Silverlight

Silverlight 4 enhances the building of business applications, media applications, and applications that reach beyond the browser. In this unit, you will see key aspects of building business applications with Silverlight 4.

Hands-On Labs

  • Migrating a Windows Forms Application to Silverlight

    Silverlight provides a Rich Internet Application (RIA) framework that can be used to build applications that can be deployed through the Web while preserving the rich client-side functionality found in traditional desktop applications created using Windows Forms. This lab is designed to guide Windows Forms developers through the process of migrating applications to Silverlight.

  • Migrating an ASP.NET Web Forms Application to Silverlight

    Silverlight provides a Rich Internet Application (RIA) framework that can be used to build applications that can be deployed through the Web while preserving the rich client-side functionality found in traditional desktop applications. This lab is designed to guide ASP.NET and jQuery developers through the process of migrating applications to Silverlight.

  • Working with Panels, XAML, and Controls

    This lab is designed to show how to work with XAML, panels, controls, and Visual Studio's Cider editor. You will learn the foundation of a Silverlight application's UI.

  • Silverlight Data Binding

    Data binding is a key technology in Silverlight that allows data to be presented to end users and then processed. In this lab exercise you'll learn different data binding techniques that can be used to perform one way and two way bindings and see how data can be accessed directly without having to go through controls in the user interface.

  • Migrating Existing Apps to Out-Of-Browser

    Silverlight started off as a browser plug-in. Since then, Silverlight has emerged as a client platform technology that not only includes browser based applications, but is now a desktop platform as well. This lab is designed to guide Winforms or desktop developers through the process of developing a desktop application in Silverlight. In the lab you'll create a Silverlight web browser. It will truly be a desktop application. Along the way you'll learn how to enable Silverlight out-of-browser, detect the context the application is running in, customize the window, and how to interact with Microsoft Excel.

  • Great UX with Blend

    A user's experience with an application is the perception of how it works. No matter how solid the backend is, if it's easy to use the user will think it's a great product. Silverlight enables you to quickly add small pieces of functionality that can greatly improve the user experience. This lab is designed to introduce developers to Expression Blend. In the lab you'll create a menu that transitions between an opened and closed states. Along the way you'll learn how to use Blend to create states, work with behaviors, and integrate MVVM with Blend.

  • Web Services and Silverlight

    In this lab you'll learn how to create a Silverlight-Enabled WCF Service and define operations. You'll also examine the default configuration for Silverlight-enabled services and create a proxy object that can be used to communicate with a service from a Silverlight client. A bonus exercise is also included that demonstrates how to debug WCF service calls using a tool called Fiddler.

  • Using WCF RIA Services

    WCF RIA Services provides a distributed data exchange framework that builds upon existing functionality in Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) to allow data to be exchanged between a Silverlight client and a server. In this lab you'll create a WCF RIA Services domain service class and call it from a Silverlight application. You'll also learn how data annotations can be applied to metadata classes to validate object properties and share validation logic across client and server.

  • Deep Dive into Out of Browser

    Silverlight out-of-browser enables you to create desktop applications. Using elevated trust further opens the possibilities of what your application can do. This lab is designed to further explore what can be down with an out-of-browser Silverlight application. In the lab you'll create an application that imports data directly from Excel. Along the way you'll learn how to interact with the hard drive, check for updates, and work with Excel from Silverlight.

  • Using the MVVM Pattern in Silverlight Applications

    The Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern provides a flexible way to build Silverlight applications that promotes code re-use, simplifies maintenance and supports testing. In this lab exercise you'll learn how to migrate an existing Silverlight application that uses code-behind files for all of the C# or VB code into a more structured architecture that follows the MVVM pattern.