The Mailowl Scrolls

The first announcement from MIX07 that interested me is that Silverlight has got a Go Live license for version 1.0 and a 1.1 Alpha version has been released which allows developers to implement .NET code (as supposed JavaScript, the default) in their Silverlight projects. While I’m not sure how .NET projects will run on a Mac (because, importantly, Silverlight is designed to be cross-platform and cross-browser) it should at bare minimum, help developers get into the technology by allowing them to use a language they know. A new version on Microsoft Expression Blend has also been made available which supports Silverlight projects in JavaScript and .NET.

I was going to say; if you haven’t started playing with Silverlight yet or don’t know anything about XAML and would like to get involved; that you go through the latest Silverlight 1.1 Alpha SDK QuickStart. Sadly, the QuickStart in 1.1 Alpha requires you to do a setup in IIS and is asking for assemblies (like System.Web.Extensions and System.Web.Script.Services) which I can’t find. I recommend getting the Silverlight 1.0 Beta SDK and going through that QuickStart which is very clean and neat and, I think, explains everything (the requirements, what is XAML, how to draw stuff, animations and events) beautifully. My last complaint on the 1.1 Alpha QuickStart is that there are no Vista/IIS7 installation instructions.

The latest preview of Microsoft Expression Blend is just a pleasure to work with; and you should be right at home if you’ve worked with any of the previous, recent, releases. I very quickly (in less than a minute in fact) got an animated demo working using Silverlight and Blend and I’ll upload it to my blog when I get home (unfortunately no FTP access at work). I have a great fondness for the Expression suite (I’ve been downloading the CTPs since the beginning of last year) and its graphic designer centric layout makes it easy to pull off amazing special effects without have to know about XAML or look at code.

On a final note, the 1.1 SDK link on the Microsoft Silverlight website seem to point to a different download than the one MSDN Silverlight Dev Center; so be careful when exploring.