The Silverlight Blog

Announcing the Bing Maps Silverlight Control

Silverlight Team — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:10:44 GMT

Earlier today at TechEd Europe in Berlin, Germany we announced the launch of the Bing Maps Silverlight Control, the newest addition to the Bing Maps Platform. The Bing Maps Silverlight Control uses the power of Silverlight to provide a powerful and rich platform for building mapping and location-based applications. The control provides a new level of performance in terms of interactive visual experience with Silverlight Deep Zoom when panning and zooming and rendering large amounts of data on the map. The control makes it even easier to develop mapping applications using Silverlight’s development environment with Expression Blend, Visual Studio, and managed code. We want to thank you, the community, for all the great feedback from the Silverlight map control CTP release last March. We were able to incorporate a lot of your feedback into the control, and today it is production ready!

Here is a list of some of the features in the Bing Maps Silverlight Control:

· Silverlight 3 including support for Out of Browser

· Road and Aerial (with/without Labels) Map Modes featuring Deep Zoom with the Silverlight MultiScaleImage control

· Position Silverlight UIElements on the Map including images, video, pushpins, polylines, and polygons with a few lines of XAML

· Data Binding with the MapItemsControl

· Use Bing Maps Web Services with the control for advanced Search, Geocoding, and Routing functionality

· Design-time integration with Expression Blend

· Scripting interface for coding with JavaScript

· Embed Silverlight Maps with a single URL in a web page

· Online Interactive SDK with demos and sample code showing how to use the control

Along with the Bing Maps Silverlight Control we are also launching enhanced performance across the Bing Maps Platform with improvements to our distributed data center infrastructure. We also have made it easier than ever before to get started with the Bing Maps platform where you can sign up for an account at the Bing Maps Account Center (https://www.bingmapsportal.com/) and get a Bing Maps Key and try out the control and services for free! All users get a free trial for the control and services and it remains free for non-profit, education, and small websites.

For more details, see the Bing Maps Platform website at: http://www.microsoft.com/maps or visit the Bing Maps Community Blog at: http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/maps/.

Try out the Bing Maps Silverlight Control today!

Announcing the new Microsoft SDK for Facebook Platform

Silverlight Team — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:06:06 GMT

Today, as part of our ongoing collaboration with Facebook, we released a very exciting new developer resource: the Microsoft SDK for Facebook Platform (http://www.microsoft.com/facebooksdk). This SDK combines the power of Web, client and social technologies to enable millions of developers to transform their imagination into next generation application experiences. We look forward to seeing the creative applications that developers will create for Facebook that will open up new avenues for users to share and connect with their friends.

WPF NewsFeed sample control

Since 2007, Microsoft has been working to provide developers with the option to quickly and efficiently build Facebook applications across the breadth of our portfolio, ranging from Visual Studio to Zune, Xbox Live, Windows Messenger and Live Search.

Additionally, in April 2009, we participated in the Facebook Technology Tasting event where we demoed two applications that showcased the ease of viewing photos with an application built in Silverlight and .NET (highlighted in an article by Jason Kincaid/TechCrunch: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/01/microsoft-shows-off-the-power-of-facebooks-new-apis/).

This latest release of the Facebook SDK (Toolkit) combines the latest in Web and Client platform innovations with leading Social technologies (services) together to enable millions of developers and designers to transform their imagination into the next generation application experiences.

Intellisense for the Facebook API

No matter what your application flavor is, the Microsoft SDK for Facebook Platform supports the development of applications across Silverlight, WPF, ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, and Windows Forms, enabling easy consumption of Facebook services delivered through the Facebook Open Stream API (http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Using_the_Open_Stream_API).

Sound daunting? It’s not – the SDK contains a wide range of samples, controls, templates and help documentation which means using the tools is a cinch. Let your imagination fly! With more than 300 million users and more than 1 million developers on Facebook, and 6M Microsoft software developers there is a whole new world waiting for you.

