Windows Experience Blog : Silverlight

The Windows Platform, Silverlight 4, and Facebook

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:02:33 GMT

Last week, we announced the availability of the Facebook SDK for .NET developers. The SDK supports coding for both Silverlight and the Windows Platform (WPF, etc.). Yesterday, Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft's .NET Developer Platform, took the stage for his part of the Day 2 Keynote at PDC09 where he announced Silverlight 4.

During the keynote, an out-of-browser Silverlight 4 application called SilverFace was demonstrated. SilverFace was developed using the Facebook SDK we announced last week.

SilverFace lets you do all kinds of things on Facebook directly from your Windows desktop such as update your status, upload photos, view friend’s photos and videos, and much more. This application is meant to serve as a proof point for the capabilities of Silverlight 4 in combination with the Facebook SDK and is not an actual product. You can think of this as more of a “technology showcase” and a demo of what the technology can do.

For those of you wanting to try out physical code (and is pretty cool), I’ve got something just for you.

Today, we’re making available an application for Windows 7 called Fishbowl for Facebook. This application is a sample application created by UXLabs@Microsoft that showcases the Windows Platform (when I say Windows Platform = .NET Platform) and takes advantage of key Windows 7 features.

Download: Fishbowl for Facebook Preview

Fishbowl for Facebook lets you quickly post a Status Update to Facebook, watch your Facebook News Feed, post comments, browse your friends and their photos and upload photos directly from their Windows 7 desktop. Let me take you through a few key areas of the app. I’ll start with the Windows 7 integration.

When running, Fishbowl for Facebook takes advantage of new Windows 7 features such Taskbar Previews and Jump Lists.

For example, when moving your mouse over the Fishbowl for Facebook icon on your Windows Taskbar, you get a Taskbar Preview. This allows you to quickly navigate quickly between Home (you’re News Feed), your friends list, your profile, and photos. You can also quickly go to Facebook’s homepage too.

If you right-click on the Fishbowl for Facebook, you get a Jump List that lets you see your most recent notifications. It also lets you switch to “mini-mode”.

You can upload photos to Facebook using Fishbowl for Facebook – simply by drag-and-drop!

Just put a title in, choose the album you want to add the photo to (or create a new album), and hit upload! Here I am dragging a panoramic photo I created in Windows Live Photo Gallery from my visit in September to the U.S.S. Hornet in Oakland, CA.

See the red lines under the “U.S.S.” and “SFO” text? Yeah, that’s spell check. Fishbowl for Facebook comes with spell check to help ensure you don’t accidently spell important words wrong that your friends can make fun of you for the rest of your life with. Trust me, it happens ;-)

While browsing a photo album, you can view the album in a slideshow, save photos, print photos, and zoom in and out.

And Fishbowl for Facebook supports Windows Touch too.

Ok, one last thing – when browsing your friends in Fishbowl for Facebook, you are given several ways of sorting through your friends. You can sort by name (display name or family), last Status Update, Upcoming Birthdays, or Interest Level. And you can also adjust Interest Level of individual friends by simply clicking on a friend and viewing their profile. Interest Levels let you control how much of that friend’s stuff hits your News Feed. If you have an annoying friend, just turn the Interest Level way down.

There are a lot of neat experiences you can have with Fishbowl for Facebook so give the app a spin yourself! Remember, you can download it here.

Fishbowl for Facebook will run on Windows XP and Windows Vista but requires .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 to be installed (this is not needed if you’re on Windows 7 as it’s built in). For the best experience with Fishbowl for Facebook, it is recommended you use Windows 7 to take advantage of all its features. Fishbowl for Facebook with automatically update when updates are available as well so when we make updated available, you’ll get them! But please note that Fishbowl for Facebook is meant as a sample application showing what developers can do with the Windows Platform and the Facebook SDK. This is NOT an officially supported product.

