Silverlight 1.0 Unleashed (Paperback)

by Adam Nathan (Author)
Key Phrases: input events, downloading content, canvas name, Great Estates, Rectangle Width, Rectangle Canvas (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Full Color

Code samples appear as they do in Visual Studio and Expression Blend!

 

Printed entirely in color, with helpful figures and syntax coloring to make code samples appear as they do in Visual Studio and Expression Blend!

 

Silverlight is a lightweight but powerful plug-in for multiple web browsers on multiple operating systems that makes it easier than ever to create rich web-based content, applications, and controls. With support for vector graphics, animations, full-screen high-definition video, and more, Silverlight gives you the ability to create more compelling content than you dreamed possible for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Silverlight provides much of the power of Windows Presentation Foundation, but with less overhead and easy integration with HTML and AJAX-style applications. Silverlight 1.0 Unleashed is the authoritative book that covers the technology in a practical and approachable fashion, authored by Silverlight guru and Microsoft developer Adam Nathan.

 

• Covers everything you need to know about Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) in Silverlight
• Examines the Silverlight feature areas in depth: graphics, text, audio, video, animation, ink, events, and more
• Demonstrates how to create reusable controls and perform common tasks (such as drag-and-drop) using basic building blocks
• Explains how to download assets asynchronously to maximize your user experience
• Demonstrates how to create hybrid applications that mix Silverlight content with HTML or Flash content
• Highlights features scheduled for future versions of Silverlight while showing how to achieve your desired results with the current version

Introduction 1

Part I          Fundamentals

1      Getting Started 9

2      XAML 39

Part II        Creating Static Content

3      Shapes, Lines, and Curves 61

4      Text 83

5      Brushes and Images 99

6      Positioning and Transforming Elements 117

Part III      Making Your Content Come to Life

7      Responding to Input Events 143

8      Downloading Content on Demand 179

9      Animation 191

10    Audio and Video 219

 

About the Author
Adam Nathan is a senior software development engineer for Microsoft and the founding developer of Popfly, Microsoft’s first product built with Silverlight. He is the author of the best-selling Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed (Sams, 2006), .NET and COM: The Complete Interoperability Guide (Sams, 2002), a coauthor of ASP.NET: Tips, Tutorials, and Code (Sams, 2001), and a contributor to books such as .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference, Vol. 2 (Addison-Wesley, 2005) and Windows Developer Power Tools (O’Reilly, 2006).

 

Adam regularly speaks at development conferences and to internal groups within Microsoft about a variety of .NET topics. Having started his career on Microsoft’s Common Language Runtime team in 1999, Adam has been at the core of .NET technologies since the very beginning. Adam is also the creator of popular tools and websites for .NET developers, such as PINVOKE.NET (and its Visual Studio add-in). You can find him online at www.adamnathan.net.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Sams; 1 edition (October 26, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672330075
• ISBN-13: 978-0672330070
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #522,228 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This item is part of The Unleashed Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good book, better than Wrox, October 30, 2007

By	.NET Code Monkey - See all my reviews

I bought this book after Silverlight 1.0 from Wrox, and from a brief topic-by-topic comparison, Silverlight Unleashed is simply better.

The Wrox book was a very good introduction, but it did not offer much beyond that. Silverlight Unleashed has more useful code samples (and they are also in full color, like the Wrox counterpart), and what I found most helpful was the series of "Tip" sections along the way to shed light on Silverlight's "gottchas". They gave good hints on what will probably be defined as Silverlight best practices in the future.

Topic-wise, the most notable difference between the two books was chapter eight on downloading content. Silverlight Unleashed had much more helpful explanations.

The Wrox book did, however, have a better introduction to Silverlight from a theoretical point of view. If you deal with Silverlight in a non-developer role (account/sales manager, business analyst, etc.), go with the Wrox book. That seemed to more plainly explain its features, integration with other platforms/tool sets, and how to sell others on Silverlight.

But if you are in a developer role, this book will be more immediately useful.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book on the subject, December 9, 2007

By	M. Washington (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a person who has read all the official documentation cover to cover and other Silverlight books cover to cover I can say that this is the best book on the subject.

Even though I had already read over 500 pages on the subject I was still able to find over a hundred things that I had not encountered anywhere else. One example is animation. He explains how you can set animated "to" in Javascript and you don't need a "from". A animation problem that previously had me stuck for a week was solved with 10 lines of code.

The examples are small and easy to follow. The coding is first rate. The "side bars" all contain priceless information. There is no fluff, if he wrote it down it's important. He also has all the code from the book online (http://www.adamnathan.net/silverlight/code/) where you can alter the examples in your web browser and see the results.

I also read his Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed (WPF) (Unleashed) and that is the best book on that subject so it is not surprising that he was able to nail this one perfectly.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable Read on Silverlight 1.0, October 30, 2007

By	FutureTurnip "Jeff Kwak" (Fort Lauderdale, FL) - See all my reviews

This book was very usefull and masterfully crafted. The book guides you from creating the silverlight plug in, to using XAML, to making the most out of the Silverlight's media capabilities. The topics are covered to a very low level, but the author provides such carefull explaniations that even I finally get how attached properties work in XAML and why we need them. The sidebars and breakouts are extremely usefull. There are explanations, were appropriate, of how Silverlight compares with Avalon. Adam even points out known issues and problems along the way. The code samples are extremely relevant to the topic and very usefull. Truly, an enjoyable book for learning Silverlight!