Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Design: CSS, Themes, and Master Pages

Appendix B. An Introduction to Microsoft Silverlight

If you are a web developer, you have probably been tasked with presenting some sort of animated welcome splash page or header area for a web project. Or, if that hasn't happened yet, it probably will at some point in the future. The default solution to this requirement is, generally, to use Adobe Flash. Microsoft has never really offered a web solution for this type of work. They have continually improved their web programming languages (e.g., classic ASP to .NET to the latest .NET 3.5 enhancements) and the tools to develop these technologies, such as the latest Visual Studio products. They have, in the last few years, begun tinkering with interface and design technologies, such as Master Pages and AJAX. Microsoft has even shown a much bigger commitment to CSS and web standards through improvements in its support of CSS in its IDE as well as its Internet browser (which still isn't there but is making progress). But, at least to this point, they haven't dabbled much in providing rich user interfaces on the web. With the introduction of Microsoft Silverlight, though, Microsoft is taking a stab at this market, too.

According to Microsoft, "Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of Microsoft .NET-based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web." If you read anything put out by Microsoft about Silverlight, you will see at least pieces of this phrase somewhere. ...