Stay tuned, Yochay from the Windows 7 for Developers Blog will be posting some behind-the-scenes geeky developer stuff shortly. For you developers out there, this will be a must-read. I can’t wait to see more applications like this for the Windows Platform.

New Features Hit Windows Live SkyDrive Today

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:16:35 GMT

The Windows Live SkyDrive Team just announced several updates to Windows Live SkyDrive which begin happening today.

Using Silverlight, you can now arrange your photos within a SkyDrive Folder just the way you want them. All you need to do is choose “Sort” in a folder with photos and select “Arrange photos”.

The new “Arrange photos” feature isn’t the first feature on Windows Live SkyDrive to use Silverlight – the Slide show feature for your photos also uses Silverlight to showcase your photos in a nice way.

You also have the ability to sort your files (including your photos) by name, size, date, or type.

There is also upcoming changes to profiles on Windows Live (to accommodate easily accessing photos of your friends) as well as Windows Live Favorites too! Again, you can get the lowdown on today’s update here from the SkyDrive Team.

Day 1 of MIX09 Introduces Silverlight 3 And Other Tools for Advancing User Experiences

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:24:00 GMT

MIX09 kicks off today in Las Vegas and brings together web developers and designers to discuss how they can deliver a better experience through software and the Web. And we are making several announcements this week at MIX09 that will help web developers and designers easily create the best experiences with their websites and applications.

Today at MIX09 we introduced the next version of Silverlight – Silverlight 3. Silverlight 3 offers web developers more than 60 controls to take advantage of – making it easy for them to create cutting-edge Web applications. Silverlight 3 expands on high-quality and high-definition video experiences with true high-definition video in full-screen mode including stutter-free live and on-demand video. Silverlight 3 supports more video formats, including H.264, and hardware-based media acceleration. And Silverlight 3 also adds support for Windows Touch on Windows 7 (click here to view my blog post on enabling Windows Touch on supported PCs with the Windows 7 Beta)!

Download: Silverlight 3 Beta for Developers

The final release of Silverlight 3 is expected to ship later this year. For more information on Silverlight 3, check out the Silverlight Team’s brand new blog: The Silverlight Blog.

NBC Universal has announced that they have chosen Silverlight to deliver the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games on its official Web site NBCOlympics.com. They used Silverlight for the Beijing Games with great success.

For a perfect example of the power of Silverlight web applications – check out the brand new web client for the Microsoft WorldWide Telescope. You can browse the galaxy directly within your web browser! A comparison of features between the web client and desktop PC client of the Microsoft WorldWide Telescope software is available here.

Here on The Windows Blog, we utilize Silverlight for delivering video content to our readers. Our video content is hosted on Microsoft Videos and with their Silverlight Video Player we embed the video into our blog posts. We’re working with the folks at Microsoft Videos in doing something real neat with our video content (and it’s all in Silverlight) so stay tuned!

For the full press release of today’s announcements from Day 1 at MIX09 – click here. On top of the Silverlight 3 announcement, we also announced several new components of the Microsoft Web Platform which includes the Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta. And we also announced new capabilities for Windows Azure as well.

Tim Sneath is “live blogging” MIX09 so if you’re wanting to stay on top of all the latest MIX09 happenings, read his posts.

Also announced today is the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit. Web developers can use the toolkit to make it possible for people who use Windows Live Messenger to communicate and express themselves directly within their website. Essentially, a web developer can give you a pretty slick web IM experience using Windows Live Messenger on a website you are visiting.

Why would a web developer want to embed Windows Live Messenger IM functionality within their website? Visitors of a website with Windows Live Messenger functionality built in can IM with their contacts or even other visitors on the website. This creates a new level of engagement for visitors on that website.

For more information on the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit, click here. UPDATE: Angus Logan blogs about the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit here and worth checking out.

We are looking at deploying the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit here on The Windows Blog for our readers.

Register for MIX09 and Save $400!

