Silverlight Introduction
Silverlight is reusable graphical tool from the Microsoft. By using Silverlight we can implement 2D Graphics, 3D Graphics and Animations. We can develop rich internet applications by using Silverlight.
Microsoft designed Silverlight based on XML and JavaScript language. All Silverlight graphical features executes in the Client machine browser only, not on server. Silverlight is Cross Browser and Cross Platform. By using Silverlight we can develop RIA(Rich Internet or Interactive Applications) with graphical features.
With the help of Silverlight we can implement all graphical features like a Desktop applications and we can reuse in the Asp.Net web projects. Silverlight is developed based on the XAML(Extensible Markup Language). Through the XAML, we can develop controls based on OOP's concepts and 2D & 3D graphics. The XAML have collection of controls and containers to the controls and to the containers we can give Silverlight graphical features.
Through Silverlight we can develop only User controls with the extension of .XAP for reusable purpose. XAP communicates with the Silverlight plug-in which has to install on client browser, without Silverlight plug-in Silverlight applications will not run.
As compared with the Adobe, Silverlight takes less space for flash files whereas Adobe takes couple MB space.
XAML is based on XML. DOM(Document Object Model) defines standards for accessing the HTML, XML content. We can classify DOM into three types, those are Core DOM, XML DOM and HTML DOM.
Silverlight Plug-in
The Silverlight plug-in is a very light weight component that is necessary for browsers to access Silverlight applications. Silverlight is officially supports in IE 6, IE 7, IE 8, IE 9, Mozilla and Safari browsers. We can download the Silverlight plug-in from internet, once you install the plug-in it easily integrates with the browsers installed on machine.
