Description
- Silverlight Overview and Features
- Browser plug-in — A Microsoft runtime that delivered rich internet applications inside web pages via a lightweight plugin model.
- XAML and .NET — UI defined in XAML with client code in C# or VB.NET, bringing a subset of the .NET programming model to the browser.
- Rich media playback — Built‑in support for high‑definition video, smooth streaming, and adaptive playback for media‑heavy apps.
- Vector graphics and animation — Hardware‑accelerated vector rendering, pixel shaders, and timeline animations for fluid UIs.
- Deep Zoom and Pivot — Fast, multi‑resolution image navigation and rich data visualization components for large image sets.
- Controls and libraries — A rich control set (charts, media controls) and extensibility for custom controls.
- Out‑of‑browser support — Option to run Silverlight apps outside the browser with elevated permissions and offline capabilities.
- Networking and sockets — HTTP stack, sockets support, and cross‑domain policy handling for rich client-server interactions.
- Security sandbox — Restricted runtime with code access security, isolated execution, and safe file/IO patterns.
- Integration with Visual Studio and Blend — Designer/developer tooling for rapid prototyping, debugging, and XAML design workflows.
- Cross‑platform reach — Supported Windows and macOS browsers via plugin; mobile and modern browser support declined over time.
- Versioning and lifecycle — Multiple major releases (ending with Silverlight 5) and an official end‑of‑support lifecycle that requires migration planning.
- Performance tuning — Techniques include UI virtualization, efficient data binding, and leveraging GPU acceleration for heavy rendering.
- Advanced graphics and 3D — Support for perspective transforms and limited 3D effects suitable for interactive visualizations.
- Enterprise use cases — Historically used for media portals, interactive dashboards, and rich internal tools where browser parity and plugin availability were acceptable.
- Migration and modernization