Get started today at www.microsoft.com/facebooksdk.

The XXI Olympic Winter Games on NBCOlympics.com: Brought to you in Full HD With Silverlight and Smooth Streaming

Silverlight Team — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:17:00 GMT

In August 2008 we were proud to be part of sports history and deliver a Summer Olympics online experience for fans everywhere. In partnership with NBC, the Silverlight and MSN teams are once again delivering on our commitment to providing the highest quality online video experience with live and on-demand HD (720p) coverage of the XXI Olympic Winter Games with Silverlight and Live Smooth Streaming. The new, interactive Silverlight player was recently launched on http://www.nbcolympics.com and we encourage you to visit the site and join NBC as they count down 100 days to the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

None of this would be possible without the close cooperation of our partners who are helping Microsoft and NBC push the envelope with the delivery of Olympics content. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how that magic happens:

The raw video feeds come from Vancouver through NBC’s facilities in New York City onward to iStreamPlanet’s facilities in Las Vegas. iStreamPlanet helped to develop the content acquisition, encoding and CDN ingest architecture, including the design and development of the workflow automation service to automate video decoding, routing, publishing points creation, encoding and content ingestion into the CDN.
Inlet’s Spinnaker technology encodes the feeds into Live Smooth Streaming formats using encoders into 6 different bitrates for each stream.

Akamai servers pick up the encoded Live Smooth Streaming files from Microsoft-hosted Windows Servers, and use the Akamai HD Network to deliver and cache the content around the network.

Viewers watch content through the Silverlight-based media player, designed and developed by Vertigo, which reads and integrates a data feed from Deltatre that contains all of the play-by-play information, schedules, results and other Olympics-related statistical information.

Monitoring software from Conviva ensures an alert is sent to NBC and Microsoft if there are any problems with the streams so the problem can be corrected immediately.

During the 2008 Summer Olympics, Silverlight enabled viewers to choose what they wanted to watch, when they wanted to watch it. For the upcoming Vancouver Winter Olympics we’re working with NBC to make the experience even better! In addition to live and on-demand coverage of the events, we’ve added some new interactive features such as:

Full PVR-like functionality with fast forward, rewind and slow motion capabilities, as well as the ability to join a live stream after it has started.
Enhanced play-by-play functionality to easily jump the video to key moments like a goal being scored in hockey or a world-record breaking split time in skiing.
A Microsoft Silverlight Deep Zoom slide show viewing experience that provides a quick and easy way to browse, view, and zoom into entire photo collections, developed by Vertigo.

As you can see, it takes a lot to make this happen! We invite you to experience the new NBC Olympics site today on http://www.nbcolympics.com and look forward to additional enhancements to the player and the opening ceremonies on February 12, 2010.

OWL and Billboard Launch Landmark Concert Series using Microsoft Silverlight

Silverlight Team — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:04:36 GMT

Our World Live (OWL), a music marketing and broadcasting company, is partnering with Billboard.com to bring music fans a new internet concert series .

Billboardlive.com utilizes OWL's state-of-the-art technology, powered by Microsoft Silverlight to provide fans with five-camera angles, where the viewer becomes the director for the ultimate interactive viewing experience. Instead of being confined to traditional static concert footage, fans will have the ability for the first time ever to view the concert from five different angles of their choosing. In addition to the larger, full-screen view, fans will see four smaller screens at the bottom of their computer. They can replace the main image at any time with any of those views for a different experience with just the click of their mouse. Each show will also highlight a specific Billboard chart of the week. At the same time they can Twitter and send live messages to their Facebook friends directly from the concert 5 camera player.

