| | |  | Software Engineering | Home » » » Pro Silverlight 3 in C# (Expert's Voice in Silverlight) | | | | | | | Product Promotions: | | | | | Description: | | Full-color graphics and screenshots throughout make Pro Silverlight 3 in C# an invaluable reference for professional developers wanting to discover the new features of Silverlight 3. Author Matthew MacDonald's expert advice guides you through creating rich media applications using Silverlight in the environment you're most productive in—no matter what the target platform. As you learn about the features that put Silverlight in direct competition with Adobe Flash, such as rich support for 2D and 3D drawing, animations, and media playback, you'll experience the plumbing of .NET and the design model of WPF through Silverlight—all of the same .NET technology that developers use to design next-generation Windows applications. MacDonald provides an comprehensive tutorial written from professional developer to professional developer. What you’ll learn - Develop rich media applications using Silverlight across browsers and platforms.
- Create a project, set up a layout, and use controls.
- Handle both 2D and 3D drawing, animation, and media playback through Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).
- Integrate web services support.
- Use Silverlight in conjunction with ASP.NET and its interactions with HTML.
Silverlight 3 is the latest iteration of Microsoft's cross-browser technology for creating rich user experiences on the Web. Like its predecessor, Silverlight 2, it rides atop the .NET Framework for maximum ease of use and coding efficiency. The new technology carries forward much of the work that has been done before and augments it in many important respects, including support for H.264 video, major improvements to the graphics engine (including true 3D rendering), and much richer data-binding options for interfacing with other applications. Who this book is for .NET developers encountering Silverlight for the first time. No prior knowledge of WPF or ASP.NET is assumed. Table of Contents - Introducing Silverlight
- XAML
- Layout
- Dependency Properties and Routed Events
- Elements
- The Application Model
- Navigation
- Shapes and Geometries
- Brushes, Transforms,and Bitmaps
- Animation
- Sound, Video, and Deep Zoom
- Styles and Behaviors
- Templates and Custom Controls
- Browser Integration
- ASP.NET Web Services
- Data Binding
- Data Controls
- Isolated Storage
- Multithreading
- Networking
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Matthew MacDonald | | Paperback:
| 640 pages | | Publisher:
| Apress | | Publication Date:
| November 10, 2009 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 1430223812 | | Product Length:
| 8.64 inches | | Product Width:
| 7.1 inches | | Product Height:
| 1.92 inches | | Product Weight:
| 3.21 pounds | | Package Length:
| 9.1 inches | | Package Width:
| 7.0 inches | | Package Height:
| 2.0 inches | | Package Weight:
| 3.25 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 26 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 26 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 found the following review helpful:
 By far the best resource for Silverlight 3.0Nov 07, 2009
By T. Anderson
This book is by far the best resource for Silverlight 3.0. In this version the author added a whopping 185 pages to the last edition. He added chapters on Data Controls, separated the Styles, Templates, and Custom Controls into two separate chapters name Styles and Behaviors, and Templates and Custom Controls, and added a new chapter on Navigation.
I have bought 3 other books on Silverlight 3, and put together they only contain about 1/8 of the value of this book (you can see which ones they are by Googling "Shiny Turds Books that do not Cut the Mustard").
It starts out with an introduction that covers the Visual Studio Silverlight environment. He then gives a short introduction to XAML. The introductions really help those who have no experience get rolling right away.
The author covers every out of the box element in detail (including the DataGrid control and a little on the DataForm control), and includes a nice reference for where the element can be found in the book. He also covers styles and templates, brushes and transforms, shapes and geometries, animation, and layout containers.
The book covers out-of-browser applications, assembly caching, networking, multithreading, isolated storage, browser integration, media and deep zoom, wcf services, the application model, and dependency properties and routed events.
One of the things I like best about the book is it includes a lot of references and material on the Silverlight Toolkit.
The book is very readable for those that like to read cover to cover, but it also makes a great reference.
The downloadable code is very usable and very complete.
This is a must have book for any developer working with Silverlight 3.0.
7 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Awesome - The Best Silverlight 3 Book PeriodNov 06, 2009
By David Roh
First the good news - the PDF version of this book and source code are available now from the APRESS web site.
I have had this book on order for so long that Amazon actually cancelled my first order.
The PDF (and I am sure the print version) is in full color.
The book is an updated version of MacDonald's Silverlight 2 book - from the PDF it appears to have the same print quality which is superb.
If you want to learn Silverlight 3, this is the book to own - period.
