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Home Forums General Silverlight New Features in Silverlight 3 Silverlight 4 Wishlist
313 replies. Latest Post by FuryDiamond on November 18, 2009.
(3)
BigDubb
Member
65 points
77 Posts
06-17-2009 11:08 AM |
Seeing as SL3 is just around the corner might as well start the discussion around what the community would like to see in SL4.
1. Ability to define chrome on OOB applications
2. Deep linking ability/navigation in OOB applictions.
3. Printing Capabilities.
ksleung
Contributor
5332 points
1,020 Posts
06-17-2009 2:22 PM |
Normally I don't like laundry list but since the SL team tracked the SL3 wishlist let me name a few things I wanted (and what I want is quite realistic :D)
1. Printing support
2. Better shader support... GPU-rendering of pixel shader effects, better HLSL support (move at least to HLSL 2.0b)
3. Fix WriteableBitmap (in addition to the security issues) -- allow modification in background thread, better API (e.g. array copy), improve rendering performance
4. Need better LocalMessage APIs -- discovery, stream-based or array-based message (rather than just strings), multicast
5. Better File IO support -- ability to specify filename in SaveFileDialog, grant read/write access to whole directory on user approval
06-17-2009 2:28 PM |
Also the Silverlight team would be wise to reconsider the OOB model. The original model is nice in theory but in reality, it seems so crippled compared to Adobe AIR. It is true that AIR is perhaps a big security liability -- it is not very different from downloading and installing full-privilege software -- users don't seem to mind at least judging by the success of many Twitter clients. I like security done right, and Microsoft has already learned the lessons, but at some point we need to offer a different, more AIR like, OOB model for developers to choose. Of course, we must message this correctly, like, telling in your face that OOB-full-privilege is the same as downloading and installing an executable.
TomGiam
744 points
213 Posts
06-17-2009 3:59 PM |
I agree, the 64 instruction slot limit in pixel shader 2.0 is very limiting (In 2.0b it's 512), especially since in SL3 you can only apply one effect per element (i.e. no Effects group) so to work around that you need to combine multiple effects into one.
Tom
06-17-2009 4:40 PM |
1. By far my number one feature need is PRINTING.
2. After that it's the ability to export any UIElement as a bitmap to both the server and client
3. Reading and writing from/to the local machine is also very useful, including reading all files (mainly images) from a directory.
wackyphill
37 points
118 Posts
06-17-2009 10:14 PM |
Better mouse support. (Scroll wheel, doubleClick, right-CLick)
Printing
Being able to host HTML content within the SL app would be nice.
tfmillet
10 points
5 Posts
06-19-2009 10:06 AM |
1. HTML Viewer Control
2. Right-click Context Menus
3. Printing
Zachary D.
77 points
187 Posts
06-19-2009 10:26 AM |
1) Printing
2) Host html inside of silverlight control
3) Right mouse button support
Consider giving the business developers some love.
tanmoy.r
3580 points
708 Posts
06-19-2009 10:53 AM |
Thanks for starting this thread early. :) Now nobody can say community didn't startyearly enough to get them implemented.
My lists
1. Mouse wheel support
2. Full 3D support as in WPF with GPU acceleration.
3. Print, Microphone and WebCam support
4. Linux Support. (I dont want to see SL 2 is supported at linux where SL 4 is the latest version out there)
5. Some more Killer features like DeepZoom, PixelEffects etc.
6. Support for other bindings in WCF.
7. Complete source code for controls.
8. More integrated support for Unit Testing.
06-19-2009 5:41 PM |
Also having the StringFormat option for Binding like WPF got in 3.5SP1 would be very handy so Value converters are not always needed.
firsname...
2 points
1 Posts
06-20-2009 7:57 AM |
MUST HAVE RTL - BiDI - RIGHT TO LEFT!
I can't understand how can it be that rendering text right to left stead' of left to right is so incredibly complex to develop
that it's worth simply out front discarding 280 mil Arabic speakers, Israel - Hebrew, Pakistan - Urdu, Farsi...
I just don't get it.
I'm also beginning to be somewhat insulted. I just can't see how this can somehow be a business driven decision.
Being a Microsoft (PC for all) developer i am disappointed by this attitude...
Version 4? :-(
alok572
334 points
63 Posts
06-22-2009 12:23 AM |
There are many small things that are previously not present in silverlight like, no flexible table control that will help to merge columns or rows.
No support for mobile applications..... etc
The team should consider these small issues.
davesmits
624 points
198 Posts
06-22-2009 1:47 PM |
- Webcam
- Audio recording and streaming
and better mouse support (mousewheel i.e.) are the things i really missing
06-22-2009 6:18 PM |
Being able to select, right-click and copy text from a textblock should be there as well.
Flash does this fine. It would also be nice to have gif support.
GeminiYe...
6 points
12 Posts
06-25-2009 5:41 AM |
MouseRightButton
Dropdown Menu
Alessand...
62 points
52 Posts
06-25-2009 6:13 AM |
Line, Ellipse, Rectangle, .... commands on WriteableBitmap.
andulvar
153 points
101 Posts
06-25-2009 11:05 AM |
Number 1 for me is still to fix the direct TCP/IP socket capabilities to match, and to be compatible with, Adobe Flash:
- Use the same policy file port number (port 843)
- Use the same policy file format
- Allow socket connections on any port
- Allow a server to emit its policy file on the same socket as the data connection, skipping the dedicated policy port altogether
Current capability is too restrictive to be useful for non-toy applications.
Psychlis...
6040 points
973 Posts
06-28-2009 1:22 PM |
Hi All
This list is great. However, please understand that the Silverlight team works primarily off of scenarios rather than bullet points. Concrete scenarios help them target and justify exactly what they need to do.
So, instead of saying "Printing" say how you would use it. That will help clear up whether you need a report-writer, print-screen capability, ability to write strings out to a printer, print all the contents of a grid in a paginated way etc.
Same thing with the other feature requests.
Keep them coming, just please put some context around it :)
Pete
06-28-2009 7:01 PM |
Psychlist1972:Hi All This list is great. However, please understand that the Silverlight team works primarily off of scenarios rather than bullet points. Concrete scenarios help them target and justify exactly what they need to do. So, instead of saying "Printing" say how you would use it. That will help clear up whether you need a report-writer, print-screen capability, ability to write strings out to a printer, print all the contents of a grid in a paginated way etc. Same thing with the other feature requests. Keep them coming, just please put some context around it :) Pete
Pete,
Good to hear that the Silverlight team is listening. I agree that a more constructive way to provide input is warranteed. I can't speak for the whole development community -- individual who champions for their own need should speak up -- but the following is the list that I have (excluding printing, which I hope others with stronger opinion would speak to that):
Pixel shader is a great addition to Silverlight 3 beta, but it is *really* limiting. The killer is that only the very primitive version HLSL 2.0, is supported. Other than the most basic shader codes, usable only as "pretty printing" of images, it is way too limiting for any interesting effects. I know, 'coz I have written a few effects and I know the limits. There are quite a few interesting Adobe Pixel Bender effects that cannot be ported to Silverlight just for this reason. So given HLSL 2.0b has the same instruction set as HLSL 2.0, why not give us at least that much? I understand that perhaps the reason is really that the SL team wants to support HLSL effects GPU-native in the future. Well, can you say something about that? If not, why don't the SL team gives the user at least the equivalence of Adobe Pixel Bender effects, especially if currently it is CPU-rendered? Suppose GPU-native is in the plan, you can also do it such that HLSL 2.0 is GPU-rendered, and HLSL 2.0b is CPU-rendered. In this scenario, at least the developer is given the choice.
What are the effects useful for? For starter, interesting image editing applications... I can say more about that if the SL team is interested.
This has been talked about many times in the SL game forum. The performances of WriteableBitmap sucks. I think there are several shortfalls that can be easily addressed without changing the fundamentals of the architecture. I think others can speak to other requirements but mine are rather simple: (1) ability to work on WriteableBitmap in non-UI thread when locked. (2) provide an API to use Array.Copy() to copy bits, especially if (1) is not feasible for architecture reason.
Another important features is the Silverlight WriteableBitmap security issue. This also has been talked about to death and in fact it was mentioned by at least two SL team members that it will be fixed in SL3 RTW. However, other than that, there is no details about it.
Why important? This is obvious. For make Silverlight a decent game, graphing, imaging platform, this is a must.
There are other things that are good to have -- blend mode, direct drawing APIs -- but I think if there is such thing as the lowest possible hanging fruit, WriteableBitmap is it.
