Microsoft Silverlight

Microsoft Silverlight is an appliance framework for autograph and active affluent Internet applications, with appearance and purposes agnate to those of Adobe Flash. The run-time ambiance for Silverlight is accessible as a constituent for web browsers active beneath Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. While aboriginal versions of Silverlight focused on alive media, accepted versions abutment multimedia, cartoon and animation, and accord developers abutment for CLI languages and development tools. Silverlight is additionally one of the two appliance development platforms for Windows Phone.

Over the advance of about bristles years Microsoft has appear bristles versions: The aboriginal adaptation was appear in 2007; the most recent adaptation was appear on December 9, 2011. It is accordant with assorted web browsers acclimated on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, and with adaptable accessories application the Windows Phone and Symbian (Series 60) platforms.567

A chargelesscomputer application accomplishing called Moonlight, developed by Novell in cooperation with Microsoft, is accessible to accompany Silverlight versions 1 and 2 functionality to Linux, FreeBSD and added accessible antecedent platforms, although some Linux distributions do not accommodate it, citation redistribution and apparent concerns.8

Overview

Silverlight provides a retained approach cartoon arrangement agnate to Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), and integrates multimedia, graphics, animations and interactivity into a distinct runtime environment. In Silverlight applications, user interfaces are declared in Extensible Appliance Markup Accent (XAML) and programmed appliance a subset of the .NET Framework. XAML can be acclimated for appearance up the agent cartoon and animations. Silverlight can additionally be acclimated to actualize Windows Sidebar accessories for Windows Vista.9

Silverlight supports H.264 video, Advanced Audio Coding, Windows Media Video (WMV), Windows Media Audio (WMA) and MPEG Layer III (MP3) media content10dead link beyond all accurate browsers after acute Windows Media Player, the Windows Media Player ActiveX ascendancy or Windows Media browser plug-ins. Because Windows Media Video 9 is an accomplishing of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) VC-1 standard, Silverlight additionally supports VC-1 video. According to the end user authorization acceding VC-1 and H.264 are alone accountant for the "personal and non-commercial use of a consumer".11 Silverlight, back adaptation 3, supports the playback of H.264 video.12 Silverlight makes it accessible to dynamically amount Extensible Markup Accent (XML) agreeable that can be manipulated through a Document Article Model (DOM) interface, a address that is constant with accepted Ajax techniques. Silverlight exposes a Downloader article which can be acclimated to download content, like scripts, media assets or added data, as may be appropriate by the application.13 With adaptation 2, the programming argumentation can be accounting in any .NET language, including some derivatives of accepted activating programming languages like IronRuby and IronPython.14

Adoption

According to statowl.com, Microsoft Silverlight has a assimilation of 64.16% on May 2011. Acceptance on July 2010 was 53.54%, admitting Adobe Flash is installed on 95.26% of browsers, and Java abutment is accessible on 76.51% of browsers (May 2011); these statistics makes Adobe Flash the bazaar baton in agreement of penetration.15 As of 26 August 2011, 0.3% sites are application Silverlight,16 admitting armpit acceptance of Adobe Flash is about 27%.17 Acceptance of Java on sites during the aforementioned time aeon is about 4%.18

Development tools

Silverlight applications can be accounting in any .NET programming language. As such, any development accoutrement which can be acclimated with .NET languages can assignment with Silverlight, provided they can ambition the Silverlight CoreCLR for hosting the application, instead of the .NET Framework CLR. Microsoft has positioned Microsoft Expression Blend as a accompaniment apparatus to Visual Studio for the architecture of Silverlight User Interface applications. Visual Studio can be acclimated to advance and alter Silverlight applications. To actualize Silverlight projects and let the compiler ambition CoreCLR, Visual Studio requires the Silverlight Accoutrement for Visual Studio.35

A Silverlight ascendancy is a ZIP architecture book with addendum .XAP absolute a account of one or added .NET managed assemblies (.DLL files) forth with the AppManifest.XAML book absolute this account forth with the access point (class and assembly). It can be hosted in any HTML book appliance an article tag, for example:

A Silverlight activity contains the Silverlight.js and CreateSilverlight.js files which initializes the Silverlight constituent for use in HTML pages, a XAML book for the UI, and code-behind files for the appliance code. Silverlight applications are debugged in a address agnate to ASP.NET applications. Visual Studio's CLR Remote Cross Belvedere Debugging affection can be acclimated to alter Silverlight applications active on a altered belvedere as well.36

In affiliation with the absolution of Silverlight 2, Eclipse was added as a development apparatus option.37

Licensing

An April 2007 PC World address appropriate that Microsoft advised to absolution assertive genitalia of Silverlight antecedent cipher as accessible antecedent software,38 but a anniversary after Sam Ramji, administrator of belvedere technology action at Microsoft, contradicted the rumors by acknowledging that the aggregation had no affairs to accessible Silverlight.39 Some controls that address with Silverlight are accessible beneath the Microsoft Public License as a allotment of a abstracted activity accepted as the Silverlight Toolkit.40

Silverlight's proprietary attributes is a affair to antagonism back it may abuse the accessible attributes of the World Wide Web. Advocates of freecomputer application are additionally anxious Silverlight could be addition archetype of Microsoft's embrace, extend and extinguish strategy.41 Both Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Flash are proprietary.42 Flash's book formats are about accurate standards,4344 as are Silverlight's.4546 However, the advice amid a Flash amateur and a server is done by the proprietary agreement RTMP. Both Flash and Silverlight use patent-encumbered audio and video codecs.

