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Silverlight 5 RC now Available

Pete Brown - 01 September 2011

I'm please to announce the general availability of the Silverlight 5 release candidate (RC) as of approximately 10am Pacific this morning (give the servers a few minutes to replicate the links and content). Hop on over to the downloads page on Silverlight.net and grab the bits and start using them.

This RC is a developer-only release (there is no go-live license), designed to get you read for the final release later this year. Use this release to update your SL5 beta code to work with the namespace and reference changes, and to use the new features.

This isn't the final release, so please go out and test it, and report any bugs you find.

In addition to what we had in the beta, some of the more exciting features included in this release are:

Update 9/4/2011: A more complete list of features in Silverlight 5 is now available in my Big List of What's New or Improved in Silverlight 5.

In addition, we made several changes to the locations of some of the XNA namespaces and files. For example, you'll find that much of the 3d stuff has moved to a different DLL. We've also changed the Linked Text feature to use the read-only RichTextBlock rather than the editable RichTextBox. I've updated both posts and their downloadable source code to reflect the changes.

Please go ahead and refer back to the Silverlight 5 beta information for other features. Here are some of my beta posts, updated for the RC:

Other interesting references from the beta timeframe

If you're looking for a one-stop shop for learning Silverlight 5, consider my book Silverlight 5 in Action, to be released near the end of this year. It's currently in MEAP, with purchasers able to download chapters as I make them available.

   
posted by Pete Brown on Thursday, September 1, 2011
filed under:    

49 comments for “Silverlight 5 RC now Available”

  1. Gravatar of James ManningReply
    James Manningsays:
    Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 3:19:58 PM
    From this page:

    http://www.silverlight.net/learn/overview/what's-new-in-silverlight-5

    The link 'Silverlight 5 RC Features' goes to http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=214343 which currently loads the beta version of the doc from http://i1.silverlight.net/content/downloads/silverlight_5_beta_features.pdf?cdn_id=1

    Is this a matter of the doc just not getting updated yet, or will there not be an RC version of this doc?

    Thanks!
  3. Gravatar of Jerry T.Reply
    Jerry T.says:
    Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 3:46:40 PM
    Be careful with SL 5 RC if you're also using Async CTP (SP1 Refresh)

    Error 9 The type 'System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCompletionSource<TResult>' exists in both 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio Async CTP\Samples\AsyncCtpLibrary_Silverlight.dll' and 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\Silverlight\v5.0\mscorlib.dll'
  5. Gravatar of James ManningReply
    James Manningsays:
    Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 10:53:00 PM
    Since others are seeing the same error as Jerry, it would seem to indicate that TPL was added to the RC. If that's true, it would sure seem to be worth calling out on a list of things new in the RC.

    So what's the story with TPL in SL5? Is it 'in the box'? Will SL5 RTM tools have async/await to boot?
  7. Gravatar of Doguhan UlucaReply
    Doguhan Ulucasays:
    Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 11:12:31 PM
    There's this neat trick to resolve the "exists in both" issue: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/yabyz3h4(v=vs.90).aspx

    However, I think because it is extending Task, I couldn't get it to work.
  8. Gravatar of PeteReply
    Petesays:
    Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 11:26:45 PM
    This one slipped right by me. I didn't know that any of the TPL bits were in the release, presumably because they were contributed by another team and therefore didn't have a spec doc in the internal Silverlight site. My bad!

    Thanks for digging into this one, guys.

    Pete
  11. Gravatar of Remco BlokReply
    Remco Bloksays:
    Friday, September 2, 2011 at 2:31:50 AM
    Hi Pete

    Any news on WS-Trust improvements in SL5 that were announced? The Windows Identity Foundation training kit has a support library for SL that allows for instance active federation with SL. Will this support library make it into the SL framework?

    cheers

    Remco
  15. Gravatar of jason callisonReply
    jason callisonsays:
    Friday, September 2, 2011 at 8:32:20 AM
    The ability to save a file with a default file name made it, in VERSION 5! Congratulations! Now users won't get the save file emoticon *.*, or aka "type the filname yourself" prompt. Brilliant, modern and useful.
  16. Gravatar of Jerry T.Reply
    Jerry T.says:
    Friday, September 2, 2011 at 8:35:32 AM
    yeah, we've trying using an alias on the AsyncCtp library but we cannot access the async keywords.

    still working on something but we might have to rollback to SL 5 Beta.