Currently, we cannot find out the names of the other LocalMessageListener. In sample code, it is usually that hardcoded listener and sender names are used. However, how about the scenario where multiple instances of SL applications are created and destroyed at different times? My app has that scenario -- I can open several instances of the apps and I want them to talk to each other... But right now I have to use try/catch block to create instance names. And instead of multicasting I'll need to try to send messages to all possible names. I think it'd be helpful to have more meaningful discovery APIs.
dumb_dumb
73 points
35 Posts
06-28-2009 9:57 PM |
1. Printing --> report writer is the most mandatory however print screen or content of the grid is also important ^^
2. Better mouse support --> native mouse wheel support,
I guess my wish list is still exactly the same with my wish list for SL 3.0 previously :P
06-29-2009 9:50 AM |
Some context for my requests:
1. HTML Viewer/Browser control. We are building an application that displays archived information that is in HTML format. Displaying the HTML is not a problem with traditional web apps or with desktop apps such as WinForms or WPF, since a WebBrowser control exists which can render the HTML. We would like to move the old ASP app to SIlverlight, but in order to do so, we need the ability to display HTML content. We have looked at 3rd party controls, but they are limited. The HTML pane controls require windowless mode, and do not work in Safari. They also prevent overlaying Child Windows on the HTML content. 3rd-party RichTextBox controls that support HTML are limited as well -- they only support HTML if it is HTML 4.0, and formatted in a specific way. Our archived content often uses the older versions HTML, which iss not HTML 4.0 compliant. In short, we need the equivalent of the WinForms and WPF WebBrowser control in Silverlight.
2. Right-click context menus -- We are trying to build an enterprise business application -- users are too accustomed to right-click options to take that away. We don't want to limit our UI design based on this limitation.
billsm
Participant
1319 points
476 Posts
06-29-2009 4:16 PM |
1. A silverlight -sql reports and printing support for it.
2 Let's face it data is the most important item out there in wpf silverlight and asp.net and getting it right means everything. The videos and training is too easy. The rest wcf application is a nice start but it really needs to expand beyond the baby level. I would like to see videos and training using beginner medium advanced and the use of wcf and sql using design patterns in various applications. example using service factory host in deploying a web site. ..
3 Get a educational poll and then act on it!!! Technology is great however their needs to be higher learning curve!!!! Please help us grow!!
Thanks
planetma...
60 points
20 Posts
06-29-2009 4:51 PM |
I suppose this is going to be fairly low down on the priority list, but surely this could make the 3.0 release?
Expose the PixelShader.SetStreamSource() method, which is available in Wpf.
Without this it is not possible to dynamically load generated shaders. I was feeling rather pleased with myself having written a custom shader compiler with Silverlight and F# only to discover I couldn't actually load the bytecode.
Andrew.
Krasshirsch
1032 points
300 Posts
06-30-2009 3:22 AM |
The overall rendering performance must be improved.
http://silverlight.net/forums/t/104774.aspx
snap254
2 Posts
06-30-2009 11:18 AM |
To re-iterate some of the other postings with some "scenarios"
Looking forward to it!
thx
pelister
14 points
13 Posts
06-30-2009 2:48 PM |
WSHttpBinding for wcf and right click support for TextBlock and TextBox controls
ernestasju
12 points
07-01-2009 6:35 AM |
Some of my suggestion might be stuped... sory for that...
1. 3d in silverlight would be very good. It would be nice to make menu similiar to http://crytek.com menu made with Flash.
2. Animated images would be nice too.
3. That's just idea, but... In addition to out of browser mode add jump out mode (make a popup window and copy silverlight app to it).
4. Silverlight windowless mode is still to slow!!! Improve!!!
5. **** Silverlight animation file format (SAFF). **** Sometimes we don't need that UI and all that "advanced features", we want to make a simple vector graphics based animation (stuped suggestion...).
6. Install of Silverlight should be not do downloaded as exe file, but installed like NORMAL activeX control!!! Users might think that that is more one crazy virus and at all activex installs easier.
7. Better compression of application. Users hate [???.? %] view.
8. If you trying make Silverlight more secure just make brik wall view control and strech it onto all other controls. Dump suggestion...
9. I wanna make my own Open/save file dialogs. My styled. Looking like i want!!!
10. Look at 1st-9th suggestions and make SL10 compactible with DirectX 10. Playing Crysis at highest setting in BROWSER would by superb!!!!
11. And more one suggestion: Think why Silverlight can't be used on Linux, ever? (==> .xuniL no elbaliava ton si krowemarF TEN. <==).
Happy improving...
Look at http://cid-5ec2e68efd6234b0.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/SL/SlSugedo.png
bye...
07-01-2009 1:42 PM |
Ability to launch SL application directly in OOB mode.
This would essentially be like a click once application, but cross platform.
Jalfrezi
31 points
23 Posts
07-01-2009 2:45 PM |
Turn Silverlight into a (basic) audio platform.
Audio recording:
Audio playback:
russau
07-02-2009 12:50 AM |
Herthoren
85 points
82 Posts
07-02-2009 7:13 AM |
1. Enhanced low-level audio-creation support.
2. Mouse wheel support, FULL right-click support (that silverlight menu can be hacked out anyway, writing seperate code for every browser, so allowing us to actually use right-click for whatever we want (even if it's not displaying a menu) would only make our job (especially testing) a LOT-LOT easier, and would not make Silverlight a tiny bit more insecure).
3. Full-screen WITH full-keyboard support.
4. Yeah i'm gonna get mocked for this, but I can't stop requesting UDP SUPPORT, comeon, java applets support it! :o)
5. Arbitrary (ok, at least much wider) port support for socket communications.
6. Server capabalities (or peer-to-peer communication support if you find that sound so much better)
4352. Not so very important for me, but hardware acceleration for pixel shaders would be nice :P
Even if hardware-acceleration would be OS dependent (e.g. would only be available on certain versions of windows, maybe even only for certain (popular) GPU drivers...), I still think it wouldn't hurt that bad, since it's only a performance issue and systems with very slow GPU would get just as poor performance anyway, so applications would have to be prepared for systems without hardware acceleration either way.
3456344563. Microphone (and maybe even webcam) input handling would also be cool, after all Silverlight is clearly behind flash in this one.
steveli
128 points
19 Posts
07-02-2009 2:48 PM |
1. Support for WebCam, Microphone, Audio (with ability to record)
2. Printing, in other words being able to send graphics and text to print
3. Better pixel shader support, btw is it possible to build shadow pixel shader in SL3 inside using fx file?
07-02-2009 3:54 PM |
steveli:1. Support for WebCam, Microphone, Audio (with ability to record)2. Printing, in other words being able to send graphics and text to print3. Better pixel shader support, btw is it possible to build shadow pixel shader in SL3 inside using fx file?
Regarding (3), SL3 beta already supports Pixel Shader. You need to compile an fx file (HLSL 2.0 only) to ps using DirectX SDK or other means. It is pretty straight-forward to include the ps into a Silverlight project. If you are talking about dynamically generated fx/ps files, no solution exists at this point.
07-02-2009 4:12 PM |
Yes I know that Silverlight3 supports pixel shaders, however I'd like to see any sample on how you can build shadow shader using HLSL in Silveright3.
I did reflection shader, you can read more on my blog:
http://www.cellbi.com/blog.aspx
But what I can't understand is how you can build a shader,
which will know bounds of UIElement it is applied to?
E.g. if you apply DropShadow pixel shader to text block then shadow is nicely added for each char in the text.
I'd like to be able to build glow shader using the same approach. Do you know of any way to do this?
07-02-2009 5:18 PM |
Steveli,
To implement glow, you probably want to start with an understand of how blur works. Gaussian blur is actually pretty versatile...
First, let's take a look at DropShadow, which is nothing more than a special version of blur. You take your picture, convert it to grayscale, blur it, and put it under the control with a slight offset. In the case of text, since the background is transparent (important!), the shadow will appear to be behind the text.
A simple way to perform Gaussian blur is to do it in two passes, taking advantage of the fact that Gaussian kernel is "separable". First pass is to blur horizontally, for each pixel computing the weighted average of 2R + 1 pixels, where R is the radius and the weights form a Gaussian distribution. Second pass is to blur the horizontally-blurred image vertically, using the same technique. This can be done as two pixel shader effects. See an example of a 1D blur in http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=427696 (I just did a simple search). You can't directly do it in SL3 beta since it doesn't support multiple effects. However, it is easy to hack... Just add a Border element containing the image, and put an VGaussian effect on the border and a HGaussian effect on the image.
I suspect this is the approach taken by the SL team, especially since the effect only supports up to a radius of 20. This approach has a complexity of O(R * N), where N is the number of pixels, so imposing the maximum value of R = 20 seems reasonable. However, it is possible to implement Gaussian Blur in O(N) times using a recursive Gaussian approach, still parallelizable but beyond what HLSL 2.0 can do, but I don't believe this is being done by the SL team, because if they do, they won't have to impose a 20-pixel limit. This also means that we shouldn't go too crazy with blurring, since it could get expensive.