Mono Moonlight implementation

The Mono aggregation is currently developing Moonlight, a chargeless and open-source accomplishing of both the Silverlight 1 and 2 runtimes.47

The activity is clearly accurate by Microsoft who,25 beneath an acceding with Novell, has fabricated added specifications, admission to the Silverlight Base Class Library APIs, bifold codecs and analysis cases accessible to the Mono team,26 none of which are accessible to added associates of the public.48

The "covenant" beneath which Novell has been accepted this absolute admission additionally specifies altitude that are adverse with the licensing that covers best added chargeless and accessible antecedent software. As examples, it accurately requires that thecomputer application charge accept been "obtained anon from Novell or through an Intermediate Recipient" and that it charge be "not accountant beneath GPLv3 or a Similar License".27 Some chargelesscomputer application proponents accept criticized the covenant.49

Silverlight has accustomed criticism for not active up to its cross-platform operating arrangement affinity promises, abnormally on Linux systems compared to its all-encompassing abutment on Apple and Microsoft desktops for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome. Even admitting Microsoft is clearly accommodating on the Moonlight project, Bruce Chizen, who was CEO of Adobe Systems at the time, which sells the aggressive proprietary Flash platform, questioned "the charge of Microsoft to accumulate the Silverlight belvedere accordant with added OS besides Windows".50 His apropos are based on "examples from history" where, he argues, Microsoft has launched articles with promises of advancing cross-platform affinity that no best apply, for archetype Internet Explorer for UNIX and Windows Media Player for Mac.

Relationship to existing web standards

California and several added U.S. states additionally accept asked a District Judge to extend best of Microsoft's antitrust case adjustment for addition bristles years,51 citation "a cardinal of concerns, including the abhorrence that Microsoft could use the abutting adaptation of Windows to 'tilt the arena field' against Silverlight, its fresh Adobe Flash competitor," says a Seattle Post-Intelligencer article. The final acumen on the motion continued the adjustment two years, to November 2009, but for affidavit different to Silverlight.52 In Windows 7 the Silverlight web browser constituent is not installed automatically, but is a downloadable alternative amend through Windows Update.53

Microsoft has been criticized for not application the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) accepted for Silverlight, which, according to Ryan Paul, editor of Accessible Ended, Ars Technica's accessible antecedentcomputer application journal, is constant with Microsoft's way of blank accessible standards in added products, as well.54 However, according to David Betz, a .NET specialist and Microsoft Best Valuable Professional (MVP), while it "seems to some to be a accurate criticism and a acceptable point to some of the web standards world, it is actually baseless and carries no weight." Microsoft would accept had to adapt the SVG blueprint in adjustment to accommodate it with .NET. Consequently, he thinks the "choice by Microsoft to use XAML over SVG, served to absorb the SVG accepted by not abacus proprietary technology to SVG".55dead link.

History

Silverlight 1 - Silverlight 1, developed beneath the codename Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere (WPF/E) was appear in 2007. It consisted of the amount presentation framework, which is amenable for the user interface (UI), interactivity and user input, basal UI controls, cartoon and animation, media playback, Digital rights administration (DRM), and DOM integration.

Silverlight 2 - Included a adaptation of the .NET Framework, implemented the aforementioned abounding Common Accent Runtime (CLR) adaptation as .NET Framework 3.0; so it can assassinate programs accounting in any .NET language.

Silverlight 3 - Silverlight 3 was appear on September 12, 2008, and apparent at MIX09 in Las Vegas on March 18, 2009.56 A beta adaptation was fabricated accessible for download the aforementioned day. The final adaptation was appear July 9, 2009. Silverlight 3 included added controls57—including but not bound to DataGrid, TreeView, assorted blueprint panels, DataForm for forms-driven applications and DataPager for examination paginated data.

Silverlight 4 - On November 18, 2009, at the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft Corporation apparent a Beta adaptation of Silverlight 4.58 The final adaptation was appear on April 15, 2010 (along with Silverlight 4 accoutrement for developers). New appearance in Silverlight 4 include: Abutment for Google's Chrome browser; Web cam and microphone; Printing; Added abrasion support; New notification abutment to accelerate letters to users; New and added controls (e.g., RichTextBox, DataGrid); Theming of controls; apprehension HTML; more good localization, and others.

Silverlight 5 - The final absolution is accessible for download on December 9, 2011.59 New appearance include: GPU accelerated video decoding, 3D graphics, playback acceleration controls, alien ascendancy and 64-bit support.59