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:35:06 GMT

MIX09 is coming up fast – kicking off in Las Vegas at the Venetian March 18th – 20th. If you register between now and Feb. 13th for MIX09 you can save up to $400 off the conference price – that means you get a full conference pass for $995! To take advantage of this offer, go to the MIX09 Registration page and choose "Register for the event using an RSVP Code" option and use the RSVP code MIX09offer to receive your discount.

Not only will folks at MIX09 get the low-down on the next major release of Silverlight – Silverlight 3 – there will be sessions on IE8 as well as Windows 7 and Multi-Touch. The current list of sessions is available here with more to be added soon.

Mike Swanson highlights the return on your investment in attending conferences like MIX09 in person in a really neat video. Mike talks about quite a bit in 4 minutes but is worth watching if you are asking yourself “why should I go to MIX09?”

If you are going to MIX09 you can MIXtify things by adding “Blog Bling” to your website. You can also download awesome MIX09 desktop backgrounds for your PC. The wallpapers look quite nice in the Windows 7 Beta!

For direct updates on MIX09 - follow MIX09 on Twitter.

Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 and Deep Zoom Composer Update

Brandon LeBlanc — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 02:04:00 GMT

As announced earlier this week during the Tech•Ed 2008 Keynote - Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 has been released. Tech•Ed 2008 for Developers is taking place in Orlando this week with Tech•Ed 2008 for IT Professionals starting next week. Check out the Virtual Press Room for Tech•Ed 2008 for the latest announcements.

On top of today's Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 release comes two new releases also worth taking note of: Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 CTP and an updated build of Deep Zoom Composer for Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 support.

Because of updates made in Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2, I needed to install the updated build of Deep Zoom Composer and re-publish my Space Needle Deep Zoom Collection to take full advantage of today's Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 release.

Download: Deep Zoom Composer June 2008 Release (Version 0.9.0.3)

Download: Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 CTP

With the new build of Deep Zoom Composer - I was able to choose between JPEG and PNG for the format of my photos within my Deep Zoom Collection. In my updated Space Needle Deep Zoom Collection I went with PNG. However, when you choose JPEG you can set the quality of the JPEG images which is really nice. Another new feature in the new Deep Zoom Composer is the ability to tag images within your Deep Zoom Collection. Apparently there is a way to add sorting by tags for Deep Zoom Collections but this process is fairly code-intensive and I'm not really sure just how to do that - yet.

Deep Zoom Collection*: Top of Space Needle in Seattle, WA (UPDATED)

* Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 is required to view Deep Zoom Collections. If you don't have Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 installed, it will ask you to install it to view the Deep Zoom Collection.

Using the Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 CTP release I was able to change some of the formatting of my Deep Zoom Collection such as changing the background and the size of the actual Deep Zoom area. Expression Blend 2.5 can open Deep Zoom Projects created by Deem Zoom Composer - allowing for more advanced control over the project.

I plan to have my second Deep Zoom Collection published shortly - and to be quite a bit bigger than my Space Needle Doom Zoom Collection.

Have you created a Doom Zoom Collection? Leave a comment with a link to your Deep Zoom Collection!

Not Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 related - but still Silverlight related - check out the trailer to the upcoming new X-Files move X-Files: I Want to Believe in Silverlight! Thanks Barack for the heads up.

Look from the top of the Space Needle with Deep Zoom

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 22 May 2008 03:27:00 GMT

A couple weeks ago, the Deep Zoom Composer Team announced an update to Deep Zoom Composer that was first released at MIX this year. You can download the new version here (version 0.9.0.2). I decided to use Deep Zoom Composer myself to create my very own Deep Zoom Collections.

If you recall, I took a roadtrip around the Pacific Northwest with a friend and took quite a bit of photos with a Canon Digital Rebel XTi (a Certified for Windows Vista camera). I used many of the photos to create some panoramic shots with Windows Live Photo Gallery. Click here to view the shots as well as the post about my trip. However I still had tons of photos left over from the trip. I decided to use some leftover photos taken from the top of the Space Needle in Seattle, WA to create my very first Deep Zoom Collection.