Also don't forget to check out the WPF shader effects library (effects usable by Silverlight, with minor C# code change).
07-03-2009 12:46 PM |
Thanks for the explanation
07-04-2009 5:00 AM |
1. Make Silverlight crossplatform. (Silverlight is part of .Net. (Windows only), but Flash is NOT part of any framework (so universal).
2. Make Silverlight fastest.
3. Make Silverlight smallest.
4. Make Silverlight BEST!!!
07-04-2009 5:07 AM |
ernestasju:*. Silverlight is part of .Net. (Windows only), but Flash is NOT part of any framework (so universal).
07-04-2009 5:19 AM |
You're right that ported Silverlight versions is available on other operating systems (Moonlight on Linux, luckily Silverlight on Mac, but what's about Solaris and others?), but Flash is Flash on almost every operating system and Flash doesn't requie .Net or Mono or other frameworks. That's why Flash is so universal. And more one thing, Moonlight on Linux is so slow, then Flash runing good. But still i'am not Flash fan (developing on Flash is terrible (C# vs Action Script. C# wins....) ).
07-04-2009 5:35 AM |
ernestasju:Flash doesn't requie .Net or Mono or other frameworks
Silverlight does not need any of those Frameworks either.Silverlight has it's own framework.Flash infact has two, one that supports ActionScript 1&2 and a complete new onw for object orientated ActionScript 3.The OS support has nothing to do with underlying technology, but with choice.
ernestasju:Moonlight on Linux is so slow
It has still some issues, but the speed is the same.
ernestasju:what's about Solaris and others
Flash does not work on Solaris either, at least not stable, the issue and bug list is as long as an aircraft carrier.
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/releasenotes.html
It would be stupid to delay development, possibly compromise speed and support for Silverlight just to support another 0,000001 % operating systems.
For that matter, Silverlight doesn't run on DOS either and no one is complaining. Even Sun kicked Solaris out of the window cause it was so bad, they are now selling Windows Servers. Dead operating system died for a reason and should stay dead.
jimevans
9 Posts
07-05-2009 11:00 AM |
Bill Locke
8 points
8 Posts
07-05-2009 5:34 PM |
I apologize if I might list some things that might be available in 3.0. Most of our experience is in SL 2.0 and I have just converted a SL 2.0 application to 3.0 and am moving some of the EF stuff to RIA with a custom DAL. The original program that we are taking to SL is a fairly mature win32 program.
1) Printing Support – within our application we use Crystal Reports for the major portion of our printing. We can continue to handle this using the hosted viewers of Crystal. However there are several options that we give to users that are more like a quick and dirty print option than a report, like printing the contents of the current grid or list view on the screen to the printer. This is more than a screen grab, because the lists can be quite large. We have .net code to do the printing, it would be nice to port it.
2) Source code – having source code to the controls is key to our ability to customize them to our needs. We very seldom get away with using stock controls.
3) Combobox – this control could use some fixing. I don’t know if the SL 3.0 control is better, I know our changes to this control are still working in 3.0. A) Ability to bind to data using the integer version of the foreign key rather than to entities produced by the EF. We have managed to convince the EF to do this the way we want and have modified the combobox to support this. Perhaps it is a lack of understanding on our part, but we just couldn’t make things work right any other way. B)Better mouse support – scroll wheel in particular. C)Keyboard support – for navigating to items in the list through the letter typed on the keyboard. We managed to support this ourselves as well. D) Better integration with loading of data. The lists in the combobox takes some time (we’re working with screens that may have 4 or 5 tab pages, 100+ controls and as many as 10-20 comboboxes). Because of the async nature of binding , if the user interacts with the combo before it has the list loaded, then the combo would never drop correctly. We wrote an integration between our data control and the combo control that keeps the combo disabled until the list is finished loading. The data control handles all the async stuff and notifies the controls when done.
4) OOB - This next item, I don’t know if it’s the WCF team of EF team or Silverlight team… Anyway, from what I understand of the network stack to support EF, WCF, (probably RIA), it’s written on top of the browser. This means that those applications won’t run OOB. This means that most LOB apps aren’t going to run OOB, probably the one class of apps that would benefit the most from that. This also means that there are subtle (and not so subtle) differences between browsers (and OS) in terms of the network stack. I can’t get our program using the EF to work on a MAC while it runs great on a PC. I’m hoping RIA solves that for us.
5) DataSet - This item, I’m sure I’ll take some graf for, but I’m going to say it anyway. Please provide a loosely typed object for data binding client side (like the DataSet, DataTable, whatever). Generic types are great (I guess), but we do not want to have to regenerate client side code every time we change the database. I understand that most people will probably write XAML and use strongly typed objects and so what difference does it make, the client side code will change anyway. But, we don’t use the screen designer in .NET or SL or WPF or the next new technology. We use our own designer and translate the definitions for whatever engine will deliver the UI. We deliver all of our screen definitions through Sql and build the controls on the fly, within code (well %80 of them anyway). In the win32 program we do not change any code to deliver changes to existing screens or new screens (there are exceptions). With Silverlight, I can’t replicate that code (without going a lot deeper than a small team is able). We are using our screen definitions in SL (translated from the win32 program), but have to use the EF and build the EF models and use T4 templating on the client side to build everything we need there to update those models. It looks like RIA will help, by building the client code for us and let us use models on the server side we build ourselves (maybe), but it’s still a lot messier than what we’ve been doing.
07-05-2009 9:09 PM |
@Bill
1. Printing is high on the request list for Silverlight 4.
2. The toolkit includes source code. I'm not sure what the plans are for the SDK and core controls.
3. Try with Silverlight 3 RTW and let me know how it works for you. I'm curious if there's anything there that may help you out.
Would you still want scroll wheel support if it didn't work cross-platform? For example, the browsers on the mac do not expose the appropriate events/notifications to allow the scroll wheel to work in a plug-in.
4. OOB has very good networking support. Start a thread on anything that isn't working.
As for your EF app, can you explain what's happening to make it not work on the mac? RIA isn't going to do anything magical to enable a cross-platform application - Silverlight does that in its core. If you're running into problems getting it to work on the mac, please start a thread with the issues. Keep in mind that Silverlight 2+ only works on Intel-based macs, so if you're running into issues with a powerpc mac, that is expected -- the platform is not supported.
5. We're doing a very large data-driven application here. DataTable/whatever isn't going to be your savior no matter what -- it doesn't contain enough metadata. What you can do, and this is something my colleage on the team did, is write a custom IValueConverter that takes in the field name for an item in a dictionary. Behind the scenes it does the binding for you and it all pretty much works as expected.
If you want to regenerate entities to take advantage of RIA Services, Silverlight 3 validation and annotation, then you'll need to run a server-side process to generate those entities when the metadata changes.(We're doing this for our actual entities, not our screen definitions). As much as you can, try and exist within the Silverlight ecosystem. The more you stray from standards in binding and controls, the less likely you'll be able to take advantage of the advances in RIA and business app dev in Silverlight.
Hope that helps.
halo2red...
07-05-2009 9:18 PM |
I would Love a Translate built in it. So when someone writes something in german, It would Translate into English or whatever your lang is. I hate that the most about translating sites.
07-06-2009 11:17 AM |
Thanks for the reply Pete.
1. Good
2. Hopefully they'll decide to release that code, that's where most of the action is.
3. So far it hasn't helped much, but I haven't dropped back from our customized control yet.Scroll Wheel - probably not, I can still see my testing group glaring at me though. They don't care about the mac much.
4. OK, when I get there, I was basing my OOB comment on some other threads I'd read, not experience.
As for the MAC (that was based on experience), here is a thread I started on that. I've remote debugged the application from VS 2008 (good work there) and ran it through Fiddler with the PC as a proxy. It just doesn't work. http://silverlight.net/forums/t/103417.aspx
5. I would really like more information about that if you have it (I may have seen that article if he wrote one, sounds familiar, problem was updating data or something). Getting to the same level in this technology from "regular" .net has been a bit of struggle. I can understand that we should be able to write the code to do what you are describing, I just haven't gotten the foothold I need to get it done. Understand we have to support the full CRUD cycle.
I'm doing my best to stay within that ecosystem. My problem is probably as much not understanding how to handle this technology in a "generic" way. We NEVER write a "normal" data access program. Everything is driven from the definitions in the database. In a way that stuff is metadata, even if we aren't handling it that way. The application code is dumb, it never knows what the screen looks like or even what the data looks like (there are exceptions obviously), only the defining data knows that. Even the validation works that way for us. We don't decide what fields are required, that is configured along with security within the application. We also use regular expressions for validation, so what we're doing blends very well with what is happening in RIA (BTW, my experience with RIA runs more like 2 days, but I am retreiving the screen definitions that way now). We've developed our own ways of doing things and we have to decide what will fit with the Silverlight way and what we'll have to write. Hopefully our misunderstanding won't lead us down the wrong road. My request may stem as much from that misunderstanding as anything else.