Superstars Alicia Keys, R. Kelly, Usher and David Archuleta Among Top Artists Slated to Perform as Part of Billboardlive.com's Stellar Lineup; R.Kelly Live Concert From Nokia in Dallas at 8 PM CT October 29 http://live.billboard.com/Concert/View/200205

Eclipse Tools For Silverlight Now Available

Silverlight Team — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:11:00 GMT

The Eclipse Tools for Silverlight (Eclipse4SL) plug-in is an open source, cross-platform plug-in for the Eclipse development environment that enables Eclipse developers to build Silverlight Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). Microsoft has collaborated with Soyatec, a France-based IT solutions provider, to develop subsequent beta versions, including the Mac version, since announcing the Eclipse4SL project in October 2008. Today we are excited to announce that Microsoft and Soyatec have released version 1.0 of the Eclipse Tools for Silverlight plug-in, which can be downloaded here: http://www.eclipse4sl.org/

Version 1.0 of Eclipse4SL targets Silverlight 2.0. We are working with Soyatec to add support for Silverlight 3.0 in spring 2010 timeframe. You can find a roadmap of the milestones that we have projected on the project site: http://www.eclipse4sl.org/#roadmap . Video demo walkthrough of the plug-in are also available here and here (Mac version).

Inserting a Silverlight Navigation and Slideshow into Your Web Page

Silverlight Team — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:35:36 GMT

Expression Web makes it faster and easier to create standards-based Web sites with rich Silverlight content. With Expression Web 3, you can easily add Silverlight content, in this case from Expression Blend, to your Web sites.

In this example, we’ll be adding a navigation menu bar and interactive slide show to the Web site by inserting this Silverlight content into an Expression Web page.

Users who come to your site will see your Silverlight 3 content as long as they have the Silverlight 3 Plugin; users who do not have the Silverlight 3 Plugin will be prompted to download it.

Modifying the Layout to Fit the Silverlight Content

HTML and CSS layouts are based on a box model and it’s important to keep this in mind when you plan to add Silverlight content. Silverlight content is imported into your pages with a fixed width and height and if the size of the Silverlight file is larger than the container it’s being added to it, may break the layout, become clipped or in some way create visual problems. Therefore, when possible, you should set the width and height of the container area in your web page to match the width and height of the Silverlight content.

In this case, we’ll modify the topnav div container for the page so that it is sized the same as the Silverlight content. First, I’ll select the div.

With Expression Web’s CSS Properties tab, I can display the CSS properties for this div. Although there are dozens of possible CSS properties, many of them will be empty; to make it easier to find the values for this particular container, I can change the way Expression Web displays the properties.

In the CSS Properties panel, I can click the third icon to show just the Set properties on top. This will sort only those properties that have a value to the top, in this case: background-color, height and width.

I’ll change the value for the div’s height by just clicking on it and typing, in this case, 418px. The Silverlight content has dimensions of 980 pixels wide by 418 pixels high. So this area now matches in size.

Inserting Silverlight Content

Now, I can choose Insert> Media> Silverlight from Expression Web’s menu and a window appears asking to select a Silverlight XAP file. In this case, I’ll select the Lucerne_navheader.xap file and then click Open.

I can also just drag and drop the Silverlight control from the Toolbox into the topnav div.

When you insert Silverlight content into a web page, Expression Web creates an inline frame to contain the Silverlight content and displays a blank placeholder.

Now, we need to set the width and height of that inline frame.

Click on the Silverlight placeholder to select it and then click on the tag Properties panel. You will see attributes for data, height, type and width. The height and width properties are set to default values of 480 and 640. This should be changed to match the size of the Silverlight content.

So, I’ll change the size of the placeholder to match the Silverlight content.

The Silverlight placeholder will now have expanded to fit the topnav section.

Once I’ve saved the Web page and CSS file, I can preview the Web page in the browser.

To preview your page in the browser press F12 or choose File > Preview in Browser.

Depending on which browser you are using and your security settings, you may need to allow the browser to run the Silverlight content.

The Silverlight content will appear in the top half of your page as an animated slide show as well as an interactive navigation bar.

