In case you missed the recent Scott Guthrie's blog post on Silverlight 2.0, there are going to be some cool developments in Silverlight 2.0 Beta1, which is to be released before March 05 2008. I like the fact that direct socket networking is supported. Better yet, cross-domain access is also supported. These two features alone will allow Silverlight developers to create rich Client-Server applications. Basically, a Silverlight 2.0 application will get the privileges of what a desktop application has, in terms of networking. Creating live chatting application in Silverlight is now possible, so are stock trading terminal, remote desktop client, multi-player game, grid computing client, FTP client, streaming real-time chart, etc. With the help of new 'local storage' support, creating a full-featured BitTorrent P2P client might be a reality. And yes, those new built-in controls will help us create UI applications much quicker. Isn't this super exciting?
Scott mentioned many other things:
This upcoming Beta1 release of Silverlight 2 provides a rich set of features for RIA application development. These include:
- WPF UI Framework:
Silverlight 2 includes a rich WPF-based UI framework that makes
building rich Web applications much easier. In includes a powerful
graphics and animation engine, as well as rich support for higher-level
UI capabilities like controls, layout management, data-binding, styles,
and template skinning. The WPF UI Framework in Silverlight is a
compatible subset of the WPF UI Framework features in the full .NET
Framework, and enables developers to re-use skills, controls, code and
content to build both rich cross browser web applications, as well as
rich desktop Windows applications.
- Rich Controls:
Silverlight 2 includes a rich set of built-in controls that developers
and designers can use to quickly build applications. This upcoming
Beta1 release includes core form controls (TextBox, CheckBox,
RadioButton, etc), built-in layout management panels (StackPanel, Grid,
Panel, etc), common functionality controls (Slider, ScrollViewer,
Calendar, DatePicker, etc), and data manipulation controls (DataGrid,
ListBox, etc). The built-in controls support a rich control templating
model, which enables developers and designers to collaborate together
to build highly polished solutions.
-
Rich Networking Support:
Silverlight 2 includes rich networking support. It includes out of the
box support for calling REST, WS*/SOAP, POX, RSS, and standard HTTP
services. It supports cross domain network access (enabling
Silverlight clients to directly access resources and data from
resources on the web). Beta1 also includes built-in sockets networking
support.
- Rich Base Class Library:
Silverlight 2 includes a rich .NET base class library of functionality
(collections, IO, generics, threading, globalization, XML, local
storage, etc). It includes rich APIs that enable HTML DOM/JavaScript
integration with .NET code. It also includes LINQ and LINQ to XML
library support (enabling easy transformation and querying of data), as
well as local data caching and storage support. The .NET APIs in
Silverlight are a compatible subset of the full .NET Framework.