    BUT, what's going to happen when SL 5 is officially released and this isn't resolved? The Async CTP is going to have to be updated. We can't not include mscorlib and we want to use Async CTP!
  17. Gravatar of Anders GustafssonReply
    Anders Gustafssonsays:
    Friday, September 2, 2011 at 9:15:28 AM
    Hi Pete,

    and thanks for the update on the Silverlight 5 RC. I am in particular happy to see that P/Invoke support has made it into the RC. I have actually also been able to build and run a Silverlight 5 RC application with unsafe code (out-of-browser, elevated trust, see my blog post on this: http://cureos.blogspot.com/2011/09/unsafe-support-in-silverlight-5.html)!
    As far as I have been able to tell, this support is not officially mentioned anywhere. Do you have any idea whether unsafe code will also be officially supported in the official release of SL5?

    Regards,
    Anders
  18. Gravatar of Doguhan UlucaReply
    Doguhan Ulucasays:
    Friday, September 2, 2011 at 10:02:32 AM
    @Pete It'd be much appreciated if you could do some "arm twisting" to get the Async team to release an update as soon as possible.

    Coding without Async feels like coding in the dark ages.
  19. Gravatar of James ManningReply
    James Manningsays:
    Friday, September 2, 2011 at 10:07:40 AM
    @Jerry/Doguhan - so can you drop the reference to the Async CTP library and 'just' use the TPL that's now in the framework, or is there something about the tooling/compiler that requires the async dll?

    Off-hand I would guess that now the types are in the framework, people that were using the ones in the CTP dll could just drop that reference and things would Just Work, but I don't have any first-hand knowledge of SL5 RC at the moment to check.
  20. Gravatar of DanglingPointerReply
    DanglingPointersays:
    Friday, September 2, 2011 at 10:57:47 AM
    There was an update for SL4 for WP7 about LongListSelector's smooth scrolling:
    http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/wpdev/archive/2011/08/17/the-silverlight-for-windows-phone-toolkit-is-now-available-for-mango-application-development.aspx

    Can anyone confirm, is that issue only confined to WP7 version or used to exist in PC version too? If so, is it resolved in v5?
  21. Gravatar of Jerry T.Reply
    Jerry T.says:
    Friday, September 2, 2011 at 11:05:34 AM
    @James.

    There's plenty of other features in the Async CTP library that we use that we don't want to back out of our code so we really are stuck with the SL 5 Beta until some sort of fix for the conflict comes along.
  22. Gravatar of Christopher EstepReply
    Christopher Estepsays:
    Friday, September 2, 2011 at 11:44:21 AM
    There was a list of features NOT included in the beta in the previous docs, can we can a comprehensive list (from the earlier one) of features still not included in the RC?
  23. Gravatar of James OrtonReply
    James Ortonsays:
    Friday, September 2, 2011 at 1:23:38 PM
    Happy to see MS still supporting Silverlight 5. I hope the bad decision of moving exclusively to HTML5 is turned back. There is a huge developer base working with Silverlight.
  25. Gravatar of PeteReply
    Petesays:
    Friday, September 2, 2011 at 2:35:27 PM
    @Christopher

    I'm working on that with the team now

    @Jerry, James et al

    We're working with the TPL/async team to resolve the conflicts for RTM. I'm not yet sure what shape that will take.

    @Anders

    Nice digging :) I'm checking with the team to see if that's by design and is expected to be in RTM.
  30. Gravatar of keithReply
    keithsays:
    Saturday, September 3, 2011 at 2:54:14 PM
    Is anybody else having trouble installing Silverlight 5 tools? The installer is complaining about VS 2010 SP1 not being installed, except that it is installed.

    I've tried re-installing it, running the VS2010 install repair, uninstalling and re-installing SP1, but nothing seems to help.

    Fresh out of ideas. Any suggestions?
  31. Gravatar of James ManningReply
    James Manningsays:
    Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 11:48:27 AM
    @Pete - since a lot of people are pointing to this post for the SL5 RC (SilverlightCream, among many others), any chance you're willing to update the contents of the post to include the TPL, or a link to the pfxteam post about it? Jeremy Likness' post about the TPL in SL5 RC was also mentioned in SilverlightCream, but I just want to try and help get the word out.

    Silverlight's "async only" approach makes the TPL a MASSIVE improvement in developer productivity (IMHO), but part of that effort will (ideally) be the community of SL5 libraries/products/etc including Task-based alternatives in their API to help ease the transition. Those newer to TPL may not feel as comfortable doing their own wrapping of existing API's with Tasks or TaskCompletionSources.

    On a semi-related note, please make sure Silverlight 5 In Action includes lots of TPL goodness. Its adoption in 'native' .NET 4 development has been _okay_, but I would think it has some amazing potential adoption rates across the Silverlight ecosystem.

    Thanks so much, Pete!
  32. Gravatar of PeteReply
    Petesays:
    Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 3:15:13 PM
    @James

    I've added a new post with a more complete list of features, and updated this post to point to it.

    On the book: not sure TPL Tasks will make it in, but I'll see what I can do. Remember, We only have tasks in SL5, not the entire TPL. Is that still useful?

