RSSSilverlight 1.1 beta to become 2.0 beta
by Scott M. Fulton, III
The edition of Silverlight that Microsoft touted from the beginning as having the C# and .NET functionality that its 1.0 edition lacked, is evolving from what it had described as an upgrade into a major overhaul.
Since its inception, Microsoft has continually been developing two versions of its programmable Web graphics platform Silverlight. In fact, on the very day of its public premiere, the company introduced developers to what was being called the "1.0 beta" and the "1.1 alpha."
It's the latter development that might put Silverlight more on a par with Sun's Java than with Adobe's Flash.
Microsoft confirmed to BetaNews today that the next release of what had been called the Silverlight "1.1 beta" is being prepared for release as "Silverlight 2.0 beta," sometime during Q1 2008. As before, the company will offer developers its "Go-Live" licensing terms, which enable them to go ahead and deploy what's still considered a beta in production environments. That deployment requires them to be able to distribute the Silverlight runtime to clients.
After months of having explained the point-one nomenclature as representing the true culmination of what Microsoft always wanted the point-oh version to be from the beginning, a Microsoft spokesperson told us today the two-oh renaming was done "to better capture the scope of the feature set for the next version of Silverlight."
"At the end of the day, this is just branding," admitted Microsoft technical evangelist Tim Sneath on his blog today.
"Adding together the Common Language Runtime, Base Class Libraries, Dynamic Language Runtime, the UI Frameworks, DRM, and a bunch of other features I'm not going into at this stage," Sneath wrote, "it's apparent that if this doesn't count as a major version release, the bar will be set so impossibly high that we'll never be able to name a Silverlight release as anything other than version 1.x!"
Another of the key features users should expect to see with the 2.0 deployment is the use of rich on-screen controls. Back in the last decade when Microsoft was actively developing the ActiveX project, it devised a common control library called Forms. It contained the usual window gadgets such as scroll bars, check boxes, and radio buttons, and it was intended to look exactly like the MFC controls library already in use.
But the trouble was that Forms would only work in Web pages deployed in Windows; and it could conceivably work in Netscape for Windows, but it took some under-the-hood maneuvers to make it work. In short, Forms failed.
Now, Microsoft is working on a set of on-screen controls that are not only cross-platform (meaning, if a Mac OS user had WPF/E installed, she could use those controls through Safari), but which can actually be skinnable, using extensions that could conceivably be customized by the user.
Microsoft developer Scott Guthrie advised users on his blog today to expect cross-domain network access as well. This means a Silverlight client could conceivably acquire data from a third party -- not the server, and not the local browser or the user's local PC. That's a tricky subject, and it's impossible to imagine that no one would even attempt an exploit of such a setup.
Guthrie also said to expect a preview release of the version 3.5 extensions for ASP.NET, which will include an improved edition of ASP.NET AJAX -- Microsoft's implementation of Asynchronous JavaScript. (Silverlight uses JavaScript, not AJAX.) A Microsoft spokesperson told BetaNews the drop date for ASP.NET 3.5 is "early December," which could be as soon as next week.
16 Comments
A charming add-on code ,where can i download it from?
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So another non-standard Microsoft standard, when will Ms realise that that not everyone uses Ms products
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seems like Silverlight will be MUCH MORE POWERFUL than flash.
Flash currently has very basic external api, and things like Zinc, Air etc make developers life very miserable. From this point Silverlight have more potential.
IMHO
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No thanks...we will continue to use Flash.
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Of course you will when the alternative is a Microsoft product.
Doesn't matter if you even know what it is. If it's Microsoft, pitdingo will claim it sucks in comparison to even the worst alternatives on the market.
Dude, you're so incredibly irrelevant to any Microsoft discussion, it's laughable.
You're clueless because you've never used them, so much as looked at them, so your opinion would be about as informed and useful as a 2 yr-olds opinions about the opposite sex.
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If i am so "irrelevant" why are you commenting about me?
Considering you have no idea what i do for a living or a hobby, i find it quite odd you can declare I have "...never used them, so much as looked at them..."
Of course i am sure you are a total expert on every topic you post on...particularly you have extensive experience on Silverlight and Flash.
btw - everyone is laughing at your posts.
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mo·ron [mawr-on]
–noun
1. a person who is notably stupid or lacking in good judgment.
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Simply based on your previous posts regarding Microsoft:
Never used Windows Home Server.
Never used a Zune.
...just to name a few examples.
...and yet you always feel so qualified to comment on what horrible products they are, and how much better the iPod/linux can do it. You know, as if, never having used them, you'd actually have a clue.
I never commented on Silverlight of Flash. :) Never claimed to be an expert or to claim, by virtue of such expertise, that one was better than the other. That's your thing. That's what YOU do. I'll leave you to it.
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"Never used Windows Home Server."
Who has? No one is buying it. If you actually read my posts you would see i am commenting on the functionality provided by it. Do i actually need to run it to know what that functionality is?
"Never used a Zune"
Sure i have. Again, you are making up things.
"I never commented on Silverlight of Flash."
Sure you have. You posted in this thread in a response to my post. I said i am sticking with Flash. Your replying against my post implies you think Silverlight is better than Flash.
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lmao...
Good dog.
Still thinks he can replicate all functionality of WHS with Linux and a shared web-host, I bet, too.
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How will this .NET compatibility affect Mac versions of Silverlight? I know .NET is Windows only so will it still work?
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My understanding is that the cut-down version of the .NET framework is being ported to Mac, and also that the Mono project on Linux is being officially helped out with getting Silverlight compatibility up to scratch.
Certainly, one of the big aims of Silverlight is that it's to be cross-platform.
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The server-side is going to need hooks into a .NET environment, but the run-time on the client is independent... like Flash... just a plug-in. The Mac Silverlight code has been developed right along side the Windows version.
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Really, Silverlight is just a glorified WMV and WMA player.
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You have no idea how wrong you are. V1.0 is somewhat limited and its implementations do seem to be based mostly around media-playing, but 1.1 (now 2.0) is a whole different ballgame. The ability to access rich data, code, and media across a number of platforms (whether through a web browser or not), and present that data in a consistent, neat way, using a fast JIT-compiled set of languages is potentially pretty cool.
I'm looking into it at work for a number of projects that could benefit from being built cross-platform but still using reasonably rapid-development managed languages and technologies, and I've been nothing but impressed so far. Admittedly, quite a lot of the implementation detail I'm getting is second hand from one of the developers that works for me, but the code I've seen is reasonably simple, elegant, and functional.
I'm certainly impressed with it, and it's definitely NOT a WMV/WMA player and nothing else.
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in some sense his argument does hold true. to the end user it may appear that the only thing it does "better" or maybe just "different" than flash is video playback ... if that.
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