Why MS Silverlight ?

Silverlight is a new cross-platform implementation of the .NET Framework for building the next generation Rich Interactive Web Applications. It runs in Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Apple Safari and Microsoft Internet Explorer as well as other popular browsers. The plug-in required to run Silverlight gets installed very quickly as it is very small in size.

It is combination of different technologies into a single run-time environment that allows you to select the programming language and the tools that you want to use. Silverlight combines seamlessly with your existing ASP.NET, AJAX and JavaScript code to enhance the functionality which you have already created.

Silverlight is aimed to compete with Adobe Flash and Sun Microsystems’ JavaFX, which was launched a few days after Silverlight . It also competes with the presentation components of AJAX.

Features of Silverlight

• It consists of the core presentation framework, which is responsible for the User Interface (UI), basic UI controls, graphics and animation, media playback, interactivity and user input, DOM integration, Digital Restrictions Management(DRM)
• Silverlight ships with a lightweight class library which includes features such as extensible controls, XML Web Services, networking components and Language Integrated Query (LINQ) APIs.
• Pixel Shader APIs have been added in the newer versions, not just to allow developers to create effects like blur and drop shadow but they also enable developers to create their own effects .
• Animation Easing effects are now a part of newer versions of Silverlight, providing you with a set of easing animations such as bounce, elastic effects, etc. These interpolates will help with smoother animation transitions and other visual effects you are trying to accomplish.
• Text improvements are provided to account for more efficient rendering and animation of text within an application. Additionally, making use of the JavaScript API for local font support would accelerate application load time when local fonts can be used.
• Image Improvements including the decoding of image data before it is added to the visual tree and enabling control over the image cache are now a part of the Silverlight platform.
• The Media Stream Source API included in Silverlight is responsible for enabling adaptive streaming of media. Adaptive streaming allows the player application to choose the bit rate of the media based on available client bandwidth and central processing unit (CPU) resources.