    Pete
  33. Gravatar of PeteReply
    Petesays:
    Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 4:35:41 PM
    @James

    Ok, I was able to squeeze in a small section on using Tasks to simplify async networking :)

    Excert here: http://10rem.net/blog/2011/09/04/simplifying-async-networking-with-tasks-in-silverlight-5

    Pete
  36. Gravatar of Paulo LopesReply
    Paulo Lopessays:
    Monday, September 5, 2011 at 9:17:29 AM
    It doesn't seem to be possible to add a 3D DrawingSurface element to XAML with SL5 RC anymore, even though it was possible to do so with the latest beta. However the help documentation still says it's under System.Windows.Controls. What happened to the DrawingSurface class?
  39. Gravatar of Philip LeeReply
    Philip Leesays:
    Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 3:50:34 AM
    Are you able to indicate when a go live license may be available?
    We are developing a SL4 app which strangely uses 100% cpu on multi-core machines when idle.
    Installing SL5 sees the cpu drop to 0%.
  40. Gravatar of PeteReply
    Petesays:
    Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 4:04:49 AM
    @Philip

    The go-live license will be with the final release which is expected later this year. The teams need time to take in any bug reports etc. from the RC, make the fixes, then produce the final localized build.

    Pete
  41. Gravatar of SebastianReply
    Sebastiansays:
    Friday, September 16, 2011 at 9:48:47 AM
    Hi Pete,

    would you care to elaborate on this statement from the quirks mode page:

    >Prior to Silverlight 5 RC, layout clipping is only applied to shapes where their content is larger than the layout bounds.
    >In Silverlight 5 RC, if any of the geometry is outside of the layout bounds, it will be clipped.

    This is a breaking change and I cannot find any sane way to get back the old behavior. Do you know why this has been done and if there is a way to workaround that new limitation? I don't want to tell all of our customers to not update to SL 5 because of this issue.

    -Sebastian
  42. Gravatar of PeteReply
    Petesays:
    Friday, September 16, 2011 at 10:52:27 AM
    @Sebastian

    If that was in the lsit of things handled by quirks mode (I haven't seen that list or verified that this falls under quirks mode), all you need to do is not recompile under Silverlight 5. If you compile under SL4, and leave the object tag alone, quirks mode will apply and you should get the old behavior with the new plug-in

    Once you recompile, you get the new behavior.

    Pete
  43. Gravatar of SebastianReply
    Sebastiansays:
    Saturday, September 17, 2011 at 1:52:14 PM
    @Pete

    Thanks for your comment. The statement I was referring to can be found here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh397894%28v=vs.96%29.aspx ("Ensuring That Your Silverlight Applications Work with Silverlight 5 RC")

    I am aware that I can target SL4, however since we are a library vendor we would need to force all of our customers to target SL4 forever (I am not aware of a way to force quirks mode for one library or piece of code, only), which is something we really don't want to do.
    And since we want to provide our customers with a library that works perfectly with the most recent version of SL, we need to be able to get back the old behavior even if we target SL 5, however for this change there does not seem to be a good way to achieve this.

    -Sebastian
  44. Gravatar of stevenmarkgilReply
    stevenmarkgilsays:
    Monday, October 17, 2011 at 10:42:28 PM
    We talk about Silverlight being redundant with the introduction of HTML 5, the new HTML standard that has the ability to display graphics video, interactive animation without using an external application, such as Silverlight or Flash. Microsoft thinks it most likely take several years before HTML 5 is complete, such as compatibility issues that the W3C ® has been working. Therefore, the hypothesis may be that it will not be mature enough to replace some or all of what Silverlight has to offer for a while. Meanwhile, Microsoft is continuing to add features and innovative Silverlight working with each new version, which increases its strength in its market.

    http://www.techyv.com/article/what-silverlight-and-why-do-we-need-it
  47. Gravatar of Robert HeartReply
    Robert Heartsays:
    Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 5:45:23 PM
    SIlverlight is a waste. HTML5 will replace it and most other stuff Silverlight has that HTML5 does not will not matter to users (just look at iOS,) Even Microsoft is basing Windows 8 on Javascript and HTML5. That is a tell-tale sign. That Microsoft guy that said Silverlight is dying and use HTML was right and Microsoft knows it. West side!
  48. Gravatar of PeteReply
    Petesays:
    Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 6:21:59 PM
    @Robert

    Nice trolling attempt :)

    Please watch the //build/ videos. You'll see that Windows 8 is *not* based on HTML and JavaScript. It supports C++/XAML, C++/DirectX, C#/VB/XAML, and HTML/Javascript/CSS as the programming models for Metro.

    The C#/XAML support is VERY similar to Silverlight.

    Pete

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