We're just 3 guys and only been at this for 6 weeks. We're delivering our first SL app in a client testing environment this week (SL 2, Entity Framework). It should make production sometime in August. We're very excited about this platform.
07-06-2009 1:34 PM |
Once again, need better WriteableBitmap APIs. The following is some comments I made on another thread:
Good to hear that you made some progress.
One comment on WriteableBitmap.
I don't think the SL team will provide access to the WriteableBitmap in background thread. The reason is that SL must have full access to all UI assets whenever it is running the UI thread, so it really cannot afford to let you muck with it in the meantime.
I do hope that the SL team can provide better WriteableBitmap APIs. Currently the only pixel access is the [] operator, which I image has tons of checks (security and bound) on a per-pixel basis. This is highly inefficient especially we all want to use WriteableBitmap in a very heavy way. Why not provide wholesale array copy API? For example,
WriteableBitmap.CopyFrom(int[] Src, int SrcWidth, int SrcHeight, Rect Region, int TranslateX, int TranslateY);
WriteableBitmap.CopyTo(int[] Dest, int DestWidth, int DestHeight, Rect Region, int TranslateX, int TranslateY);
This way, whatever check only needs to be done once.
It is still okay to require that these APIs be called from the UI thead. But at least this approach would allow us to write decent code to perform all the maths in the background thread, and make one async call to push the result to the WriteableBitmap.
StefanOlson
231 points
103 Posts
07-06-2009 7:23 PM |
Psychlist1972: Would you still want scroll wheel support if it didn't work cross-platform? For example, the browsers on the mac do not expose the appropriate events/notifications to allow the scroll wheel to work in a plug-in.
Yes! Absolutely! Why penalize 90% of users because 10% of users don't have that functionality available. Customers running on Windows are going to expect mouse scroll wheel support
...Stefan
07-07-2009 12:01 AM |
StefanOlson: Psychlist1972: Would you still want scroll wheel support if it didn't work cross-platform? For example, the browsers on the mac do not expose the appropriate events/notifications to allow the scroll wheel to work in a plug-in. Yes! Absolutely! Why penalize 90% of users because 10% of users don't have that functionality available. Customers running on Windows are going to expect mouse scroll wheel support ...Stefan
I think I am sick of the "lowest denominator" argument as well... Just because a platform -- Mac in particular -- doesn't support this almost universal, everybody-loves-it, feature (scroll wheel) doesn't mean such supporting such feature is of zero value. Yeah it may make some Mac owner unhappy, but so what? When are they happy with Microsoft products anyway :D.
Also, if the "lowest denominator' argument holds, why on earth is Silverlight supporting multitouch in SL3 RTW?
Apple, ironically, completely ignores the mantra to be the lowest denominator. They do whatever they want, sometimes to their detriment and sometimes to their wild success. You can say that's why they are NOT as successful as Microsoft in the old days. But I would say that's also why they ARE successful in modern days... with innovative designs as iPod and iPhone that break all rules and make no apology. What? Smartphone with no physical keyboard?
So how to deal with platforms that don't have scroll wheels? Well, I'd say leave it to the developers. If I am developing an SL game for iPhone (for the sake of argument let's say such a thing is possible!), I sure as hell won't assume that the scroll wheel is available. But if I am developing a heavy business app that benefits tremendously with scroll wheel, who is anyone to argue that I *DON'T* need a scroll wheel?
One last argument... some may say that the Javascript hack is good enough. My answer is a four-letter three-letter word: OOB
07-07-2009 12:06 AM |
FWIW, the mousewheel mention was not an official opinion of any sort; I was just curious as to the community take on it.
I personally believe the subset of things that work only on platform X need to be kept to a very bare minimum. That's not to say something can't be in there, just that it needs to be carefully considered. The bigger the gap, the less likely Silverlight is to be taken seriously.
07-07-2009 12:41 AM |
Psychlist1972:FWIW, the mousewheel mention was not an official opinion of any sort; I was just curious as to the community take on it. I personally believe the subset of things that work only on platform X need to be kept to a very bare minimum. That's not to say something can't be in there, just that it needs to be carefully considered. The bigger the gap, the less likely Silverlight is to be taken seriously. Pete
I agree with your position in general. The subset needs to be kept to a very bare minimum. Scroll wheel happens to be one of the few exceptions, IMHO.
07-07-2009 10:43 AM |
Wow, didn't think the mouse wheel would be that hot a topic. In reality it causes me as much greif when it is supported. The wheel doesn't always do what the user expects and of course expectations vary with the user. When you click on a scrollbar, you know what is going to happen. When you use the wheel, some programs scroll what the mouse is over, others scroll whatever has focus. .Net by default reacts in the later way. The scroll wheel seems like a simple thing, but it really becomes a pain to support it a way that will make the majority of users happy.
I wouldn't cry about it not being supported, but like I said, that's not my QA groups opinion, it's one of the first things they mentioned about the SL app.
ColinBlair
6235 points
1,216 Posts
07-07-2009 5:42 PM |
Psychlist1972: FWIW, the mousewheel mention was not an official opinion of any sort; I was just curious as to the community take on it. I personally believe the subset of things that work only on platform X need to be kept to a very bare minimum. That's not to say something can't be in there, just that it needs to be carefully considered. The bigger the gap, the less likely Silverlight is to be taken seriously. Pete
I think a built in mousewheel implementation which is limited to supporting controls that inherit from RangeBase (or some other similar restriction) would be fine. Something that enforces the fact that the mousewheel is optional much shouldn't be mandatory for your UI to function.
Kbalz
213 points
185 Posts
07-08-2009 9:31 AM |
Mouse wheel is a must. 85% of users are on a PC and use mouse wheel everyday.. so when they are trying to use the mouse on my datagrid that is in a scroll viewer, they have a confused look on their face. Sorry that Safari hasn't brought their browser into this century, but we need to get some work done.
rshelby
273 points
64 Posts
07-08-2009 12:57 PM |
Extend 3D capabilities for example:
Creating a 3d cube by simply taking a rectangle and setting a thickness / depth property. Or doing the same thing to a circle in order to make a 3d cylinder.
07-08-2009 1:08 PM |
Double-click support. For example, in the DataGrid, allow a user to double-click an item, so that a Child Window can be displayed, or other action performed. Users look at Silverlight apps as so "Windows-like", that they expect to be able to double click on items and have default actions occur.
Zack123
4 points
4 Posts
07-09-2009 12:14 PM |
Currently the proxy generation marks Begin and End operations as private.
So now I need to edit the reference.cs everytime I refresh a service reference, or do a yucky macro to find replace, which is always iffy.
This is not great if you have a service caller helper that abstracts away the service calling process, where you need to pass around functions.
It is great that you want enforce async, but the best way to deal with that is to implement functional handlers, and then you make it difficult by not exposing the functions for use.
Zack
Helper<Request, Response> handler = Helper.CreateAsyncResult<Request, Response>(proxy.BeginMethod, proxy.EndMethod);
handler(request, (response, async) =>{ lock(this) { Dispather.BeginInvoke(() => {//Code goes here to act on response if UI bound }); }});
07-09-2009 1:43 PM |
ksleung: StefanOlson: Psychlist1972: Would you still want scroll wheel support if it didn't work cross-platform? For example, the browsers on the mac do not expose the appropriate events/notifications to allow the scroll wheel to work in a plug-in. Yes! Absolutely! Why penalize 90% of users because 10% of users don't have that functionality available. Customers running on Windows are going to expect mouse scroll wheel support ...Stefan I think I am sick of the "lowest denominator" argument as well... Just because a platform -- Mac in particular -- doesn't support this almost universal, everybody-loves-it, feature (scroll wheel) doesn't mean such supporting such feature is of zero value. Yeah it may make some Mac owner unhappy, but so what? When are they happy with Microsoft products anyway :D.Also, if the "lowest denominator' argument holds, why on earth is Silverlight supporting multitouch in SL3 RTW?Apple, ironically, completely ignores the mantra to be the lowest denominator. They do whatever they want, sometimes to their detriment and sometimes to their wild success. You can say that's why they are NOT as successful as Microsoft in the old days. But I would say that's also why they ARE successful in modern days... with innovative designs as iPod and iPhone that break all rules and make no apology. What? Smartphone with no physical keyboard?So how to deal with platforms that don't have scroll wheels? Well, I'd say leave it to the developers. If I am developing an SL game for iPhone (for the sake of argument let's say such a thing is possible!), I sure as hell won't assume that the scroll wheel is available. But if I am developing a heavy business app that benefits tremendously with scroll wheel, who is anyone to argue that I *DON'T* need a scroll wheel?One last argument... some may say that the Javascript hack is good enough. My answer is a four-letter three-letter word: OOB
Look like my wish is granted... *NATIVE* scroll wheel support in SL3 RTW!
