Flashes of Silverlight

MICROSOFT SILVERLIGHT CONFERENCE: DAY ONE

What is Silverlight? Silverlight is Microsoft’s version of flash. Kinda. You see where Flash has come to be synonymous with not only the program but its applications and browser plugins (i.e. Using Flash i created this Flash application. You’ll need to install flash in your browser to see it.) Silverlight is just the plugin.

So if there’s no program called Silverlight, how is Silverlight content created? Enter Microsoft Visual Studio. Basically, it’s an Adobe-esque design suite. If you used any adobe product then you’ll be in familiar territory. However there are some beneficial and annoying differences. 

Here are a few interesting features. The user interface seems very well thought out and easy to control. I particularly like the slider controls. Almost everything that be adjusted with an easy to use slider very similar to after effects. You won’t even have to relearn shortcuts as Microsoft pretty much lifted the tool panels out of the Adobe suite.

Here are a few annoyances. The file systems gets insanely deep. For a simple animation in flash you have one file: swf and maybe an FLV or a javascript or two. In Micosoft Blend (we spend the most time in this app) you have a full blow file system. C sharp files, assett folders, gadgets and gizmos-a-plenty, who-zits and whats-its galore. You want thing-a-ma-bobs Silverlight’s got you covered! Perhaps a deal breaker for many is the fact that producing animation isn’t just a matter of hitting the publish button. If you want something to move you need to know how to code. It’s not optional.

As the resident figure-it-out guy, I pride myself on my abilities to reverse engineer something. Silverlight content is so deep, I seriously doubt i could figure it out if i didn’t have someone holding my hand. 

That’s when it hit me. Microsoft Blend isn’t a design application it’s more like a programming language. Everything, and i do mean everything, is rendered using a programming language called XAML. What’s the significance of this? Just like an HTML page’s source can be lifted from any webpage. The silverlight XAML can be lifted as well. In flash, a red circle is just that, a red circle. In Blend, a red circle is dozens of  lines of code.

Tomorrow we’ll get started on creating content. Stay tuned.