For more information on how to add Silverlight content to your Web site, here is a set of tutorials that covers this example.

For a free 60-day trial of Expression Web 3, click here.

Please tell us what you think about Expression Web 3.

Accessible Media Player

Silverlight Team — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:57:12 GMT

Playing video in Silverlight is great, but what about viewers who have a hearing impairment? Not important? The World Health Organization (WHO) would beg to differ. According to their 2005 estimates, “278 million people worldwide have moderate to profound hearing loss in both ears.” That’s almost 17% of the world Internet population.

So you should really think about how to address viewers who are Deaf or hard of hearing. One way to do this is by using closed captions (aka “subtitles for the Deaf and hard of hearing”) in your videos. This tutorial by Sean Hayes in our Accessibility Business Unit describes how to implement closed captions in Silverlight media.

10 shortcuts worth discovering in Expression Blend 3

Silverlight Team — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:05:00 GMT

If your schedule is in anyway similar to mine you’ll probably be very familiar with this scenario.

A new version of a tool that you use day in and day out is announced, packed with exciting new features and enhancements that you know will immediately make your day-to-day life easier. So you do what we all do; diligently set aside sometime to really understand all the nuances of the new version so that you can leverage all those great new features. Of course, real life immediately gets in your way! A new deadline, an issue with a project, or an unexpected client meeting. So you put off your learning time… but only for a few days.

Six months later you’re looking over someone’s shoulder exclaiming “I didn’t know Blend could do that!”. How many times has this happened to you? It’s happened to me too often, so with that in mind, here are a few keyboard shortcuts that you may not have realized were already available to you in Expression Blend 3:

1: Timeline: Selecting keyframes using mouse drag
If you’re working in the timeline, the ability to easily marquee select keyframes would be a much easier workflow than individually selecting each one. This is a hugely requested feature and it’s already available in Blend 3!

When you’re in the timeline simply hold the CTRL key to drag-select a group of keyframes across on a single or multiple timelines.

Shortcut: CTRL + Mouse Left Button + Drag

2: Timeline: Selecting non-sequential groups of keyframes using mouse drag
Taking the selection of keyframes to the next stage, sometimes you need to select multiple different groups of keyframes. You can achieve this in the timeline by using CTRL + SHIFT as you drag select each different set of keyframes.

Shortcut: CTRL + SHIFT + Mouse Left Button + Drag

3: Artboard: Quickly see a list of all the elements on the Artboard that are directly underneath the mouse pointer
This feature is perfect if you know the name of the element you need to select. Simply press CTRL + Right Click and then select the element from the list.

Shortcut: CTRL + Right Click

4: Artboard: Easily select a covered or overlapped object
Often you can see the object you need to select, but it is sitting underneath or is overlapped by other elements.
Repeatedly use ALT + Click to select and cycle through overlapping objects on the Artboard.

Shortcut: ALT + Mouse Left Button

5: Artboard: Drag selection of objects on the Artboard
Clicking the mouse button in Blend selects an object on the Artboard and holding CTRL at the same time allows you to drag select individual or multiple items.

Shortcut: CTRL + Mouse Left Button + Drag

6: Artboard: Easily zoom the Artboard view
Hold CTRL + Space to use the Magnifying Glass to zoom in on the Artboard. If you also click and drag, you can draw a marquee area and zoom in to just that area.

Shortcut: CTRL + Space (standard zoom control)
CTRL + Space + Mouse Left Button + Drag (marquee zoom area)

7: Artboard: Copy objects immediately on the Artboard
If you hold down the ALT key, then drag an object on the Artboard, you’ll make a duplicate of the object you dragged. Holding down the SHIFT at the same time will allow you to constrain the axis of movement as you copy.