07-09-2009 2:41 PM |
Hi Zack,
For the proxy also excited an interface ythat contains the methods you want. The implemation implements that interface explicit. So now you do:
Proxy p = new Proxy();
but you could allso use
IProxy p = new Proxy();
Now you have direct access to the begin and end methods
fgoulet
07-09-2009 2:44 PM |
A bridge to SQL Server compact edition.
Would be awesome to have a SQL Server compact database file in isolated storage and been able to retrieve and update data via linq.
A must for offline or occassionaly connected lob application I think.
nyhetsgr...
1372 points
312 Posts
07-09-2009 3:25 PM |
Right click support is the number 1 feature I am waiting for.
07-10-2009 5:26 AM |
Exactly what I need - just a few changes to my proxy wrapper! Thanks davesmits.
ted7
13 points
07-10-2009 8:46 AM |
I'd like to see: 1) built in PhotoSynth type things. 2) A component for doing virtual reality panoramas and seamlessly linking them, 3) an easy way of doing lip synching with models like what MS did with MS Agent technology a few years ago.
Sledge70
5648 points
1,008 Posts
07-10-2009 9:32 AM |
A: True right mouse click support (Not using windowless mode).B: Double Click built in
Come on, we're trying to write LOB apps here whereby we know what our target browsers are.
Frank Wu
76 points
96 Posts
07-10-2009 9:39 AM |
Support mobile OS and real cross-platform
nosuchth...
53 points
51 Posts
07-10-2009 11:58 AM |
Mobile support!!
fool
7 points
30 Posts
07-11-2009 7:58 PM |
My bias is that I'm mainly interested in Silverlight as a platform for games, hence my wishlist:
1. RenderOptions BitmapScalingMode NearestNeighbor, as in WPF, that can be applied to an Image to control the magnification filter used.
2. Mobile platform support - including iPhone!
3. Better out of browser support, in particular being able to completely control the window size/resize/style/state(min/max/topmost) etc including changing these on the fly.
4. Binding StringFormat & RelativeSource FindAncestor conveniences - and whatever else can help close the portability gap with WPF.
My emulator proving ground, http://virtu.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Silverlight, was reasonably successful so I think Silverlight has a lot of potential for games...
mabra
15 points
07-12-2009 10:02 AM |
Hi !
- Right mouse clicks [context menu] is an absolute MUST
- Number of maximum open TCP port should be enlarged, say 20
07-12-2009 11:10 AM |
right-click, right-click, RIGHT-CLICK! at least textboxes should have a minimal cut-copy-paste menu like their html counterparts. even Flash does have it for textboxes!
07-12-2009 11:28 AM |
pelister:right-click, right-click, RIGHT-CLICK
Especially on a mobile device or touch pad it will enhance the experience greatly ;)
07-12-2009 11:48 AM |
forgot to mention; WSHttpBinding was an important loss in sl3. the sessionless web services suck!
07-12-2009 2:42 PM |
pelister: forgot to mention; WSHttpBinding was an important loss in sl3. the sessionless web services suck!
I don't believe SL2 ever had support for wshttpbinding. It was basichttpbinding only.
07-12-2009 5:20 PM |
Psychlist1972: pelister: forgot to mention; WSHttpBinding was an important loss in sl3. the sessionless web services suck! I don't believe SL2 ever had support for wshttpbinding. It was basichttpbinding only. Pete
that's why i was complaining:) wshttpbinding is in my wishlist for sl4.
bridenou
33 Posts
07-13-2009 4:15 AM |
wshttpbinding is on my list as well......
I also have a couple of rather esoteric requests.
1) Ive been doing an app that requires dynamic assembly creation, however, it appears that once you create an assembly using Reflection.emit, you cant save it to a database.... would really be nice. (some way to get the bytes out) Maybe a way to compile code with the CodeDom classes would be nice as well.....
2) Also, it seems to be impossible to create a silverlgiht enable wcf interface that can be used from both the silverlight client, but also on the server side. meaning, my application needs to cnnect to various servers, all of them should be exposing the same service, so I would like to create the interface, create a bunch of server side services that expose it, and use in the client as well. However, because Silverlight does not use the same System.ServiceModel.dll as does normal .NET, you cant share these interfaces this way. Seems a fairly big flaw, unless Im misunderstanding somehting here. The only way Ive found around it is, create the interface on the server side, create a service reference on the client, then whenver you create a client object, repoint it s endpointAddress to the alternate servers. Seems a little cludgy.
Cheers
-brent
Montago
265 points
190 Posts
07-13-2009 7:27 AM |
1. MediaElement.SpectrumPulse event aswell as MediaElement.Equalizer[]
It would be cool to make visualizer effects for music playback in SL - the SpectrumPulse could pulse 30fps or something similar to CompositionTarget.Rendering... Where the developer may update the visualizer control using the values from the eventargs... i don't have a recipie for what i want in that event... but enough to visualize the music :-) (maybe look at the Winamp visualizer api's...? or just make something simple)
a way to control the Equalizer in the MediaElement - to boost bass, treble or whatever the user wants.
2. Click, Doubleclick, MouseScroll and RightClick event on all usercontrols that have MouseDown/Up/Enter/Leave events
I really miss a genuine Click event (mousedown -> mouseup on the same element) instead of having to code Click myself, its not impossible, just anoying to do it myself...
DoubleClick applies to the same issue as Click... possible to do it yourself, but anoying to do so....
MouseScroll just like we know it from HTML would be great.... although i've read that the Javascript-helper method work better then native support...
RightClick is a MUST !... WindowLess is not a solution, its a hack !!! ... Native Rightclick event is needed for business/game apps !!!
3. Keyboard Override
When making Business/Game apps, its crucial to support keyboard shortcuts !!
I want full support for Event cancelling, so that i may control what happens when the user press F1, F2, F3, F4, F5 etc... and i want to be able to make CTRL + [key] shortcuts !!! without having the browser to take my event. - its possible in Javascript, why not Silverlight ??
4. Clipboard support
I want to copy text/pictures to/from the clipboard in a UI-Userevent just like flash has it...
This would enable me to take screenshots with the PrintScreen key, and post it on a Silverlight site.
5. Mouse-Drop files
Would be VERY usefull to enable drop files using the mouse... for file-upload or editing...
dovepanda
3 Posts
07-13-2009 9:20 AM |
In a business app, I found these useful feature missing and wish for it in SL4 very much!(except printing, mousewheel, which is already well-known)
1. Binding.NotifyOnSource/TargetUpdated
WPF has it. It creates better user experience in scenerios, and it is hard and ugly to work around. With this achieved, the missing yet another key feature, SL Trigger feature would be easier to work around. It's of high priority to us.
2. Trigger, DataTrigger, MultiTrigger, Setter can Set Custom Property. Or At Least Custom Visual States
Trigger series is one of the most excellent WPF features. I still don't understand why it's missing. With triggers we can do a lot more than just simple visual states. And now SL is really limitted, in complicated scenerios. Also high priority.
3. MultiBinding
4. OOB Automatic Download Update and Start Newest Version
5. Style Type="{x:Type }"
WPF has it. Once defined a Style in a ResourceDictionary, it becomes global to all that references the ResourceDictionary. It saves a lot redundant coding, and maks code more elegant. Would be nice if it comes in SL4, but ok if it doesn't.
K2P2
1026 points
336 Posts
07-13-2009 9:39 AM |
Z-Index bigger than Int16.MaxValue.
I feel like I'm back in the 80's. (8 bit processors.)
07-13-2009 9:42 AM |
Workflow (subset maybe) on the client side.
07-13-2009 10:05 AM |
K2P2: Z-Index bigger than Int16.MaxValue. I feel like I'm back in the 80's. (8 bit processors.)
Except that 8bit processors would limit you to a max value of 255 (if unsigned)
What's the use case for a larger Z-Index? Do you really have more than 32k items to order, or is it just convenience?
07-13-2009 10:17 AM |
This may be a strange request, but this is a wishlist, isn't it ?
