10554: Developing Rich Internet Applications using Microsoft Silverlight 4

Silverlight 4.0 makes it possible for developers to create rich, interactive applications delivered through a Web browser to nearly any client operating system, including Windows, Mac, and Linux. This course introduces the basics of creating and hosting Silverlight applications, working through many of the important controls, through binding Silverlight applications to live data. This course then moves beyond the basics to cover working through some more advanced controls, more graphic issues including shapes, geometries, brushes, transforms, and animations, through deploying Silverlight applications.

In this course, you will:

• Investigate Silverlight application templates, designer and controls in Visual Studio 2010
• Examine the Silverlight layout system
• Work with each of the simple and more complex, Silverlight controls
• Using styles and resources to create consistent, visually interesting applications
• Extend binding to work with data
• Investigate more of the built-in controls
• Learn to create and use shapes and geometries, and the powerful Path element
• Deploy Silverlight applications
• Work with Expression Blend 4
• Add animation techniques
• Work with the DataGrid control

Prerequisites

This course assumes that students have some programming background and experience using Visual Studio 2010. This course assumes knowledge of a CLS language (Visual C#), of the .NET Framework, and the current (or a prior) version of Visual Studio.

Introduction to Silverlight

• Introduce Silverlight 4
• Compare declarative and procedural coding styles
• Investigate the Silverlight designer in Visual Studio 2010
• Learn about controls and events in Silverlight 4

Layout

• Understand how the layout system works in Silverlight
• See how to use various containers to control layout
• See how to use alignment and sizing to control layout

Simple Controls

• Investigate Border, Button, CheckBox and RadioButton controls
• View and enter text using TextBlock, TextBox and PasswordBox controls
• Work with dates using the DatePicker and Calendar controls
• Add visual flair using the Slider, ProgressBar and MediaElement controls

Advanced Controls

• Learn how to use controls that enable users to select an item from a list
• See how to add menus to applications
• Explore controls that enable you to better organize content

Styles and Resources

• Investigate XAML Resources
• Learn about the hierarchy of resources
• Work with resources programmatically
• Organize resources with resource dictionaries
• Experiment with XAML Styles
• Apply Styles dynamically
• Work with Style inheritance

Navigation

• Explore navigation in WPF applications
• See how to build page-based applications that support navigation
• Learn how to navigate using XAML and code
• See how to build the Navigation Application project template

Binding

• Learn to use Binding objects to bind data sources and targets
• Add data converters to manage conversion during the binding process
• Use data templates to modify the layout of bound data in lists

Working with Data

• See how to retrieve data from a WCF service
• Create common data bound forms
• See how to display information from main and related tables

Advanced Data Controls

• Explore how to use the DataGrid control to display data
• See how to use the DataGrid control to edit data
• Learn how to use the DataForm and DataPager controls to display data

Shapes and Geometries

• Learn to use basic shapes: lines, ellipses, rectangles, and polygons
• Add line caps and joins
• Work with geometries and paths
• Investigate the geometry mini-language

Brushes and Transforms

• Work with solid, gradient, and image brushes
• Add transparency effects, including opacity mask
• Investigate built-in transforms
• Add reflection effect using opacity mask and transforms

Deployment

• See how to deploy Silverlight applications
• See how to deploy out-of-browser applications
• Explore how to cusomize the installation of Silverlight

Introducing Expression Blend

• Compare Visual Studio and Expression Blend
• Examine the Blend integrated development environment
• Learn about Expression Blend’s designer panels
• Integrate Expression Blend with Visual Studio
• Create resources and set up element-to-element binding in Expression Blend

Introducing Animation

• Understand how animation works in XAML applications
• Examine animation, storyboard, and trigger objects
• Learn to start animations in code
• Work with DoubleAnimation, ColorAnimation, and PointAnimation objects
• Examine properties of the animation classes
• Try out various easing functions
• Use Expression Blend to interactively create animations

Working with Data Using WCF Data Services

• Learn how to create WCF Data Services
• See how to call WCF Data Services from Silverlight applications
• Explore how to modify data using WCF Data Services

Silverlight and Networking

• See how to make cross-domain calls from Silverlight applications
• Explore how to use the WebClient class to request data from Web Sites