How to Programmatically detect Silverlight version?

Two questions that often arise when building Silverlight based websites are:

A. How do I detect if Silverlight is installed on a visitor’s browser?

B. How do I detect what version of Silverlight is installed on a visitor’s browser?

The answer to A is relatively simple since Silverlight.js (the standard Silverlight javaScript include file) contains a function that we can use. The function is called isInstalled and it returns true/false. You can use it the following way to detect if there is any Silverlight version installed:

<script src="Silverlight.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

var isSLInstalled = Silverlight.isInstalled(null)

The answer to B is a little more complex since for some reason there is no direct way to get Silverlight’s version number. Basically the only documented way to answer this question is to repeatedly call isInstalled with different version numbers until you get the right version.

Example:

Silverlight.isInstalled(‘3.0′)

Silverlight.isInstalled(‘2.0′)

Silverlight.isInstalled(‘1.0′)

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Related useful post: How to add Silverlight version detection to Google Analytics ??

WPF vs. Silverlight

Microsoft feels that user experience is important, and invested in multiple technologies to promote better user experience.  Both WPF and Silverlight use XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language) under the covers. 

Let’s look at some of the different characteristics of each technology: 

WPF:

• Ships as part of the .NET Framework (version 3.0 and onward)
• Runs as Windows application or as web "browser application" (called XBAP, for "XAML Browser Application").  Note that XBAPs run only in Internet Explorer with .NET 3.0 and in both Internet Explorer and Firefox with .NET 3.5.  
• Runs on Windows machines only (Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008)
• Richest functionality, including 3D graphics

Silverlight:

• Ships independently
• Runs in web browsers only (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari)
• Runs on Windows or Mac operating systems (also on Linux via Moonlight, which is an open source implementation of Silverlight based on Mono)
• Functionality is a subset of WPF’s feature set

When should you use each?  The maddening answer is (of course): it depends! 

WPF is a more mature technology and was designed with a richer feature set.  It also has the advantage of being able to run in a browser or as an installed Windows-Form-type app. 

Silverlight has a broader reach.  You can access Silverlight from many operating systems and web browsers. 

The most important reason to choose one over the other should be based on the intended audience for the application.  For example, if a corporation is designing an application for internal use only and every employee has Windows XP as the company standard OS, then go with WPF to leverage the richer feature set.  If a corporation is designing an external-facing website, then Silverlight is the better choice because potential customers can access the website from a variety of different operating systems and browsers. 

Silverlight Validator & Input Toolkit

A really nice new CodePlex project that enables validation controls for Silverlight – making form input scenarios a lot easier.

This toolkit provides the following:

• Required Field Validator
• Field Length Validator
• Phone Validator (and optional formatting)
• SSN Validator
• Regex Validator
• Numeric Range Validator
• Text input filter service is included that can be used to filter user input to only numerics, alphas, etc.
• Easily modified to add additional validator types

Click here for more info…..

Silverlight 2 End to End Tutorial: Building a Digg Search Client

To help people come up to speed with Silverlight 2, I’ve written a simple Silverlight application and put together a series of step by step tutorials that explain the different programming concepts behind it (controls, layout management, networking, data-binding, styles, user controls, templates, etc). I also added a tutorial post that demonstrates how to migrate the application outside of the browser and enable it to run as a desktop application using WPF and the full .NET Framework. 

Below are the pointers to the 8 tutorials I’ve put together:

• Part 1: Creating "Hello World" with Silverlight 2 and VS 2008
• Part 2: Using Layout Management
• Part 3: Using Networking to Retrieve Data and Populate a DataGrid
• Part 4: Using Style Elements to Better Encapsulate Look and Feel
• Part 5: Using the ListBox and DataBinding to Display List Data
• Part 6: Using User Controls to Implement Master/Details Scenarios
• Part 7: Using Templates to Customize Control Look and Feel
• Part 8: Creating a Digg Desktop Version of our Application using WPF

 

Click here to read more….

Important Silverlight Tutorials for Beginners

Technorati Tags: Silverlight FAQs

Important FAQ questions for WPF and SilverLight:

• What is the need of WPF when we had GDI, GDI+ and DirectX?
• How does hardware acceleration work with WPF?
• Does that mean WPF has replaced DirectX?
• So can we define WPF in a precise way?
• What is XAML?
• So is XAML meant only for WPF ?
• Can you explain the overall architecture of WPF?
• Which are the different namespaces and classes in WPF ?
• Can explain the different elements involved in WPF application practically?
• What are dependency properties?
• Are XAML file compiled or built on runtime?
• Can you explain how we can separate code and XAML?
• How can we access XAML objects in behind code?
• What kind of documents are supported in WPF?
• What is SilverLight ?
• Come on, even WPF runs under browser why SilverLight ?
• Can SilverLight run in other platforms other than window?
• What is the relationship between Silver Light, WPF and XAML?
• Can you explain SilverLight architecture?

             click here to read more ……

 

SilverLight FAQ part 2 (Animations and Transformations)

• What is the definition of animation from Silver light perspective?
• What is a timeline in Silver light?
• What are the different kinds of animation supported by Silverlight?
• Can you explain doubleanimation , coloranimation and pointanimation ?
• What is a story board?
• Can we see a simple silverlight animation to just get started?
• What are the different ways in which silver light does transformation?
• Silverlight VS Flash good news and bad news

         click here to read more…

 

SilverLight’s FAQ – Part 3

Technorati Tags: Silverlight tutorial
• Can you explain one way and two way bindings?
• Can you explain One time binding?
• Can you demonstrate a Simple example of OneWay and TwoWay?
• What are the different ways provided to do layout in SilverLight?
• Can you explain how Canvas layout actually works?
• How can we implement Grid Layout?
• How can we implement Stack Layout?
• What are the different steps involved in consuming WCF service in Silverlight?
• Why can’t we consume ADO.NET directly in SilverLight?
• How can we do database operation using SilverLight?

        click here to read more…