Silverlight 3 Released

by | Jul 10, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Today we officially shipped the final release of Silverlight 3.

Silverlight 3 Features

Silverlight 3 is a major update and delivers a ton of new features and capabilities.  Some of the new Silverlight 3 runtime capabilities include:

HD Media

Silverlight 3 now supports hardware graphics acceleration – enabling both video and graphics compositing to be offloaded onto a GPU.  This can dramatically lower CPU usage on a computer, and enables HD video to be played on older low end machines.  You can now deliver and play 1080p HD video experiences over the web.

Silverlight 3 includes new media codec support for H.264 video, AAC audio and MPEG-4 content.  This enables you to easily play and stream media encoded using these standards.  Silverlight 3 also includes raw bitstream audio/video APIs that enable you to create additional codecs (in any .NET language) that support playing any other media format.  Silverlight 3 also adds a variety of additional media features that enable better logging (for media analytics and ad monetization scenarios), provide the ability to disable screen-savers when playing long-form video content, and enable content protection.

IIS Media Services is a free server product that complements Silverlight and provides the ability to efficiently stream media over HTTP.  It enables both on-demand and live HD video to be delivered using “smooth streaming” – which is an adaptive streaming algorithm that can deliver video at bitrates optimized for a client’s network conditions and CPU capabilities.  Check out this demo to see a good example of smooth streaming in action with Silverlight.

The HD support within Silverlight, combined with the Smooth Streaming support of IIS Media Services, enables a dramatically better video experiences on the web.  This past week alone, we’ve had multiple customers broadcast live HD events using Silverlight and smooth streaming (up to 3MBits) including: Wimbledon, the Tour de France, AVP Volleyball, and the Michael Jackson Memorial Service.

Immersive Graphics

The new GPU acceleration capabilities of Silverlight 3 enable even richer and more immersive graphic experiences.

Silverlight 3 also adds new perspective 3D support that can be used with graphic elements, videos and controls.  Silverlight 3 also includes new bitmap and pixel APIs, as well as the ability to create and apply custom pixel shader effects (e.g. blur, dropshadow, swirl, etc) to any image, video element, or control.  Easing support can also now be used to enable more textured motion within animations.

Out of Browser Support

Silverlight 3 enables applications to run outside the browser and taken offline.  Users can safely install web applications on their computers, and create persistent shortcuts to them on the desktop, start menu and taskbar (this is supported on both Windows and the Mac).

New network detection support within Silverlight enables developers to monitor the network status of a machine and switch between offline and online modes within their applications.  Silverlight 3 also includes an automatic update mechanism for applications – so that clients who have installed applications are automatically updated when new application versions are deployed on the originating webserver.

Application Development

Silverlight 3 includes a ton of new application development features.

The Silverlight 3 runtime/SDK combined with the Silverlight Toolkit now includes ~100 UI controls that enable common scenarios (layout, data, charting, child windows, etc) while also providing full styling and template customization support.

Silverlight 3 enables richer data binding features.  Element to element binding support between controls is now enabled.  Validation error template support has been added to controls (enabling better error message display).  Hierarchical data binding is supported by the DataGrid.  And a new DataForm control enables better master/detail scenarios.  Silverlight 3 also now enables SaveFileDialog support.

Silverlight 3 includes a new navigation framework that enables deep-linking and forward/back button integration within the browser.  This also enables search engine optimization (SEO) support so that content within a Silverlight application can be indexed by search engines – including Google, Bing and Yahoo.  Silverlight 3 also supports the ability to cache assemblies on the client, and re-use them across multiple applications (decreasing the download size and improving the startup time of applications).

Silverlight 3 includes much better text rendering and font support.  Text rendered using Silverlight 3 applications is much crisper and cleaner than previous releases, and applications now have access to local fonts.  The Silverlight 3 styling system also now supports merged resource dictionaries, BasedOn style inheritance support, and the ability for styles to be reset any number of times.  Silverlight 3 also adds richer accessibility support, and is the first browser plug-in to provide access to all system colors, allowing partially-sighted people to make changes such as high contrast color schemes for ease of readability using familiar operating system controls.

Silverlight 3 includes richer networking support.  WCF error faults are now supported across the network.  Server-side push duplex support is now easier to setup.  Binary XML serialization of payloads is now supported.  The new .NET RIA Services framework (which now has a go-live license) can be used to easily build multi-tier data applications that span the client and server.  .NET RIA Services enables you to write validation code once and have it applied on both the client and middle-tier layers of your applications.

Visual Studio 2008 Tools for Silverlight 3

Today we are also shipping a free download that enables Silverlight 3 development support for VS 2008 and Visual Web Developer 2008 Express (which is free).  The VS 2008 Tools for Silverlight download provides project support, intellisense, compilation, and debugging for Silverlight 3 applications.  The next release of Visual Studio – VS 2010 – will add to this and provide a fully interactive WYSIWYG designer for Silverlight (including data binding support within the designer).

