Silverlight 5 Features
· Low Latency Audio Playback: Use the SoundEffect API to trigger low-latency
sound
· Variable Speed Playback: allows video to be played at different speeds
and supports fast-forward and rewind. At up to twice the speed, audio pitch
correction allows users to watch videos while preserving a normal audio pitch.
· H/W Decode of H.264 media: Significant performance improvements with
H.264 media decoding of unprotected content
· DRM Key Rotation/LiveTV Playback: Long-running live TV playback protected
through the use of rotating licenses
· Application-Restricted Media: Prevents playback of protected content in
unauthorized applications
Improved Text support
· Text Tracking & Leading: Exercise fine-grained control over the spacing between characters
and lines in your text
· Linked Text Containers: Create linked RichTextBlocks that allow text to flow seamlessly
from one to the next
· OpenType and Pixel Snapped Text : Improved
text clarity
· Postscript vector printing: reduces the size of print jobs and improves
rendering quality of text
· Performance improvements for Block Layout Engine.
Building next-generation business applications
· PivotViewer -- now included in SDK. Adds support for dynamic client-based
collections, XAML-based visuals, and customizability.
· ClickCount: Add support for multi-click to your application
· Listbox/ComboBox type-ahead
text searching: Listboxes and ComboBoxes can now scroll
based on text input
· Ancestor RelativeSource
Binding: Bind to a property on a parent control
· Implicit DataTemplates: Allow DataTemplates to be defined implicitly
· DataContextChanged event
· Added PropertyChanged to the UpdateSourceTrigger enum
· Save File and Open File Dialog: Specify
a default filename when you launch your SaveFileDialog and specify a default
directory when you launch your OpenFileDialog
· Databinding Debugging: Set a breakpoint directly in XAML, examine locals, and debug your
bindings
· Custom Markup Extensions: Execute custom code at XAML parse time
· Binding on Style Setters: You can now specify a binding within a style
Silverlight 5 performance improvements
· Parser Performance Improvements: Improved XAML parse times for
UserControls & ResourceDictionaries
· Network Latency Improvements: Significant performance improvement in ClientHttpWebRequest
scenarios
· H/W accelerated rendering in
IE9 windowless mode: Silverlight now uses the new
SurfacePresenter APIs for H/W accelerated rendering in IE9 windowless mode
· Multicore JIT: Shortens the start-up time for Silverlight apps
· 64-bit browser support
Graphics improvements
· Improved Graphics stack: The graphics stack has been re-architected to add features such as
Independent Animations
· 3D: Use the XNA API on the Windows platform to gain low-level access
to the GPU and draw vertex shaders and low-level 3D primitives. Includes Render
targets, XNA built-in effects, surface composition settings for depth/stencil
buffers and multi-sample anti-aliasing
Silverlight 5 extends features of the "Trusted Application" model
Silverlight 5 extends features of the
‘Trusted Application’ model to the browser for the first time. These features,
when enabled via a group policy registry key and an application certificate,
mean users won’t need to leave the browser to perform complex tasks:
· Multiple window support: Launch multiple top-level windows inside a SL OOB application
· Full-Trust in-browser: Using Group Policy, deploy signed in-browser applications that
harness the full power of full-trust functionality
· In-browser HTML support: Host your WebOC within an in-browser SL application
· Unrestricted File System
Access: Read from and write to any directory on
your system, from a full-trust application
· P/Invoke support : Allows existing
native code to be run directly from Silverlight
- Visual Studio Team
Test support.
