
5 RC blog post.
In today's keynote at MIX11 on April 13, 2011, Scott Guthrie
expanded on that. I'm proud to announce that today we have shipped
Silverlight 5 Beta!
Other Key Announcement Posts:
As always, the Silverlight team has been really busy and put a
lot of time and effort into this release. Silverlight 5 has a ton
of great new features both big and small, as well as numerous fixes
and little tweaks. I have a few initial tutorials (blog posts and
videos) that cover some of the more interesting features.
In addition, I'm happy to announce that I'm currently
eight chapters into Silverlight 5 in Action. I expect to see a MEAP
(Manning Early Access Program) version out late this month or early
next.
Tutorial Videos and Blog Posts
Here are the videos that are on Silverlight.net, specifically
created for Silverlight 5
Silverlight 5 Beta Overview
In this video, Pete Brown walks us through some of the new
features in the Silverlight 5 Beta, and provides information on how
to get started. If you're interested in an overview of what's new
before you dive into specific features, watch this video.
Video
Implicit Templates with Silverlight 5
In this video, Pete Brown explains what data templates are, then
shows us how to use implicit data templates in Silverlight 5 beta.
Implicit data templates are a great way to automatically format
different types of data (objects) in the presentation layer.
Video | Blog
Post
Mouse Button Double and Multi-click
Silverlight 5 now enables us to capture double click, or even an
arbitrary number of clicks. Want triple click? Septuple click? You
can do it. In this video, Pete Brown shows us how to use the new
ClickCount property for the mouse button events.
Video |
Blog Post
Silverlight 5 Low-Latency Sound Effects
The MediaElement is powerful, but not well-suited to low-latency
or real-time sound effects. In this video, Pete Brown shows us how
to use the new SoundEffect and SoundEffectInstance classes from the
XNA bits included with Silverlight 5.
Video |
Blog Post
Silverlight 5 Multi-Column and Linked Text
Magazine and newspaper-style layout is difficult to achieve if
the underlying platform does not include some mechanism for linking
blocks of text and allowing that text to flow between the blocks.
Silverlight 5 now includes the RichTextBoxOverflow element which,
when wired to another RichTextBoxOverflow or to a RichTextBox,
enable text to flow in columns or free-form layout. In this video,
Pete Brown shows us how to use this new element and how to lay out
text in columns and in a free-form way
Video | Blog Post
Silverlight 5 Native Operating System windows
Silverlight 5 trusted out-of-browser applications can now create
native operating system windows. No longer are we chained to the
bounds of the primary drawing surface. In this video, Pete Brown
shows us how to create native windows as well as how to customize
the chrome of those windows.
Video | Blog
Post
Silverlight 5 Beta Debugging Binding in XAML
Silverlight 5 supports debugging binding statements in XAML. In
this video, Pete Brown shows us how to work with XAML binding
debugging in Visual Studio 2010
Video | Blog
Post
Of course, as Silverlight continues to approach RTW, we'll have
more videos and tutorials to help you succeed with the product.
Announcing: Silverlight .NET Redesign Beta
At the same time, the folks in our Server and Tools Online (STO)
organization have been really busy putting together the next
version of the Silverlight Developer Center: Silverlight.net.
Here's the announcement information I posted to Silverlight.net
today:
For some time now, you (our site visitors) , have told us you
wanted us to make it easier to find content, you wanted us to show
community content more prominently and you wanted us to make it
easier to learn.
To address these issues we have begun the process of creating a
new type of site for Silverlight. Our goals are to address your
issues as well as make it easier for us to publish information
quickly. You will see an improved site design and
navigational framework that makes finding information on the site
easier for the breadth of experience levels and learning
styles.
- Improved on boarding experience - developers new to Silverlight
will find it easier to get started
- Content organized into relevant topic areas (Overview, Desktop,
Web..) to make information easier to find and to learn
- Simplified Publishing and Content Curation process which will
lead to more fresh content published more frequently
- Important Samples and Tutorials are positioned prominently in
the structure of the site so that they are easier to find
- Modern, less cluttered experience that makes it easier to find
information on the page
BETA RELEASE
This is to announce that we are releasing a beta version of the
new & redesigned Silverlight site at MIX 2011, http://beta.silverlight.net.
While in the beta period, both the beta site and the existing site will be
available. We encourage you to view the beta site now and give us
your feedback. We're working daily to rectify bugs and will release
the new site as soon as it's ready. The beta site does not contain
all of the functionality planned for the full release, but it
offers a taste of items to come, including:
- New look and feel
- Improved and reorganized learn section
- New advertising types and layout
- New Start and Community page
- UPDATED SIGN IN - the beta site requires that you sign-in with
a Windows Live ID. You can use an existing Windows Live ID, or you
can create one for free (you can use any existing email address
from any email provider when you create Windows Live ID
credentials).
YOUR DATA
- Your Forums posts on content will be saved in both the existing
site and the beta site regardless of which site you use to post.
For all other data, the beta site will not sync to the existing
Silverlight.net site.
FULL RELEASE
Post MIX 2011, we will release more functionality on the beta
site in phases. Below is what you can expect to see over time:
- UPDATED: Simplified look and feel that will also be used across
other developer sites in the months to come
- UPDATED: Scalable and more usable information architecture in
the "Learn" section
- UPDATED: Faster page loads and performance all around
- UPDATED: Site-wide search improvements
- UPDATED: Richer Community info (Blogs, Twitter, Facebook,
Events, News)
- NEW: Experience Level tags on all Learn content (Beginner,
Novice, Intermediate, Professional) so that you can understand how
technical the content is before you start reading it
- NEW: Richer meta data for all Learn content (author bios,
related content, view counts and more) so that it will be faster
and easier for you to find the content you need
- NEW: Integrated MSDN Code Gallery so that you can find and
share samples with people from all over the world
- NEW: Simplified "Getting Started" resources and steps for new
users
- NEW: A content publishing architecture that allows us to more
easily publish content at regular intervals
- NEW: Mark content items you've "completed" so that you can keep
track of what you have read
- NEW: Mark content items as favorites - eventually we'll make it
easier for you to find your favorite articles
- User submitted content
Again, we encourage you to share your comments and suggestions
during the beta phase to help us achieve our goal.
