Silverlight is a lightweight browser plug-in that frees your code from the traditional confines of the browser. It's a rules-changing, groundbreaking technology that allows you to run rich client applications right inside the browser. Even more impressively, it's able to host true .NET applications in non-Microsoft browsers (like Firefox) and on non-Microsoft platforms (like Mac OS X). Silverlight is still new and evolving fast, and you need a reliable guidebook to make sense of it.

With four-color graphics and screenshots throughout, Pro Silverlight 2 in C# 2008 is the perfect reference: you'll learn about the features that put Silverlight in direct competition with Adobe Flash, such as rich support for 2D drawing, animations, and media playback, and best of all, 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. Author Matthew MacDonald provides an expertly crafted tutorial written from professional developer to professional developer. You'll learn to create rich media applications using Silverlight in the environment you're most productive in-no matter what the target platform.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 15 Ratings

Great book! Must Read! - 2009-07-07
Reviewer Rating:
I read Matthew McDonald's book Pro WPF to bone up on WPF, XAML, and everything .NET 3.5 has to offer. I have to say that I was impressed by Matthew's writing style, level of detail, and general knowledge that he passed onto the reader. This fact is also the case with Pro Silverlight 2. While WPF has some similarities to Silverlight, the author points out some of the differences (like the lack for EventTrigger support for any event but the Loaded event in the current version).
The book covers all of the major topics, starting with an overview of the basic elements: XAML elements, properties (simple and attached), moving into the subjects of Layout containers, dependency properties, and routed events. He then moves into an overview of the various controls. This overview isn't exhaustive, but gives you a firm foundation. I thought his chapters on shapes, brushes, transforms, audio/video, and animation to be very helpful. It can be difficult to understand how to setup these various features, and Pro Silverlight 2 clarifies it well.
The next section of the book covers the more advanced topics that you would need to know to use Silverlight, such as using web services within ASP.NET/silverlight (a useful topic since Silverlight doesn't use ViewState or server-side technologies because it's running on the client), databinding (which can be challenging due to various levels of nested Silverlight structures), multithreading, and more. He really doesn't leave very many stones unturned in his explanation of the features.
I would highly recommend this book from Apress. Although Silverlight 3 is coming soon, this book will help you understand those fundamentals that will be in the next version.

The best Silverlight book so far - 2009-06-07
Reviewer Rating:
The author does an excellent job of building up knowledge piece by piece, layer up on layer. He doesn't just understand the subject matter, he really grasps how to build that knowledge up in the reader's mind in a logical, bite-size manner.

This book is definitely not for beginning programmers as it doesn't go to the early levels of handholding for novices. Apress has a beginner's book for Silverlight thatthat would be better if you're newer to development. I'm a career developer and enjoyed the quicker pace, and underlying assumption of good development practices throughout the book.

A practical and balanced coverage of Silverlight 2 - 2009-10-14
Reviewer Rating:
After reading through this book and applying the principles described therein I was able to develop a real world Silverlight application that behaved itself inside of IE, communicated with a WCF service in the back end, retrieved data from a SQL database, then bound that data back into the Silverlight UX. I had prior C#, SQL (cursory), and Web services experience (also cursory) but this book stitched it together for me and showed me how to make my application possible. In that regard it is a very good and practical beginner to intermediate level book for real Silverlight application development. The examples in the book are never trivial and the content is detailed and well written enough that you gain a solid understanding of the technology (not just how to cut and paste sample code). The book didn't let me down until I tried to get into more complicated tasks like rendering my own shapes/geometries and manipulating the XAML DOM in code. For that you'll need to go somewhere else for additional information. If you want to put together fairly typical line of business applications that access services and databases from rich client interfaces written in Silverlight using web based deployment this book will give you most of what you need.

Detail oriented book and very well organized - 2009-09-18
Reviewer Rating:
This is one of the best books I have seen on Silverlight. It is written well for both new and more experienced developers. I would recommend this book to anyone that like to learn things in detail. There are many books out there that are just enough to get you started but once you get into real life situations, you'll need other references. Not with this book. I have been able to do most of the coding with this book, MSDN and reflector. Can't wait to see this book for Silverlight 3.

Best Silverlight 2 book for C# developers - 2009-09-07
Reviewer Rating:
This is in my point of view the best book to learn Silverlight 2 using C#. Very complete, from XAML, animations, WCF web service integration, data binding with data converters, elements, layouts, creating controls, even game creation, you name it got it all here. Good thing is that one chapter builds over the other. Most centralized using Visual Studio, Blend is not touched too deep.

I am eagerly waiting the Silverlight 3 edition. But if you need now a Silverlight 2 book to learn, this is the one. Also recommend the Blend 3 Foundation book. A great combination of books to enhance your knowledge.

Browse Similar Topics

Top Level Categories:
Internet/Online

Sub-Categories:
Internet/Online > Web Design
Internet/Online > Web Development