David Roh
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
 In-depth coverage for developers with some knowledge of SilverlightJan 27, 2010
By B. Baker
This is an excellent book, but with a couple of qualifications. First, it's not a tutorial-oriented book. If you're brand new to Silverlight and learn well by doing guided walk-throughs, you might want to start elsewhere. I started out with some online tutorials and another book (Silverlight 2 Unleashed). I found the content here really helped round out my knowledge of Silverlight. MacDonald does go a lot deeper than the other sources I've used.
Second, don't expect coverage of Expression Blend for designing applications - there's almost no coverage here. Creating complex animations and styles can be much easier in Blend, so you'd want to get that coverage elsewhere. It certainly helps to understand how things like layout and animations work under the hood, and the book gives a good grounding there.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
A very good book that touch all the core topics needed to develop a silverlight applicationNov 27, 2009
By Rajesh Kanaparti
It's very easy to say that " I loved reading this book and worth my time and money". The book is very easy to read. All the chapters are arranged systematically, that way it's easy for readers at every level. It starts with explaining the history of Silverlight and slowly introduces all the basic concepts necessary to develop Silverlight applications.
I loved that the author has a "What's New" sections wherever applicable, that way for people like me who is upgrading their skills from Silverlight 2 can jump to those areas if they are only interested in the new features of Silverlight. As far as the depth, the author has done a very good job of explaining all the important concepts and almost all the controls available out of the box and controls available in Silverlight Toolkit.
What I liked is that the author also mentions the limitations if any or cautions and because I have implemented multiple projects in Silverlight, I can tell that all those tips , cautions and Notes can save you lot of time and frustration. For example, the mouse wheel event only fires in IE and not in other browsers or how to handle exceptions at an application level and how VS handles them when you are in debug mode vs. release mode. Those types of tips are very useful when implementing a feature and when you put the app in productions.
All the new features like Out of Browser, Navigation are discussed. Individual chapters are dedicated to Animation and Sound, Video and Deep Zoom to go deep in these areas which was very useful for me personally.
.NET Ria Services is slightly touched, not in depth as its relatively new which can be slightly disappointing for those who want to learn about it .Data Annotations and Data Validation for the forms and other Data Controls are discussed in depth
I wished the author has talked a little bit more about Rest Services as the web Client has some limitations in areas of REST, Frameworks like Prism and Caliburn and Commonly used design patterns like MVVM and other TDD best practices in context of Silverlight
For that reason, I would say that this book is more suitable for entry level to mid level Silverlight developers. But if you are completely new to Silverlight or just touched few areas in developing Silverlight, I seriously recommend this book to get strong in all core areas of developing Silverlight applications.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
The go-to book for Silverlight developmentNov 30, 2009
By Adam Barney
Matthew MacDonald's Pro Silverlight 3 in C# should be regarded as the "go-to" book on Silverlight 3. This book has it all, and is approachable by all audiences, seasoned developer and beginner alike. From an introduction to XAML, Microsoft's new standard UI language, to a fine-grained, in-depth discussion of animation in Silverlight, MacDonald gives you everything you need to create functional, real-world applications in this emerging and rapidly developing platform.
The most notable and impressive aspects of this book is its applicability to very diverse audiences. Regardless of where you are coming form, this book will guide you to the point where you can create compelling and useful applications.
If you are coming from a WPF background, you will be most interested in which of the WPF features you are accustomed to using you will have to abandon to conform to Silverlight's more restrictive feature set. Fortunately, this book does a good job of pointing out those differences, and explaining how one goes about working around these deficits.
If you are new to Silverlight, Pro Silverlight 3 will deliver a wide and deep base of knowledge to start building your Silverlight 3 applications on. The first several chapters on XAML, Layout, Dependency Properties and Routed Events and Elements introduce the reader to the building blocks of Silverlight applications. A reader experienced in Silverlight 2 or WPF development could probably skip these chapters, noting only the properly distinguished notes on the differences between full WPF and Silverlight.
Throughout the book, MacDonald does an excellent job of noting the differences between Silverlight 2 and Silverlight 3. In terms of the total content of the book, these differences are relatively small, yet the power and freedom in your apps that is afforded by the new features they cover is tremendous. Readers coming from an in-depth knowledge of Silverlight 2 (or those who read his previous book) will find the differences clearly noted at the beginning of each chapter - making it easy to find just the bits you are looking for.
So no matter where you are coming from, Matthew MacDonald's Pro Silverlight 3 in C# will help you develop or grow your Silverlight skill set. This is a must-have book for developing rich internet applications on the .NET framework. I highly recommend it.
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