Click here to download the VS 2008 Tools for Silverlight (this will also install the SL3 developer runtime + sdk).  Click here to download the Silverlight Toolkit (which adds additional controls).

Expression Studio 3

Today we are also shipping a release candidate (RC) of Expression Blend 3 (including Sketchflow) that enables rich editing of Silverlight 3 applications and projects. 

You can download the Expression Blend 3 + Sketchflow RC here. 

Expression Blend 3 is a major update and enables dramatically richer tooling support.  Some of its improvements include:

  • Sketchflow: SketchFlow makes it significantly easier to create prototypes, experiment with dynamic user experiences, and incorporate feedback from customers.  If you haven’t seen or tried it yet – you must.  It really is a game changing new way to create great user centric applications.
  • Intellisense: Blend 3 includes C#, VB and XAML intellisense support.  You can now write code and event handlers within Blend without having to switch to VS. 
  • Behaviors: Blend 3 includes behavior support which can encapsulate complex design interactions into reusable components that can be directly applied to a control within the design surface.  This enables designers to quickly add functionality and behavior to applications without having to write code.
  • Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator Import: Blend 3 now has built-in support for importing Photoshop and Illustrator files.  As part of the import process you can view and pick individual Photoshop layers to import, customize and regroup layers, and have Photoshop/Illustrator elements retain their original formats within XAML: including layer positions, editable text and font settings, and vector element conversion to XAML.
  • Sample Data: Blend 3 adds design-time sample data support which makes it easy to mock up data-connected applications and see what they look like without requiring access to live data.  You can generate sample data or import sample data from an XML file and it is available to controls on the artboard at design-time. You can customize your sample data details, and you can easily switch between using sample data and using live data at run-time.
  • TFS: Blend 3 now includes Team Foundation Server (TFS) support – allowing you to use source control and enlist within projects.  Blend shares the same project and solution format as Visual Studio – allowing both VS and Blend to work simultaneously on the same projects and enabling seamless editing between them.
  • Other Improvements: Additional enhancements including improved animation and easing function support, 3D transform support, visual effects support, and an improved visual state manager designer.

Christian Schormann has a great blog post that describes Expression Blend 3 in more detail. 

The final release of Expression Studio 3 (which includes the Blend + Sketchflow, Web, Encoder and Design products) will ship within the next 30 days.  Expression Studio 3 will be included as part of the MSDN Premium and higher subscriptions (meaning MSDN Premium customers don’t have to pay anything extra to get all of the Expression Studio products).  Expression Studio 3 will also be available for standalone purchase for $599 (with discounts available for upgrades from previous versions of Expression and/or competitive products).

Summary

Today’s release is a major update of our Silverlight stack of products – and comes only 9 months after the release of Silverlight 2. 

You can learn more about Silverlight 3 and the tools that go along with it from the below sites:

  • www.silverlight.net (tutorials, downloads and forums where you can get help)
  • expression.microsoft.com (Expression community home)
  • www.microsoft.com/silverlight (Silverlight home – some V3 feature demos here)

Hope this helps,

Scott

Silverlight Virtual Labs (new)!

Silverlight Virtual Labs (new)!

by | Jul 10, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Hi All,
I have been looking for silvelight virtual labs for a while and lo, Microsoft has finally released new set of Virtual Labs for Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 version as below:
MSDN: Silverlight Monster Factory – Using XAML template
MSDN: Rich Internet Applications with Silverlight and Sharepoint
Also, check out other virtual labs on Sharepoint 2007, webparts and […]

Silverlight 3.0 is released and available!

Silverlight 3.0 is released and available!

by | Jul 10, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Microsoft has released the next version of Silverlight (Silverlight 3.0). The following are the links from where you can download this version:

Silverlight 3 download and installation
Microsoft%u00ae SilverlightTM 3 SDK
Microsoft%u00ae SilverlightTM 3 Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1

The following are the set of new features available in this version:

Support for Higher Quality Video & Audio. With […]

HIPAA conversion maps 4010A1 to 5010 and 5010 to 4010A1

by | Jul 9, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Even though I have created a conversion tool that takes existing maps and change them to the 5010 version with the right click of a mouse button. There is still going to be the need to simply convert the 4010A1 data to the 5010 data, or vise versa from 5010 to 4010A1.

We have developed a series of maps that do the conversion of the data, not a conversion of the maps.

Here are some screen shots of the maps that can be used in orchestrations, or in receive or send ports.