No right click support !!
http://silverlight.net/forums/p/109982/248484.aspx#248484
miantosca
88 Posts
07-13-2009 10:54 AM |
Real performance profiling - like the full .NET framework has
07-13-2009 10:56 AM |
Printing support built in
Commands - like WPF
07-13-2009 11:10 AM |
Krasshirsch: This may be a strange request, but this is a wishlist, isn't it ? No right click support !! http://silverlight.net/forums/p/109982/248484.aspx#248484
i can understand your point. but first of all, it's not ok to concentrate that much on mobile devices. sl is not a technology for the mobile yet, even after this much years it still has even no beta for any mobile device. and i doubt it will have for the mobile for the near future.
besides, why do you insist on taking right-click as a flaw? i read your post on your new thread, and i found it so much extraordinary taking right-click as some sort of platform dependency. remember that .net now has a successful linux version, mono, even though microsoft had carefully injected into the bcl dozens of dependencies on win32:))))) besides, flash does have a minimal cut-copy-paste right-click menu and it has a mac version for years. its iphone version will be soon around.
when i say right-click, i dont mean a full blown "context menu", but we should be able to copy-paste text on the text-related controls. trying teach copying some text by ctrl-c is a pain in the a** for the average joe when he is ignorant of what a browser is!
07-13-2009 12:05 PM |
Hey pelister,
thnx 4 takin an interest in this, thought I comment here, but It would be better to leave the landry list out of discussions ;)
pelister:sl is not a technology for the mobile yet, even after this much years it still has even no beta for any mobile device. and i doubt it will have for the mobile for the near future.
I believe this is incredibly short sighted of you, . When developing an application of this magnitude you can't just plan for today or tomorrow, you have to look far ahead and anticipate potential platforms, mobile support is no pipedream anymore but planned and if there is one thing we know about microsoft, they finish their plans, not always on time and with varying success, but they finish.
It is true that the development of the mobile plugin is slow and it will probably take some more years, but there will be a plugin for mobile devices eventually, of this I am sure
pelister:besides, why do you insist on taking right-click as a flaw?
Because it is, it complicates usability and encourages UI developers to create bad UI's.
pelister:besides, flash does have a minimal cut-copy-paste right-click menu and it has a mac version for years. its iphone version will be soon around.
Yes and do you know how long Adobe is already plotting and "workarounding" to get flash running on a phone ?And look what the result is http://www.adobe.com/products/flashlite/version/
Action Script 1 & 2 ? Even if, and i gotta stress the if, your flash ap runs on the phone it will behave different as expected or do you think apple will invent a right click to open this menu to copy and paste stuff ? No they won't ..It's those small things that plague adobe and make flash lite a very, very poor second class citizen.So I ask you, why not trying to do it the right way from the start ? You don't need right click to open a menu, there are dozents of different possibilities.
MRichard...
18 points
21 Posts
07-13-2009 12:24 PM |
1. Printing - The ability to take a report and print it is invaluable, and a huge missing element from SL that will prevent me from building business applications 100% in Silverlight.
2. Wheel and Right mouse button support. To make a modern day application that has the usability people are used to, fully supporting the mouse is very important. Maybe for those mac users out there, you implement it the way it is in WINMO with a click and hold.
3. Web cam support - the ability to capture video from a web camera, and save it, upload it, stream it would be very beneficial.
4. Upload Control - i know there are a lot of options out there, but why not just include good upload tools out of the box.
Thanks,
Mark
07-13-2009 1:25 PM |
Yeah totally forgot: Managed profiler for SL apps!!!.
(although I don't think this is actually version dependent)
To the anti right click people:
One of the key concepts you're missing is that right click can already be handled arbitrarily with little workarounds.
If a project needs right click, developers will do these workarounds for IE and Firefox, which will already be pretty expensive to test-through and keep up with updates, so they may just leave out the less popular brwosers / OS.
I think it's pretty clear that not getting built in support for right click will rather decrease overall platform independence of SL applications, than extending it.
If you give someone the possibility to screw up, he will ! ? Well then why even let developers do custom controls... Actually why don't just give developers some built-in templates for their apps and take away the (resource-limited) turing-complete programming language from them, since it allows for so many screw ups. Yeah, I think that would be best direction for future Silverlight releases.
When I say right-click, I dont mean a full blown "context menu" neither. I mean arbitrarily handling of the right click as in WPF.
Even if not for every platform Silverlight supports, it would still be much wider than what small teams can test for if they decide to use right clicks now.
Right click will be used with or without official support for it, you can count on that one.
It's just that without official support, applications will require more work to achieve the same thing, and they will be less stable.
07-13-2009 2:06 PM |
Hey Herthoren,
Herthoren: One of the key concepts you're missing is that right click can already be handled arbitrarily with little workarounds. If a project needs right click, developers will do these workarounds for IE and Firefox, which will already be pretty expensive to test-through and keep up with updates, so they may just leave out the less popular brwosers / OS. I think it's pretty clear that not getting built in support for right click will rather decrease overall platform independence of SL applications, than extending it.
Very true and I wouldn't mind if this bug would be fixed in SL 4 to conform with the OOB version.Especially in a business RIA these two worlds "browser / and out of browser" should behave equally.
If you give someone the possibility to screw up, he will !Perhaps I should rephraze this. Taking away the possiblity to include right click, keeps one from doing potential fatal business decisions.So you probably ask youself, what the hell does he know about my business ?Nothing, but I know one thing ... No one will refrain buying or using an application because it uses no right click.But platform dependence, even on such small scale, can be a reason to take another product, that is truly independent.
Herthoren: Well then why even let developers do custom controls... Actually why don't just give developers some built-in templates for their apps and take away the (resource-limited) turing-complete programming language from them, since it allows for so many screw ups. Yeah, I think that would be best direction for future Silverlight releases.
Well then why even let developers do custom controls... Actually why don't just give developers some built-in templates for their apps and take away the (resource-limited) turing-complete programming language from them, since it allows for so many screw ups. Yeah, I think that would be best direction for future Silverlight releases.
This was the common strategy in Winforms, Java Swing and tons of other UI widgets, but exactly creating custom UI's is what Silverlight is all about.Without this feature Silverlight would have no reason for existence.
But even in this "presumably free" environment rules and protocols exist which are enforced as much as possible, that's why classes are sealed, that' why the security restrictions exist and why the API surface is kept as small as possible to ensure safety and to take as many possibilities to "screw up" away as possible. You cannot ensure perfection, but it's always risky to break these restrictions in favor for a single platform. Perhaps the right click will create problems, perhaps not, but in the end, if you've favored one, why not favor more ? If one is not carefully, SL will end up like flash running on all plattforms ... but different.Perhaps not today or tomorrow, but at some point a company will get into problems, first turning to SL for it's independence ending up creating different versions for different platforms, because of such small issues.I know this is all very theoretical and seems far fetched and one might say, what do I care about Silverlights future I need a contextmenu today.Perhaps ... but this is not about company XY and there needs, this is about the future of this, dare I say "Damn Fine" peace of work called Silverlight.
Up till now Silverlight is remarkably similar on all platforms, the "can and can't on Platform XY" list is really small compared to the one of Adobe's flash, I'd like to see it staying this way.
07-13-2009 3:25 PM |
I forgot to add HTML rendering - lots of content in HTML and easy to author - would be nice to display HTML in SL without having to play the windowsless mode / div overlay tricks that I had to do in the past
07-13-2009 3:42 PM |
Krasshirsch: SL will end up like flash running on all plattforms ... but different. Up till now Silverlight is remarkably similar on all platforms, the "can and can't on Platform XY" list is really small compared to the one of Adobe's flash, I'd like to see it staying this way.
SL will end up like flash running on all plattforms ... but different.
If Silverlight will force developers to make the same UI for 30" monitors with keyboard and mouse input, that they do for 2" cellphones, Silverlight is going to fail without a question over platforms that allow developers to take the best advantages of each system they're developing for.
I could go much deeper into this, but it's just this simple. You can make UIs that work on all systems, but users will be more performant using UIs that takes advantage of the current system they are using it on.
Yes, platform independence is a great thing about Silverlight, but it's hell not the only important feature why people want to use it for.
If it allows to use the advantages of different platforms, developers can still make applications that are totally platform independent, but they also can make them competitive with other apps on certain systems.
07-13-2009 3:47 PM |
miantosca: I forgot to add HTML rendering - lots of content in HTML and easy to author - would be nice to display HTML in SL without having to play the windowsless mode / div overlay tricks that I had to do in the past
How much HTML rendering do you want? What are the use-cases? I know where I'd use it, but I'm curious what others think.
Keep in mind that to have full HTML rendering, you're recreating a browser, inside a plug-in, inside the browser.
If the renderer would run across tags it doesn't support, what should happen? Toss them or display them? What about external stylesheets? Javascript? Object tags?
Not being difficult, I'm just wondering how much support is needed for folks to consider it usable.
07-13-2009 3:49 PM |
Oh, and let's say for a moment that there's some way to just host the underlying browser rendering engine without recreating it. Would the differences in how things are rendered be worth it? Keep in mind that until that, Silverlight has had an excellent x-plat story in terms of what renders in one browser/os is the same as in the others.