Shortcut: ALT + Mouse Left Button + Drag (duplicate object)
ALT + Mouse Left Button + SHIFT + Drag (duplicate + constrain axis of movement)

8: Artboard: Temporarily select your previous tool
You can quickly select your previously selected tool by holding the CTRL key. This is a great time saver. Imagine you’ve just added an object such as a Button to your Artboard - if you need to move or resize it you can simply hold the CTRL key to select your previous tool, the pointer, and then immediately you can move and resize the button. Once you release CTRL, your tool reverts back to its previous selection.

Shortcut: CTRL

9: Data Pane: Temporarily switch to details data mode when using sample data
If you’re using the sample data feature in Blend 3 you don’t need to keep manually pressing the icons to switch from Master to Details mode. Instead, you can hold down the ALT key and any data you drag to the Artboard will be set as Details data.

Shortcut: ALT + Mouse Left Button + Drag

10: Having fun with sample data
Did you know that all the information Blend uses to define its sample data is held in a spreadsheet in the Data folder at this location:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Expression\Blend 3\SampleDataResources\en

and the images Blend uses is in the Images folder at the same location. You can easily change and adjust the information Blend is using to generate its sample data. Don’t forget to make a backup of the file first :)

We hope that many of these shortcuts were new to you and help make your day-to-day life with Expression Blend 3 more productive!

UFC 104: Bringing Pay-Per-View to Online Users with Silverlight, Smooth Streaming, and PlayReady

Silverlight Team — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:29:27 GMT

Back in August we told you about how UFC.com used IIS Smooth Streaming for the UFC 102 pre-fight weigh-ins. Building on the success of that, we’re excited to announce that this Saturday, October 24^th, UFC 104 will use Silverlight and IIS Smooth Streaming not only for the weigh-ins, but also for the actual fights. Even more exciting is that Silverlight can now enable pay-per-view of live Smooth Streaming events with PlayReady DRM. This is a major advancement that will enable content owners to safely and securely offer and monetize premium content. This will ultimately make more premium content available to online viewers, and with Silverlight and Smooth Streaming it will look awesome!

For the UFC 102 weigh-ins, the Smooth Streaming content looked great even though the maximum stream bitrate was 1.5Mbps. For UFC 104 we’re pumping it up to 4Mbps for a true HD experience. Once again Origin Digital will be doing the encoding using Inlet Spinnaker encoders, so the video quality will be unsurpassed. Once it’s encoded Akamai will be delivering it on the Akamai HD Network, so viewers can expect the best viewing experience possible. As with UFC 102, CSG Systems has partnered with UFC to bring the event to online viewers using their Content Direct product to protect and monetize the content.

You can check out the pre-fight weigh-ins at www.ufc.com/live 4 PM PDT/7 PM EDT on Friday, October 23^rd and the pay-per-view UFC 104 fights on Saturday, October 24^th at 7 PM PDT/10 PM EDT from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Announcing Convexion - A New PowerPoint-to-Silverlight Add-in

Silverlight Team — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:21:17 GMT

Electric Rain is excited to announce a new product called Convexion, a PowerPoint to Silverlight converter that’s aimed at both presenters and Silverlight designers and developers. This first-of-its-kind tool works as an add-in to PowerPoint and offers single-click export of any slideshow into a self-contained .XAP file, or with the Convexion Pro version, a complete Expression Blend project. The exported project comes in the form of a .SLN file enabling Silverlight designers and developers to directly integrate the presentation content into a larger project, or to fully customize the Convexion Player Skin from the original export. And whether you’re converting to .XAP, Blend Project, or even a WPF-based .EXE or.SLN, Convexion offers amazing fidelity with slide transitions, slide animations (including support for builds, wipes, etc.), layout and more. What you see in PowerPoint is what you get in Silverlight. So whether you have the need to get some presentation content onto the web quickly, or have clients looking to streamline the publishing of slides into a custom branded player skin, Convexion is there to help you leverage the powerful media delivery and animation capabilities of the Silverlight platform.

For more information about Convexion please visit http://www.erain.com/Products/Convexion/Default.asp?erain=msslblog