Here is two images of it being implemented in an orchestration to convert the data from 4010A1 to 5010

You receive the source map files so you can add/modify the mapping logic to fit your business needs:

Configuring BTARN on x64 boxes

by | Jul 9, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

As x64 O/S’s start to become the norm documenting the additional steps required to configure BTARN to work with these may be helpful. Most of this information is documented in the troubleshooting or “known issues” section of the product documentation. The most important thing to know is BTARN is 32-bit.

The information provided here addresses Windows Server 03 x64 and 08. The changes are to IIS so these would apply to other operating systems depending on the version of IIS. BizTalk provides configuration guidance to enable x64 processing. This is not compatible with BTARN. Review these steps if 404’s or 500’s are showing up in the application log when attempting to operate BTARN.

Web Service Extensions

Windows 03 (IIS 6.0)

Open IIS manager and check the web extensions. Make sure the BizTalk externsion is not set to the x64 version. It should be “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006\HttpReceive”. The next configuration is a couple of command lines. The first sets processing to 32-bit and the second installs .Net.

cscript %SystemDrive%\inetpub\AdminScripts\adsutil.vbs set w3svc/AppPools/Enable32bitAppOnWin64 1

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50215>aspnet_regiis.exe -i

This may not be necessary if the ASP .Net 2.0 32-bit entry is visible and enabled under “Web Extensions”. If this is not displayed the above code will make the extension available. Be sure to set the value to “allowed”.

Windows 08 (IIS 7.0)

Again, BTARN has to run as a 32-bit application. The bigger issue with 08 is the relocation of several configuration options. Here are the instructions to install the BizTalk ISAPI filter from the BizTalk documentation:

Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

Select the root Web server entry and in the Features View, double-click Handler Mappings and then in the Actions pane, click Add Script Map.

Note – Configuring the script mapping at the Web server level will cause this mapping to apply to all child Web sites. If you wish to restrict the mapping to a specific Web site or virtual folder, select the target site or folder instead of the Web server.

In the Add Script Map dialog box, enter BtsHttpReceive.dll in the Request path field.

In the Executable field, click the ellipsis (.) button and browse to drive:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009\HttpReceive. Select BtsHttpReceive.dll, and then click OK.

Enter BizTalk HTTP Receive in the Name field, and then click Request Restrictions.

In the Request Restrictions dialog box, select the Verbs tab and then select One of the following verbs. Enter POST as the verb.

On the Access tab, select Script, and then click OK.

Click OK and when prompted to allow the ISAPI extension, click Yes.

This works up to a point. Note the location would implement the x64 version. Since BTARN only works as a 32-bit use “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009\HttpReceive” instead.

Application Pools (app pool)

Make sure to use a custom app pool for each BTARN web virtual folder. Configure them to run under the same identity as the BizTalk service. This is the same for IIS 6.0 or 7.0. Move to the individual web folders and select the app pool for each.

That’s it for IIS 6.0. IIS 7.0 requires additional configuration under each app pool. Select the “Advanced” configuration option and look for “Enable 32-bit Applications” setting and change it to “True”. This should get BTARN working. Use the “LoopBack” tutorial to verify the configuration.

Client Authentication (ELEMICA)

Client authentication is not required to get BTARN up and running. However, in many cases this is required by partners. The existing procedures work for Windows 03 x64, but 08 is a different animal. The “ELEMICA” whitepaper (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc563935.aspx) provides the bulk of configuration details. The process for 08 is easier but not unless instruction is provided. The client authentication certificate installation requires more explanation.

Open MMC and add the “Certificates” add-in. Select the machine account and open the “Personal” store. Import the private key used for client authentication.

Right click the new entry and select “All tasks”. Select “Manage Keys” and give “Everyone” read access to the key.

The whitepaper includes a link to replacement web pages required to reference the certificate used for client authentication. The documentation is not so clear on the configuration of the web page. The additional parameter in the web.config must point to the public key of the client authentication certificate. This is the unusual situation where both the public and private keys are required.

Understanding Metadata Management

by | Jul 9, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Metadata Management- Fun stuff, right? Depending on what your relationship to an organization’s data is, it can have many different meanings. Database developers and administrators tend to focus on technical metadata, which provides descriptive information on table structures, job streams, ETL mappings, data lineage, etc.
Business users have a need for metadata as well. Attribute definitions, […]

My blog has moved, and this is the new home.

by | Jul 9, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

(so, if you’re reading this, you’re in the right place!)

Well it was more work than it should have been, but my blog and content has been moved to a new home. As you can see, I have some cool new capabilities that I’ve already started to take advantage of.

If you had previously subscribed to my RSS feed, I’m sorry, but you’ll need to do so again, see the link in the left margin.

My passion for technologies has not changed (BizTalk/ESB/SOA/Oslo/Dublin/Cloud/etc). I have some pent-up blog posts inside me screaming to get out, which I’ll get done in due course (how’s that for a non-committal commitment? :))

Welcome to my new home!