Look what just came out, and well in time to beat the Christmas
rush :) Yes, it's Silverlight 5. We had originally announced that
Silverlight 5 would be out by the end of this year, and I'm glad to
report that it has made it in in time to give everyone something
interesting to play with over the holidays. My congratulations to
the engineering, marketing, support, and documentation teams for
pulling off yet another amazing release.
Get the Bits
The best place to go to get the bits is http://silverlight.net/downloads
. Make sure you have Visual Studio 2010 SP1 (or Visual Web
Developer) and then install the Silverlight 5 Tools. While there,
be sure to install the latest version of the Silverlight 5 Toolkit
- most of the XNA goodness is in the toolkit and SDK.
The version number for this release of Silverlight 5 is
5.0.61118. You can in-place upgrade from the RC. While not
required, you can also uninstall the old bits first if you
want.
Where to Get Help
The Learn section on
Silverlight.net is the primary location for Silverlight 5
videos and tutorials. The beta and RC content still applies, and
I've started creating more Release content for you as well.
We have a dedicated Silverlight 5 forum on
Silverlight.net. Post any Silverlight 5-related technical questions
there for peer support.
Of course, I can't help but throw out a plug for my book Silverlight 5 in Action. If
you order it right now, you get the early access bits, which is
1200 pages of raw unedited writing from me. I think you'll like
it.
Silverlight 5 RTM/RTW Features
Silverlight 5 adds a ton of new features over what we had with
Silverlight 4. These are non-trivial features like a full 3d stack,
parsing performance improvements, tons of enhancements to binding
and much more. My favorite features have to be Implicit Templates
and the XNA-Compatible 3d Stack. The official list of features is here, but I've
also detailed some below with direct links to learning content
(this is adapted from my RC post).
Binding and Related
- ICustomTypeProvider (see
Alexandra Rusina's post)
- Custom Markup Extensions
- Ancestor RelativeSource Binding
-
Implicit Data Templates
- Binding in Style Setters
- DataContextChanged Event
- PropertyChanged now an UpdateSourceTrigger option
Graphics
- XNA 3D API
- Improved Graphics Stack
- XNA 3D built-in effects
- XNA 3D Project Templates with full XNA Content Pipeline
- 3D surface composition settings
- 3D multi-sample anti-aliasing
Media
Text
Operating System Integration
-
P/Invoke (also:
My Printer Enum Example)
-
Multiple Windows
- Unrestricted File System Access in Full Trust
- Full Trust in-browser for enterprise scenarios
- Default Filename in SaveFileDialog and OpenFileDialog
- 64 bit browser support for Windows
- Power awareness for media apps (keep the PC alive while a movie
is playing, for example)
Productivity and Performance
- Network Latency Improvements
-
Databinding Debugging
- Parser Performance Improvements
- Multi-core JIT for improved start-up time
Controls
Other
and more…
My Silverlight CodePlex Projects
For a number of reasons, I've let my CodePlex projects sit for a
bit. The time has come for me to finally update them. I'll have new
Silverlight 5 versions of the Commodore 64 Emulator with a new UI and sound
support, and the Silverlight Printing/Reporting example both up
shortly after I return from vacation with the family. Look for more
info soon.
Go Get it
So go and check out the release. It is backwards
compatible with your Silverlight 4 applications (it runs in quirks
mode until you recompile the project for Silverlight 4), so feel
free to target SL3, 4 or 5 using the Silverlight 5 bits.