Deep Zoom Collection*: Top of Space Needle in Seattle, WA

* Silverlight 2.0 Beta is required to view Deep Zoom Collections. If you don't have Silverlight 2.0 installed, it will ask you to install it to view the Deep Zoom Collection.

Creating a Deep Zoom Collection is really easy with Deep Zoom Composer. Almost anyone can create their own Deep Zoom Collection.

All I needed to do was import the photos I wanted to include in the collection into Deep Zoom Composer and compose them onto what is called the "artboard". I can drag and drop photos I imported from the image selector on the right-hand side onto the artboard and arrange the photos however I want in variety of sizes and alignments. Deep Zoom Composer includes alignment presets (located on the toolbar at the bottom of the artboard).

Once I was done composing my Deep Zoom Collection, I went to the Export tab and exported my project out as a Silverlight Project. In exporting out a project, be sure to export as a collection and not a composition. If you export out as a composition - it flattens your entire arrangement of images into one giant image. Exporting as a collection is like a collection of "compositions" - with each image being a composition. You'll notice things look better when you export as a collection. I made this mistake the first time.

After the export of my project is finished, I am presented with several options - such as being able to preview my Deep Zoom Collection in a browser.

So how did I get my Deep Zoom Collection onto the web? All I needed to do was FTP all the files within the "DeepZoomOutput_Web" directory which is under the Project Folder (see above screenshot on how to quickly access your Project Folder) into a directory here on the Windows Vista Team Blog.

Give Deep Zoom Composer a try yourself. I would love to see some of your Deep Zoom Collections. Leave a link in comments. Let me know what you think of mine. I hope to regularly do Deep Zoom Collections here. Special thanks to the Deep Zoom Composer Team for helping me with my first Deep Zoom Collection!

Installing the Silverlight Plug-in on Windows Vista

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 01 May 2007 08:52:00 GMT

Installing the Silverlight 1.0 Beta plug-in on Windows Vista is really easy. Here is a video of me installing the plug-in on my desktop PC earlier today:

Video: Installing the Silverlight Plugin on Windows Vista

What is incredible about the installation experience is that when you install the plug-in once from IE7 (or Firefox) you will be able to view Silverlight content in either IE7 or Firefox without any problems. As you can see in the video, I installed Silverlight through IE7 but then launched Firefox to play the same content. I didn't have to install a separate plug-in in Firefox!

I thought this was a pretty cool experience to share with everyone. Bear with me as I attempt to find my footing with shooting video content ;-)

Download Microsoft Silverlight DreamScenes for your desktop!

Brandon LeBlanc — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 02:19:00 GMT

In celebration of Silverlight at MIX07 this week (and the upcoming launch of their new website) – the wonderful folks on the Silverlight Team have released a slick looking new DreamScene for your Windows Vista Ultimate desktop. Their new website is due to go live at www.microsoft.com/silverlight tomorrow which will include the DreamScene downloads. But I'm giving you a sneak peek at the DreamScenes tonight!

The DreamScene is called “Dusk” and can be downloaded in two formats (Standard or Widescreen):

Download: Microsoft Silverlight “Dusk” DreamScene (Standard)
Download: Microsoft Silverlight “Dusk” DreamScene (Widescreen)

I shot some video of the Silverlight DreamScene running on my desktop PC and put it up on Soapbox.

Video: Microsoft Silverlight "Dusk" DreamScene

In order to enable these DreamScenes, you must have Windows Vista Ultimate and have installed the Windows DreamScene Technical Preview which is under Ultimate Extras in Windows Update. To install the DreamScenes, just right-click on the above download links and save them to your Videos folder. Then right-click on your desktop, go to Personalize and then Desktop Background and under Location choose your Videos folder and select the new Silverlight DreamScene.

Enjoy the DreamScenes and expect more Silverlight announcements as MIX07 kicks into high gear tomorrow morning!