Microsoft talks up Silverlight, Expressions updates

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 19 August 2009 13:01

IT Industry - Development

Microsoft's spruiking the advantages of the latest versions of its Silverlight and Expression web tools.

Silverlight is Microsoft's platform for rich Internet applications (RIAs), while the Expression family looks after the design side.

Silverlight 3 is "about enriching the browser," according to Michael Kordahi, developer evangelist at Microsoft Australia. "We treat Silverlight like a platform," he added.

Changes include a deep zoom feature that delivers just enough data to accurately display the visible portion of an image at the required scale, as well as adaptive streaming that automatically adjusts the bit rate to suit the available bandwidth and CPU utilisation.

This saves users from having to select a version of the video before it starts to play, and delivers smooth playback without buffering delays.

Other new features include the ability to install Silverlight RIAs as desktop applications, perspective and other 3D effects, hardware acceleration, a pixel shader, and support for Photosynth (Microsoft's software for creating 3D 'virtual reality' models from a set of photographs).

Two years after its original introduction, Silverlight can be found on one in three Internet devices worldwide, Kordahi said. Microsoft offers Windows and Mac OS X versions, while the Mono project develops an implementation for Linux under the Moonlight name.

"Mobile is still being worked on," said Kordahi, adding that the aim is to deliver full functionality for handheld clients, not a 'Silverlight lite'.

Expression 3 also delivers several new features, including 'super preview' to show how pages will be rendered by different browsers. The renderings can be displayed side by side, or superimposed to highlight any differences.

It can also be used to compare the rendered page with a static design (eg, a Photoshop image produced by a designer) or a live web page.

Microsoft plans to extend this capability with a web-based service to extend the range of supported browsers and operating systems.

What else is new, and how much does it cost? Please read on.