07-13-2009 3:51 PM |
Yes object tags please! We could include the silverlight app recursivly into itself, until the CPU burns in flames ;)
07-13-2009 3:55 PM |
For me, I wouldn't need external style sheets, javascript, or object tags. Just the ability to render HTML text, including images, and supporting HTML 2.0 through 4.x and beyond. We would use it more as a "Rich Text" rendering, rather than interactive HTML. We have a lot of data (Exchange email), which has been archived and converted to HTML. We want to render the HTML of the original message correctly.
07-13-2009 3:57 PM |
Psychlist1972:Oh, and let's say for a moment that there's some way to just host the underlying browser rendering engine without recreating it. Would the differences in how things are rendered be worth it? Keep in mind that until that, Silverlight has had an excellent x-plat story in terms of what renders in one browser/os is the same as in the others. Pete
That would be okay, if it wasn't displayed in "windowless mode". We need the ability to have the content "flow" with other Framework element objects, and also needs to be displayed within such controls such as a ChildWindow.
07-13-2009 4:04 PM |
tfmillet: For me, I wouldn't need external style sheets, javascript, or object tags. Just the ability to render HTML text, including images, and supporting HTML 2.0 through 4.x and beyond. We would use it more as a "Rich Text" rendering, rather than interactive HTML. We have a lot of data (Exchange email), which has been archived and converted to HTML. We want to render the HTML of the original message correctly.
For this behaviour there is a really simple way to accomplish this, you could write a simple parser that does nothing more than convert HTML to XAML,
you know <div></div> -> <Grid></Grid> and so on, when you done, rush it through the XamlReader and voilá, you got yourself an asskick html renderer.
07-13-2009 4:27 PM |
Psychlist1972: Oh, and let's say for a moment that there's some way to just host the underlying browser rendering engine without recreating it. Would the differences in how things are rendered be worth it? Keep in mind that until that, Silverlight has had an excellent x-plat story in terms of what renders in one browser/os is the same as in the others. Pete
How do you wish to accomplish this feat in OOB ?
not a lot of rendering - really just enough to allow an app to format user entered content using simple tags like bold, italic, ul and ol - basically rich text type formatting.
Krasshirsch suggested creating a simple parser to convert html to xaml - I think that could easily be done and will have to do it for the project I am working on right now - would be nice to have something in the toolkit that everyone could use and not have to re-invent the wheel (and test the heck out of that wheel)
- Michael
07-13-2009 4:31 PM |
Krasshirsch: How do you wish to accomplish this feat in OOB ?
Reminder: I don't work for Microsoft (in case there's any confusion)
Silverlight Out of Browser is still hosted by the browser's rendering engine. On Windows, that's shdocvw and related stuff. On Mac, it's the rendering engine bits from webkit.
So, it's all still there.
07-13-2009 5:01 PM |
Psychlist1972:Reminder: I don't work for Microsoft (in case there's any confusion)
Psychlist1972: Silverlight Out of Browser is still hosted by the browser's rendering engine. On Windows, that's shdocvw and related stuff. On Mac, it's the rendering engine bits from webkit.
You learn new things all the time :) So no browser installed, no silverlight huh ? a pitty...
07-13-2009 5:11 PM |
Krasshirsch: So no browser installed, no silverlight huh ? a pitty...
So no browser installed, no silverlight huh ? a pitty...
I'm not so sure it's as cut and dry as that. shdocvw in windows is pretty core. It's probably even present in the "no browser" EU builds. MS wasn't just pulling a marketing stunt when they said IE was core to the windows operating system, they were serious. They had made a decision to base a number of things on it.
I can't speak to what happens on the mac, but I believe the core safari bits are there much like the core IE bits on windows.That's a gut understanding, not based on actually doing any testing or verification.
07-13-2009 5:25 PM |
Opinions are my own. Oh, and I don't work for Microsoft.
Great, now I got you to update your signature ... man thats not my day ...
07-13-2009 5:30 PM |
Krasshirsch: For this behaviour there is a really simple way to accomplish this, you could write a simple parser that does nothing more than convert HTML to XAML, you know <div></div> -> <Grid></Grid> and so on, when you done, rush it through the XamlReader and voilá, you got yourself an asskick html renderer.
Except for the fact that in a text block it's impossible to provide hyperlinks with surrounding text unless you use some very hacky workarounds which all have major disadvantages. One of the key issues for Silverlight 4 is to provide support for flow documents which are available in WPF and would allow rich text content. Then an HTML to flow document converter would not be that difficult (and there is actually ready one for WPF).
07-13-2009 5:36 PM |
Montago: 3. Keyboard Override When making Business/Game apps, its crucial to support keyboard shortcuts !! I want full support for Event cancelling, so that i may control what happens when the user press F1, F2, F3, F4, F5 etc... and i want to be able to make CTRL + [key] shortcuts !!! without having the browser to take my event. - its possible in Javascript, why not Silverlight ??
I absolutely agree with this, any line of business application needs to be able to support Alt+[Key] shortcuts to provide easy access around the screen. People working with data entry applications for example do not want to be using the mouse all the time.
PomAH4uK
07-13-2009 5:47 PM |
Fix Silverlight WCF Duplex.
Web camera
Microphone.
UDP :)
Opporunity save Bitmap to image.
Jamebo
07-13-2009 8:51 PM |
1. LicenseProvider
2. Better supports for Eastern language Input Method Editor (TSF) for Japan, China
07-13-2009 11:43 PM |
PomAH4uK: Fix Silverlight WCF Duplex. Opporunity save Bitmap to image.
What do you want changed with WCF Duplex?
On the bitmap/image question, are you asking for something with a jpeg/png codec? You can already save the bits out to a file, and you can use the png encoder written during the SL2 timeframe (probably with some minor modification) to save out a PNG. a lossless bitmap should be even easier.
jsneeringer
07-14-2009 12:46 AM |
borismod...
07-14-2009 11:29 AM |
Our main wishes are improvements of integration between WCF and Silverlight: 1. Error handling support: exception thrown from WCF can be caught in Silverlight 2. Compression of serialized data 3. Better localization support: SL would detect user's language and load dynamically required Resource file
07-14-2009 11:56 AM |
This is more of a Visual Studio request.
It would be very handy if when refactoring a control name in code behind it also changes the name of the control in XAML and vice versa.
Same for event handlers in both directions.
estern
410 points
125 Posts
07-14-2009 12:14 PM |
The ability to edit the code while debugging.
07-14-2009 12:41 PM |
estern: The ability to edit the code while debugging.
Boy, do I miss that ability!
07-14-2009 6:03 PM |
this would absolutely make my life as a developer so much better! I would also like to see the ability to change XAML code while debugging,
NigelLee...
32 points
22 Posts
07-15-2009 5:40 AM |
1. LayoutTransform.
RenderTransform doesn't move related items, so I end up with text over images or even worse, under images when I resize an image with RenderTransform.
2. Credentials in WebClient
I want to call a web service with username & password.
3. tilt delta on the mousewheel, so I can scroll right & left as well as up and down.
4. Proper inheritance for XAML created classes without any fumbling around.
5. Better resolution of actualheight/actualwidth - it is too often 0. I dont want to have to Measure() everything. The real problem is that I cannot understand how and when the sizes of things get set. Can you make it much easier please, I am not young enough to have sufficient remaining years to investigate such things.
6. Ability to create uielements in separate thread from UI thread
7. A move away from xaml and back to code. It is easy in xaml to add an image or a colour, but in code, you have to create intermediate steps like bitmapimage for the source of an image and solidcolorbrush for the backgroudn of a whatever. Can code compilers not be as clever as XAML compilers when it comes to understanding the programmer's wishes. Personally I am finding XAML less an less useful, especially when it comes to debugging.
8. crossdomain.xml and clientpolicy.xml - don't want them, don't understand why I want them.
9. I have a feeling that creating uielements in silverlight is slower than in WPF. I haven't tested it, but will one day get around to it.
10. Can I have a project with two outputs in Visual Studio, one for WPF and one for silverlight. I want to see Silverlight's limitations highlighted in the code, so I can work around them like #if silverlight ... or #if wpf .... This would allow me to create a proper windows wpf application and a silverlight one, so I can give full power to a desktop user, and a cross platform application to a casual user without having to manually maintain two projects. I have a feeling that running a silverlight application out of browser on a windows box is a pointless and restricting activity.
All in all, I am very pleased with Silverlight, although you may not think so from the above comments.
07-15-2009 6:21 AM |
NigelLeeming: 5. Better resolution of actualheight/actualwidth - it is too often 0. I dont want to have to Measure() everything. The real problem is that I cannot understand how and when the sizes of things get set. Can you make it much easier please, I am not young enough to have sufficient remaining years to investigate such things.
in every UIEvent you can read those properties... (atleast thats how i do it)
NigelLeeming: 6. Ability to create uielements in separate thread from UI thread
i agree... UIElements/FrameworkElements who's parent are NULL shouldn't complain about thread exceptions... hence they arent drawn...
