Microsoft today announced the availability of Silverlight 2.Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in to rival Adobe's Flash. It allows for developers to build interactive applications for the Web.
Microsoft also announced further support of open source communities by funding advanced Silverlight development capabilities with the Eclipse Foundation’s integrated development environment (IDE) and by providing new controls to developers with the Silverlight Control Pack (SCP) under the Microsoft Permissive License.
“We launched Silverlight just over a year ago, and already one in four consumers worldwide has access to a computer with Silverlight already installed,” said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Division at Microsoft.
Silverlight 2 features include:
- Support for Mac, Windows and Linux in Firefox, Safari and Windows Internet Explorer
- Improved server scalability and expanded advertiser support
- Advanced content protection
- Deep zoom, for zooming and navigation of ultrahigh resolution imagery
- Advanced skinning and templating support
View: Microsoft Silverlight
As a developer, I have to say that's not quite true. It is a plugin, like flash, and in some cases will replace flash, that allows developers to target WPF like user interfaces in a browser. Silverlight will be more apparent in web applications.
As a developer, I have to say that's not quite true. It is a plugin, like flash, and in some cases will replace flash, that allows developers to target WPF like user interfaces in a browser. Silverlight will be more apparent in web applications.
Advertisements aside, Flash isn't apparent in Web apps?
I am a developer, and my statement is true; Silverlight directly competes with Flash. Both products are designed to bring rich experiences to the Web.
As a developer, I have to say that's not quite true. It is a plugin, like flash, and in some cases will replace flash, that allows developers to target WPF like user interfaces in a browser. Silverlight will be more apparent in web applications.
Advertisements aside, Flash isn't apparent in Web apps?
I am a developer, and my statement is true; Silverlight directly competes with Flash. Both products are designed to bring rich experiences to the Web.
But flash is widely used, so there aren't much justification to switch from flash to switch, even if you are a visual studio developer.
As a developer, I have to say that's not quite true. It is a plugin, like flash, and in some cases will replace flash, that allows developers to target WPF like user interfaces in a browser. Silverlight will be more apparent in web applications.
Advertisements aside, Flash isn't apparent in Web apps?
I am a developer, and my statement is true; Silverlight directly competes with Flash. Both products are designed to bring rich experiences to the Web.
But flash is widely used, so there aren't much justification to switch from flash to switch, even if you are a visual studio developer.
I disagree. The tools used to develop Silverlight apps are far, far, far better than anything Adobe has released for Flash. Existing .NET developers looking to enter this type of platform, or Flash developers who prefer using a .NET language as opposed to ActionScript, would take up Silverlight in a heartbeat. More developers using the technology means more users viewing apps written for Silverlight.
I'm in shock. Is this from Microsoft? Or they support it in Linux by not supporting it at all, but allowing moonlight to exist?
Seems that Microsoft isn't supporting it, but allowing Novell (who has Miguel de Icaza, founder of mono) to use the Linux emulation of .Net functionality to run it.
It is nothing more than the same "moonlight" we have already heard about.
Personally I prefer Flash, for example Flash is actually available for my platform.
The title is still incorrect regardless of what the article now says.
The title is still incorrect regardless of what the article now says.
The title wasn't incorrect because "Released" does not necessarily mean "Available To Download". Adobe have "released" the CS4 product line, but it's still not available to download.
Also I read this article within about 15 minutes of it being posted, and I'm fairly sure the "available to download tomorrow" bit was on it then.
I quite like Silverlight, for some reason very smooth compared to flash like videos. Is it better ? technically no idea but to my eyes seems to be. I wonder how they expect to beat Adobe's flash which pretty much has everything stitched up, must be 90% +
They start to offer serious competition to Flash after they include Silverlight in all future browser and OS releases. Also it needs to do what Flash does and offer to auto-download the plug-in when you try to view a Silverlight based web page.
Believed or not - Microsoft made a good job with this
Agreed. I like Silverlight better too.
This could be big.
- The super-old Flash 7 SDK is available, so that's what you get with software like Opera for Wii.
- Flash is poorly optimized on Linux and Mac platform.
Guess what. I really doubt you're going to get an open source / SDK version of Silverlight in Opera for Wii.
And I really doubt you're going to see an optimized Silverlight release for Linux and Mac. Especially not PowerPC optimized Mac.
The end result will be:
- Still no support for most sites on Wii.
- Still no optimized support on Linux and Mac.
It's nice that we're getting a Windows-optimized vector-based animation platform that is Silverlight. But we already have a Windows-optimized vector-based animation platform that is Flash.
It seems like both Flash and Silverlight are tied to specific programming languages. Java applets too.
Perhaps they could make something that compiled other languages into Flash and Silverlight units, but I've not noticed it.
If we had something like ".net CLR in an embed tag", that would allow developers to write in their favourite languages and run it in a browser.
It seems like both Flash and Silverlight are tied to specific programming languages. Java applets too.
Perhaps they could make something that compiled other languages into Flash and Silverlight units, but I've not noticed it.
If we had something like ".net CLR in an embed tag", that would allow developers to write in their favourite languages and run it in a browser.
.Net is language independent.
And you can run WPF apps in browser.
But does it work in x64 compiled browsers? I believe thats what Relativity meant by lack of x64 support.
Thanks for letting us all know, appreciate it.
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