Beginning Silverlight 3 (Paperback)

~ Robert Lair (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Silverlight design tools have important differences compared to those used to create Ajax and JavaScript functionality. Robert Lair takes you on a tour of all the tools, including Microsoft Expression Design, which plays an important part in creating Silverlight assets; Microsoft Expression Blend, which is used to build user interaction for Silverlight elements; and Microsoft Visual Studio, which manages the interaction between designers and developers, providing the coding environment for "nuts and bolts" wiring.

Once you've mastered the basics, you'll move on to gaining a more in-depth knowledge of some of the groundbreaking new features of the Silverlight technology.

The growing popularity of Web 2.0 applications is increasing user expectations for high-quality web site design, presentation, and functionality. It is into this climate that Microsoft is releasing Silverlight 3, the third iteration of its cross-browser web presentation technology and the second to ride on top of the .NET platform. Beginning Sliverlight 3 brings you to the cutting-edge of Web 2.0 application design and includes plenty of practical guidance to get you started straightaway.

What you'll learn

• Discover the tools needed for Silverlight 3 development, the roles each plays, and how they interact to produce a seamless result.
• Understand the fundamental concepts and techniques that lie at the heart of every successful Silverlight application and how to apply them to your own projects.
• Explore the new features and coding practices Silverlight gives to you as a developer that sets it apart from other web-development tools.

Who is this book for?

This book is for anyone with an interest in web development. A basic familiarity with web development and simple C# coding is useful, but by no means a requirement. This book will teach you everything that you need to know.

While this is not a design-oriented text, Beginning Silverlight approaches the subject in an open manner, showing how applications are put together across the developer-designer divide so that you are well equipped to work seamlessly with your colleagues (or indeed perform both roles with the aid of a suitable design text).

About the Apress Beginning Series

The Beginning series from Apress is the right choice to get the information you need to land that crucial entry–level job. These books will teach you a standard and important technology from the ground up because they are explicitly designed to take you from “novice to professional.” You’ll start your journey by seeing what you need to know—but without needless theory and filler. You’ll build your skill set by learning how to put together real–world projects step by step. So whether your goal is your next career challenge or a new learning opportunity, the Beginning series from Apress will take you there—it is your trusted guide through unfamiliar territory!

About the Author

Robert Lair is the president/CEO of Intensity Software, Inc. and has been working with Microsoft .NET technologies since prior to its initial release in 2000. Among his accomplishments, Robert was on the team that created the original ASP.NET sample application IBuySpy, used to demonstrate the power of ASP.NET. Robert is an active speaker and writer in the development community.

Product Details

• Paperback: 500 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (December 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430223774
• ISBN-13: 978-1430223771
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #137,568 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beginning Silverlight 3, January 6, 2010

By	Ricardo Martinez - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Beginning Silverlight 3 by Robert Lair, learn to build Silverlight applications quickly and easily. Robert is a published author of many books and magazine articles. Technologies in which Robert specializes include: Silverlight, mainframe modernization to .NET, ASP.NET custom application development. This book is for beginners only it will take through step-by-step walk-through tutorials and some hands on training. I really did not know how to use expression blend and that is used throughout this book. If you are a flash person you will go through this book easily. My favorite chapter is five because I have been looking so long for an explanation on data binding using Silverlight controls, well this chapter explains it all to me and there are hands on training on it. Another good chapter is six that goes through data access and networking, I am a fulltime developer and that is the kind of stuff I look for. Over all it is a great book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book for the beginner, December 22, 2009

By	S. Heath "S. Heath" (St. Petersburg, FL) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

Good book, best I've read on Silverlight (also the only one so far). I got this book because I wanted to create a web application that interacted with a database. Although not covered in depth, it was just enough to get me started (chapters 5 and 6, specifically). Chapter 8, Local Storage in Silverlight, was my favorite. I like the prospect of creating rich internet applications with the ability to access isolated storage.

Contrary to the product description a basic familiarity with web development and simple C# coding is critical, and by all means a requirement to get the most out of this book.
The chapter on deployment (chapter 13) was a little weak.

5.0 out of 5 stars Review of Beginning Silverlight 3.0, January 25, 2010

By	Cecil T. Champenois Jr. "Cecil" (Rancho Cucamonga, CA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Beginning Silverlight 3 by Robert Lair is truly a "Beginner" book on Silverlight and is where I am right now. Silverlight may be an intimidating and complex subject to a beginner. This book is a great way to start learning Silverlight and overcome any anxiety you may have in regard to learning it. You will easily learn Silverlight with this book. Silverlight has come a long ways since its first version (1.0), which was very basic and had only two controls available, the Rectangle and the TextBlock. It may be advisable that you have some basic C# knowledge. Make sure you set up your examples in a folder, like "\Beginning Silverlight 3\Ch3\", etc. You may want to refer to these examples later.

If you are a Silverlight, or XAML, beginner, you should implement the examples step by step, chapter by chapter, in order to truly benefit from this book. I found that there were some things not covered in the book which I had to learn on my own, such as the fact that in order to use the Silverlight 3.0 tools, I had to uninstall Silverlight 1.0 and 2.0 first, and then install Silverlight 3. The book starts off extremely simple, with an introduction to Visual Studio 2008 in Chapter 2 and then proceeds on to layout controls in Chapter 3, where you learn how to create layout panels, i.e., Grids, WrapPanels, StackPanels, DockPanels, and other types of layout tools in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 is where the meat of the book starts, with the use of Silverlight user input controls, i.e., TextBox, RadioButton, CheckBox, etc. The book also instructs you on how to use extended controls, by adding" xmlns" declarations at the beginning of, for example, the page called MainPage.XAML.

Robert Lair is careful in that he literally walks the user step by step through the Silverlight development process. For example, he makes sure that you know how to add "using statements" at the top of the code-behind pages, in this case, the .cs pages, for namespace referencing. This is common C# knowledge, but Robert is making sure that the new Silverlight developer is also getting all of the basics to be successful.

Chapter 5 covers Data Binding and Silverlight List Controls. Data Access and Networking is covered in Chapter 6; this is an important chapter. For example, this quote on page 137 from the book: "The most common mechanism to access data from a Silverlight application is through web services, typically a WCF service." Silverlight applications can access data using ADO.NET Data Services, direct server connecting via TCP sockets, and out-of-the-box support for JSON, as well as RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 syndication feed formats. Chapter 9 covers the use of Expression Blend, if you'd like to work with your XAML visually.

There is a lot more to this book, which I have not covered in this review. I highly recommend this book for the Silverlight Beginner.