Silverlight 4 overview and feature matrix
Silverlight Overview
Silverlight is a powerful development platform for creating engaging, interactive applications for the Web, desktop, and mobile devices. Silverlight is a free plug-in powered by the .NET framework that is compatible across multiple browsers, devices and operating systems to bring a new level of interactivity wherever the Web works. With support for advanced data integration, multithreading, HD video using IIS Smooth Streaming, and built in content protection, Silverlight enables online and offline applications for a broad range of business and consumer scenarios.
Silverlight Runtimes
All Silverlight runtimes support rich media capabilities and enable fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality audio and video to all major browsers including Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer (and new in Silverlight 4) Google Chrome running on the Mac or on Windows. The designer experience remains largely the same for all runtimes as well. The main difference resides in the developer experience.
Features Matrix
The Features Matrix below provides an overview of the new capabilities in Silverlight 4. Silverlight 3 is able to run Silverlight 3, Silverlight 2 and Silverlight 1.0 applications without change.
| Silverlight Versions | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Features | 1.0 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Cross-Browser Support for Firefox, IE, Safari | V | V | V | V |
| Cross-Platform Support for Windows and Mac (and Linux through the Moonlight Project) | V | V | V | V |
| 2D Vector Animation/Graphics | V | V | V | V |
| AJAX Support | V | V | V | V |
| HTML DOM Integration | V | V | V | V |
| HTTP Networking | V | V | V | V |
| Canvas Layout Support | V | V | V | V |
| JavaScript Support | V | V | V | V |
| XAML Parser | V | V | V | V |
| Media – 720P High Definition (HD) Video | V | V | V | V |
| Media – Audio/Video Support (VC-1, WMV, WMA, MP3) | V | V | V | V |
| Media – Image Support (JPG, PNG) | V | V | V | V |
| Media Markers | V | V | V | V |
| Windows Media Server Support | V | V | V | V |
| Support for Visual Basic.NET and C#; Common Language Runtime (CLR) based languages | V | V | V | |
| Support for IronPython, IronRuby, Managed JScript, and other Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) based languages | V | V | V | |
| Rich Core Framework (e.g. Generics, collections) | V | V | V | |
| Multi-Threading | V | V | V | |
| Layout controls including StackPanel and Grid | V | V | V | |
| Full suite of Controls (TextBox, RadioButton, Slider, Calendar, DatePicker, DataGrid, ListBox, TabControl, and others) | V | V | V | |
| Managed Control Framework | V | V | V | |
| Templating Model | V | V | V | |
| Visual State Manager | V | V | V | |
| Isolated Storage | V | V | V | |
| Deep Zoom Technology | V | V | V | |
| Media – DRM Powered by PlayReady | V | V | V | |
| Media - Windows Media Audio 10 Professional support | V | V | V | |
| Media - MediaStreamSource for managed code media file parser and protocol extensibility | V | V | V | |
| High quality resizing | V | V | V | |
| Media - Basic SSPL Support | V | V | V | |
| Cross Domain Network Access | V | V | V | |
| Easy access to server-side data via Web Services | V | V | V | |
| Direct access to TCP sockets | V | V | V | |
| Interoperability with SOAP and REST services, including support for XML, JSON, RSS and Atom data formats | V | V | V | |
| LINQ (including LINQ to XML, LINQ to JSON, and LINQ to Entities) | V | V | V | |
| Duplex communications (“push” from Server to Silverlight client) | V | V | V | |
| Data Binding | V | V | V | |
| WCF Data Services | V | V | V | |
| Managed HTML Bridge | V | V | V | |
| Managed Exception Handling | V | V | V | |
| .NET Framework Security Enforcement | V | V | V | |
| Type Safety Verification | V | V | V | |
| XMLReader/Writer | V | V | V | |
| Enhanced Keyboard Input Support | V | V | V | |
| File Upload Support (via WebClient API) | V | V | V | |
| WPF Compatibility | V | V | V | |
| Accessibility | V | V | V | |
| Localization | V | V | V | |
| Remote Debugging (PC and Mac) | V | V | V | |
| Out of Browser | V | V | ||
| Network Status (Offline) | V | V | ||
| Pixel Shader Effects | V | V | ||
| Bitmap API | V | V | ||
| Theming at runtime | V | V | ||
| Enhanced Control Skinning | V | V | ||
| Accessibility - System Colors | V | V | ||
| Bitmap caching | V | V | ||
| Perspective 3D | V | V | ||
| GPU Hardware Acceleration (for video and bitmaps) | V | V | ||
| Text Animation | V | V | ||
| H.264 Support | V | V | ||
| Raw A/V Support | V | V | ||
| File Save Dialog | V | V | ||
| DockPanel, WrapPanel, Viewbox | V | V | ||
| Element to Element Binding | V | V | ||
| Local Connection | V | V | ||
| Binary XML | V | V | ||
| Component Caching (share resources across apps) | V | V | ||
| Scene caches (to Bitmap) | V | V | ||
| Local Fonts | V | |||
| Printing | V | |||
| WCF RIA Services | V | |||
| Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) | V | |||
| Webcam | V | |||
| Microphone | V | |||
| Official Support for Google Chrome | V | |||
| Output Protection for audio/video | V | |||
| Multicast networking | V | |||
| Offline DRM | V | |||
| Trusted Applications (extended sandbox) | V | |||
| IDispatch COM Interop | V | |||
| Group policy object support | V | |||
| Full keyboard in out-of-browser for trusted applications | V | |||
| Cross-domain network access for trusted applications | V | |||
| Custom window chrome | V | |||
| Out of browser window settings (position, size etc.) | V | |||
| Web Browser Control and Web Browser Brush | V | |||
| Notification Toast | V | |||
| Right-to-Left / BiDi Text | V | |||