Silverlight is known as a software tool by Microsoft for the purpose of developing ultra powerful, rich internet applications, it's in actual fact much the same in traits and also intentions to Adobe Flash.
Microsoft themselves talk about their service as being a strong development tool for making engaging, interactive user experiences for Web and also mobile apps.
Some of the many features mentioned on their web site incorporates, IIS Smooth Streaming, Pivot Viewer, for visualizing massive amounts of data in a fun and visual way, Sketch Flow, more for sketching out an application and its uses, Deep Zoom, Pixel Shader and over 60 new controls just like charting and new media.
However, as opposed to Flash, Silverlight is a free plugin which is run by the .Net framework, therefore extremely easy and user-friendly to employ with Visual Studio, and it is suitable for a variety of browsers and devices.
In the beginning Microsoft focused upon streaming media etc but since then Silverlight has expanded substantially to feature support for multimedia, graphics and animation.
Silverlight at present also includes support for specific languages and development tools, in fact it is also one of the key development platforms for the Windows phone.
Silverlight additionally employs XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language) to assert user interfaces, because of this it is simple to create Windows sidebar devices and also other fancy apps with neat vector graphics and animations.
It's also possible to write Silverlight apps in any .Net programming languages, meaning that any development tool that can be used in .Net, you may use in Silverlight. Hence Microsoft are pitching Visual Studio as the prefect tool for developers to create and debug Silverlight applications.
Since its introduction in 2007, Microsoft have refreshed Silverlight every year with edition 1 in 2007 and version 5 (the current and up to-date model) introduced in May 2012. The 2012 version (Silverlight 5) can actually be used on Windows and Mac and with Mobile devices running Windows or Symbian.
The below highlights all the editions and provides some background information.
Silverlight 1 was introduced in 2007, it had been comprised of various core features including the UI controls, media playback, DOM integration, interactivity and user input, and graphics and animation.
Silverlight 2 followed soon after in the same year and was similar to version 1 but in addition included a version of the .Net framework which allowed it to run any other programs developed in any .Net language.
Silverlight 3 was unveiled in 2008 as a beta and then officially unveiled in July 2009. This edition included even more controls for example DataGrid and TreeView, DataPager (permitted you to see paginated data), DataForm (for form based applications) along with numerous layout panels.
Silverlight 4 was launched in November 2009 as a beta with the official release in April 2010. This bundled much more characteristics than ever before for example rendering HTML, better localization, support for Google Chrome browser, brand new and enhanced controls and a whole lot. It also came with Silverlight 4 tools for developers, delivering much more development possibilities
Silverlight 5 was launched for download in December 2011. The newest features included 64-bit support, 3D graphics, GPU accelerated video decoding and playback speed controls.
As said before above, Silverlight applications can be written in any .NET programming language. As such, any development tools which may be used with .NET languages can work with Silverlight. When you are making use of Silverlight and XML, you can also make use of an XML Silverlight tool like Liquid XML studio.
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