When I tried to watch a video, it says 'Install Microsoft Silverlight'. I click on it, and start to download it, and it says I already have it. I search for Silverlight on my computer, uninstall it, go back to the website, install it again, restart my computer, and the video still doesn't show up. Finally, I got free minute to convert Silverlight BiDi controls from Silverlight beta 2 to RC0 (you can download SL rc0 tools for VS2008 here) and as usual some breaking changes (the full list is here) Calendar and DatePicker moved from System.Windows.Controls.Extended into System.Windows.Controls – Extended namespace is now deprecated.

RC0 was a developer only release (no Silverlight client available for it). Purpose of RC0 was to get developers to convert their beta 2 apps to RC0 to be ready for RTW; No API nor behavior changes from RC) to RTW; Offline support for Silverlight 2? Silverlight 2 supports supports isolated storage and supports cached data on the client. If you’ve previously installed Silverlight RC0 and the development tools, you will note that you cannot install Silverlight 2 RTW (Release To Web) if you didn’t update the developer tools first. An update of the developer tools, called “Microsoft Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2007 SP1 (RC1)” can be found here.

Silverlight 2 Release date set for 14 October 2008….. Released!

One of the most frequently asked questions by developers to Microsoft employees this past year, has probably been: “When will Silverlight 2 be released?”

Microsoft was very “secretive” about when Silverlight 2 will be released, but they’ve FINALLY made an announcement as to when we can expect SL RTW. According to this letter, Microsoft will be releasing Silverlight to the public on 14 October 2008. Yes. That’s correct! Not 27 October as anticipated, but today!

Old installations will automatically be updated (with default setting) to the new version as soon as this version will become available.

Oh man! I just refreshed http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/ and noted that SL was released while busy writing this post. Great news!

Rc0 Silverlight Tools : Free Programs Utilities And Apps Download

If you’ve previously installed Silverlight RC0 and the development tools, you will note that you cannot install Silverlight 2 RTW (Release To Web) if you didn’t update the developer tools first. An update of the developer tools, called “Microsoft Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2007 SP1 (RC1)” can be found here. This update will install:

• Silverlight 2 Developer runtime
• Silverlight 2 Software Development Kit (SDK)
• KB956453 for Visual Studio 2008 SP1, and
• Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1

The Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 includes the following:

• Visual Basic and C# Project templates
• Intellisense and code generators for XAML
• XAML design preview
• Debugging of Silverlight applications
• Remote debugging of Silverlight applications for Mac
• Web reference support
• WCF Templates
• Team Build and command line build support
• Integration with Expression Blend

Before you install this update, make sure to uninstall any previous versions of Expression Blend, and be sure to have Visual Studio 2008 SP1 installed prior to installing this update.

So? What has changed from RC0 to RTW? Well, as far as I could find out,

• Only bugs were fixed from RC0 to RTW. No API changes has been made.
• Google Chrome also currently supports Silverlight in their developer release. Here’s how to enable Silverlight for Chrome developer release.

You can listen to Scott Guthrie’s teleconference about Silverlight here and read more about it on http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/oct08/10-13Silverlight2PR.mspx.

Something else worth looking at is this page. You can find the Silverlight fact sheet also on this page. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/silverlight/default.mspx

So I am in the session for Silverlight 2 for Mobiles at the PDC.

So the Public CTP of Silverlight Mobiles will be available Q1 2009, so my guess would be it will made available at Mix09.

We got loads of demo's at the PDC Session. The good news is the same tools you use at the moment to create Silverlight 2 applications will work allow you to create Silverlight 2 Mobile applications. After all it is Silverlight 2 on a mobile :)

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO ANYTHING TO MAKE YOUR SILVERLIGHT APPLICATION TO MAKE IT WORK ON THE MOBILE, NO RECOMPILING, NOTHING.

The same app on the web will work on your mobile device.

The demo's given were a Silverlight application on a browser running in the Mobile Device Emulator (Windows Mobile Emulator). Not only did we the demo's in the emulator we saw thee applications compiled and deployed to a windows mobile device, and demo'd

The demos we were given:

• Hello World Button
• Rich Vector Graphic Animation of a Duck (done in blend)
• Baby Smash (by Scott Hanselman)
• Slot Machine
• Connect 4
• Guitar
• Dancing Man
• Web Service Image Downloader
• BBC IPlayer

Different User Experiences for Different Devices

This is not to say that all Silverlight applications are suitable to be run on the phone and desktop. This is due to the sizing of the application. An application that looks nice on a large desktop may not look so nice on a tiny phone, and vice versa. So you can give smaller less rich versions to phones, and very rich versions to desktop applications.

So you may wish to check the device and route them to a suitable version of the Silverlight application. Request Headers give you this information today.

Keyboard Interactions

Keyboard interaction is another area where you would want a different experience on the phones. So for example you probably want to limit your app to numeric input for certain devices (especially important in games)

Gestures

One of the very cool things done, was a gesture helper. This meant the mobile application supported gestures on the phone, by mapping mouse inputs to gestures, very cool. I hope this code is made generally available or production quality code is provided with the CTP (or on codeplex) so everyone doesn't have to keep ripping off Gesture Helpers.

Devices

Mobile Devices will run effectively a Silverlight 2 plugin on the device (just like the browser)

Microsoft are trying to work deals so that Silverlight is bundled with Device Vendors, so the user doesn't have to download the Silverlight plugin.

Mobile Features

They are looking in the future to support mobile specific functionality, such as capturing camera input (this wasn't demo'd).

Rc0 Silverlight Tools : Free Programs Utilities And Apps Downloads

There are also plans to run Silverlight 2 applications outside of the browser for mobile devices (just as was announced for desktop applications).

Final Demo

The last demo we saw a Silverlight 2 Mobile application interacting with the cloud.

The chap controlled a WPF application on his desktop via the cloud, and navigating the application on his phone using the accelerometer of his phone. He then was able to transfer object from his machine to his phone via the cloud.

Very cool demo.

Finally

Rc0 Silverlight Tools : Free Programs Utilities And Apps Free

So although Silverlight 2 will be supported on Mobile Devices you will wish to give different user experiences to different devices, so you must think about this, design for it, and test it on different devices.

Very Cool Stuff, just wish we had a CTP now.

However you can simulate a lot of this with todays technology, by rendering appropriately for various screen sizes. You just can't test it on a device or emulator.