Manning Early
Access Program
Silverlight in Action, Revised Edition
Silverlight 4, ViewModel Pattern, and WCF RIA Services
EARLY ACCESS EDITION
Pete Brown
 Revised edition of Silverlight 2 in Action by Chad Campbell and John Stockton

MEAP Began: June 2009
Softbound print: June 2010 | 425 pages
ISBN: 9781935182375
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Table of Contents, MEAP Chapters & Resources

Table of Contents         Resources 
 1. Introducing Silverlight
 2. Core XAML - AVAILABLE
 3. The Application Model and the Plug-In - AVAILABLE
 4. Integrating with the Browser - AVAILABLE
 5. Integrating with the Desktop - AVAILABLE
 6. Sizing, Positioning and Transforming Elements
 7. Displaying Text and Printing
 8. Human Input and Controls
 9. Binding - AVAILABLE
10. Validation, Annotation, and Data Controls
11. Networking and Communications
12. Dialogs, Navigation, and Partitioning with MEF
13. The ViewModel Pattern, Testing, and Debugging
14. Introduction to WCF RIA Services
15. Graphics and Effects
16. Displaying and Capturing Images and Media
17. Animation and Behaviors
18. Styles, Templates, and Resources
19. Creating Controls and UserControls
20. Distribution and Deployment 		 

DESCRIPTION

Anyone who has gotten a taste of what it can do knows that Silverlight represents an entirely new level of rich web interface technology for Microsoft developers. With Silverlight, developers can use JavaScript, C#, and other languages to build user-friendly, interactive, and visually-dazzling web applications that work in most major browsers.

Silverlight in Action, Revised Edition is a comprehensive guide to Silverlight, taking you from Hello World through the techniques you'll need to build sophisticated rich web apps. This new edition covers all the new features added in the latest versions of Silverlight, Visual Studio, and Expression Blend, along with the best practices emerging in the Silverlight community. With more than 50% new content, you'll take a mind-expanding trip through the technology, features, and techniques required to build applications ranging from media, to custom experiences, to business applications to games.

Beyond the fundamentals, you'll find numerous practical examples of important patterns like the ViewModel (or MVVM) pattern, and effective practices for developing real-world applications. You'll delve into the underlying object model and what makes Silverlight tick. Business application developers will appreciate the coverage of the exciting new.NET RIA Services. Combined with advanced binding and validation techniques, they help you visualize how to make your application development super productive and your architecture flexible enough to implement solutions in any problem domain.

Silverlight in Action, Revised Edition devotes extensive coverage to flexible layout components, the extensible control model, the communication framework, and the data-binding features-all cornerstones of software development. You'll master Silverlight's rich media and vivid graphical and animation features. The closing chapters include a variety of Silverlight deployment and customization scenarios.

Finally, Silverlight in Action, Revised Edition doesn't leave you in the dark when it comes to testing and debugging your applications. Techniques, tools, and patterns to support testable Silverlight applications are woven throughout the chapters, with additional dedicated content on the specifics of testing and debugging in Silverlight.

WHAT'S INSIDE

This book assumes knowledge of basic web technologies and C#, but no previous experience with Silverlight is required.

About the Author

Pete Brown is a Microsoft MVP for Silverlight, a Silverlight Insider and a popular INETA speaker. Pete works as an RIA Architect/Project Manager for Applied Information Sciences. In his spare time Pete enjoys programming, blogging at www.irritatedvowel.com/blog, woodworking, and raising his two children with his wife in the suburbs of Maryland.

First Edition authors

Chad Campbell is a Microsoft MVP and solutions architect. He has been developing enterprise-level web applications with a wide variety of technologies since 1999. He holds MCSD and MCTS certifications and holds BS degree from Purdue University.

John Stockton is a web applications developer and is active in the Silverlight community, speaking at and organizing live and online events.

PRAISE FOR SILVERLIGHT 2 IN ACTION

“I recommend this book for anyone getting started with Silverlight, or for those working with Silverlight at the intermediate level.”
—Dennis Hayes, asp.netPRO

“Silverlight 2 in Action gives you a solid, well-thought out and coherent foundation for building RIA web applications, and provides you with lots of technical details without ever becoming cloudy.”
—Golo Roden, author, trainer and speaker for .NET technologies

“All in all, this book is excellent to begin Silverlight, and also to come back to regularly.”
—Philippe Vialatte, Developpez.com

“...Improve your Silverlight skill in a very short time.”
—Michael Sync, MichaelSync.net

“I've read a number of Silverlight books to date; many suffer the scars of having been begun for earlier Silverlight versions and have had to be updated as Silverlight has changed. Silverlight 2 In Action does not suffer from this -- it is feature-complete for the Silverlight 2 RTW (release) version and I do not believe I have seen any Silverlight book yet that has this much detail on virtually all the facets of Silverlight development.”
—Peter Bromberg, co-founder of eggheadcafe.com

“I'm strongly recommending this book to everyone, whether you're a professional developer or just a beginner and want to learn the basics of Silverlight to experience the tips and tricks of building RIAs. After thoroughly reading this book, I have come to the conclusion that this book is enough to turn this world around with Silverlight.”
—Faisal Khan, DotNetSlackers

“The book itself is written in an easy to follow style, covering all the elements of Silveright you need to get up and running, while answering those questions in the back of your mind.”
—Richard Costall, MVP, MCSD.NET

About the Early Access Version

This Early Access version of Silverlight in Action, Revised Edition enables you to receive new chapters as they are being written. You can also interact with the authors to ask questions, provide feedback and errata, and help shape the final manuscript on the Author Online

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