NigelLeeming: 7. A move away from xaml and back to code. It is easy in xaml to add an image or a colour, but in code, you have to create intermediate steps like bitmapimage for the source of an image and solidcolorbrush for the backgroudn of a whatever. Can code compilers not be as clever as XAML compilers when it comes to understanding the programmer's wishes. Personally I am finding XAML less an less useful, especially when it comes to debugging.
i totally agree !... why are there 120 colours to choose from in XAML, but only 15 in C# ???
NigelLeeming: 8. crossdomain.xml and clientpolicy.xml - don't want them, don't understand why I want them.
its a security issue (preventing Silverlight Spam-bots/Botnets ) get used to it - its for the greater good !
NigelLeeming: 10. Can I have a project with two outputs in Visual Studio, one for WPF and one for silverlight. I want to see Silverlight's limitations highlighted in the code, so I can work around them like #if silverlight ... or #if wpf .... This would allow me to create a proper windows wpf application and a silverlight one, so I can give full power to a desktop user, and a cross platform application to a casual user without having to manually maintain two projects. I have a feeling that running a silverlight application out of browser on a windows box is a pointless and restricting activity.
can't be done... SL is meant to run i a browser, with async WCF calls and HTMLPage interactions and events only available in a browser... there are too many differences to SL from WPF to make this possible ...
07-15-2009 10:51 AM |
Oh, I totally forgot, Silverlight for mobile phones. I work for a company that provides video services for companies, and I have a real need to be able to build a silverlight app for mobile that would allow for uploading and managing video and images. Of course, I'd like it for WinMo, Android, Blackberry, Pre, and iPhone (good luck on getting that one!).
enantiom...
39 points
59 Posts
07-17-2009 10:54 PM |
I would like DataTemplate to have a DataType property so that silverlight can automatically discover the default template to use. Good for MVVM pattern:
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type vm:FooViewModel}"> <v:FooView /></DataTemplate>
Gimme!
pkr2000
1219 points
377 Posts
07-20-2009 7:18 PM |
For me, better File IO support, the ability to use FileAccess.ReadWrite is a must-have for me. Ability to use the Browsers network stack for OOB, it's a real pain to have .net authentication services suddenly ripped from you...ok then I just want to be able to continue using .net authentication in OOB, I don't care about the network stack. Also I don't want to see DataSet/DataTable, keep 'em out ;)
07-21-2009 2:10 PM |
Definitely better wcf support. Error handling in wcf is a nightmare. Could we also get a set of templates for setting up wcf services in different. The one that I run into all the time is the scenario where I need to transmit a large amount of data with a large object graph. Setting up the config file every time to do this correctly is very painful. Only occasionally do I get it right on the first try, and I usually spend the afternoon trying to figure out why the limits I set are not working correctly. Maybe when you create a silverlight enabled service object, it gives you the choice to step through a wizard to answer a few questions and customizes the config for you.....
mbrookfield
30 points
17 Posts
07-21-2009 4:37 PM |
Agree with tanmoy.r on Full 3D support. Perspective 3D??? Really??? More like tricky bit of horse dung. Ok guys, for the record, FLIPBOOK != true 3D rendering!!!!
Given that KIT 3D has been available on Codeplex for some time and Microsoft had plenty of time to implement REAL 3D rendering, I can't understand why it wasn't made available in SL3. Extremely disappointing to say the least. OK, so given that, for all you folks out there who require 3D tools for grownups: http://www.codeplex.com/Kit3D.
angelok
07-21-2009 4:47 PM |
Must-have's preventing my company's adoption of Silverlgiht: 1. Printing 2. FlowDocument Fixed Document & XPS Others: 3. Implement the rest of the WPF object model and controls 4. 3D
07-21-2009 4:50 PM |
i dont know what the new matrix projection does for 3D... but im pretty sure that Microsoft is working on a really smart an sleek 3D modelling language for Silverlight... why would they give us D3D/OpenGL-like language when they could do something LINQ'y or Lambda'tastic ?? i bet there will come 3D to SL soon, beating the crap out of Flash and whatever's out there..
jducoeur...
07-21-2009 5:11 PM |
I'm currently working on a serious web-based business app, built on an all-.NET back-end infrastructure, with users who are mostly IE-based. Our first client was written in Flash; right at the moment, I'm trying to understand whether Silverlight would be a good alternative going forward.
I don't know Silverlight at all well yet (I do know both Flash and .NET quite well), but from the previous comments, I suspect the big desires for us would be:
07-21-2009 5:35 PM |
Agree with you Montago but 3D class libraries already implemented in WPF. In fact, I used the WPF 3D documentation when working with Kit3D. While I think that going in another direction might provide some great opportunities to rethink 3D in Silverlight from the ground up, their best (and most expeditious) move would be to port what they already have from WPF over to Silverlight (WPF/E). Keeping the programming interfaces between the two as consistent as possible would be a big win for all of us.
07-21-2009 5:38 PM |
On the other hand, why the heck didn't they do that with SL3?????? (Rolls eyes ... smoke rising from head .... grrrrrr!!!!)
07-22-2009 5:25 PM |
Oooooo!!!! Hay I have an idea, how about making an install program that actually works!!!! It must be hard coming out with such an awesome application just to have it all undermined by the idiots that created the install. People are having issues with this going back to version 2 and you guys still haven’t corrected it. SOMEBODY WAKE THE HECK UP BACK THERE!!!!!!! On the outside chance that someone from the Borg actually see this and give a crap, be my guest and Google (yeah Google and not Bing. I need at least some components in my developer’s bag of tricks that actually works): “Silverlight 3” and (0x80091007 or “failed with error: 12180” or “does not have sufficient access rights).
Jeesh!!!
andrewjw
16 Posts
07-22-2009 7:37 PM |
My wish list:
Jac_P
1044 points
189 Posts
07-23-2009 2:26 AM |
The only thing I wish for is the following :
I create an application in Silverlight (or WPF), Create another one WPF (or Silverlight) project, add the files from the first project to the latter as link, and the solution work without any further changes.
Essentially, the code should be interoperable without any change at all.
Looking forward to MS to give a clean solution this time, unlike the previous versions of SL where everything breaks when you migrate an application from a previous version.
But based on the PREVIOUS BITTER experiences, this should not be expected. (Many things that used to work in SL2 stopped working in SL3).
They just come up with new features for the geeks and basically peanuts for the professionals.
Jac
07-23-2009 6:01 PM |
mbrookfield: Agree with you Montago but 3D class libraries already implemented in WPF. In fact, I used the WPF 3D documentation when working with Kit3D. While I think that going in another direction might provide some great opportunities to rethink 3D in Silverlight from the ground up, their best (and most expeditious) move would be to port what they already have from WPF over to Silverlight (WPF/E). Keeping the programming interfaces between the two as consistent as possible would be a big win for all of us.
You all point this out like the SL team could get this done overnight :)
WPF is platform-specific, and relies very heavily on its integration with DirectX. Silverlight is cross-platform. While hardware-accelerated 3D will probably be in there some day, it's not a simple or quick thing to do. It has to be prioritized with everything else.
Remember earlier I said the team needs use-cases, not bullet points? This is a prime example. The perspective transform satisfies the vast majority of use-cases that were presented to the team. If it doesn't satisfy yours, speak up, and be specific :)
Remember that SIlverlight 2 RTWd in October. Silverlight 3 has released just 9 months later. I don't know about you guys, but for 9 months of work, the release is pretty impressive to me.
07-24-2009 4:03 AM |
Psychlist1972:While I think that going in another direction might provide some great opportunities to rethink 3D in Silverlight from the ground up, their best (and most expeditious) move would be to port what they already have from WPF over to Silverlight (WPF/E).
I do not think it is wise to implement any WPF 3D features into Silverlight.
Most users, me included, jump onto the "3D" train to be able to develop games with it. Although WPF satisfies basic 3D needs it is not suited for game development whatsoever.A 3D Environment requires heavy work in both graphical visualization as well as pure floating point calculation speed.WPF models are extreme heavyweight objects to fit into the XAML presentation framework. Property access is severely slowed down due to a lot of boxing and unboxing arisen through the DependencyProperty environment.
Games of a descent size are not developed using XAML, they can't be, a game environment is far to dynamic to be statically declared.Therefor the whole XAML integration will fall on deaf ears. WPF allows you to create descent and really nice UI's, but thats it, no games.Sacrificing a huge amount of speed just to be able to declare my viewport in XAML is no viable solution for me and games need one thing above all ... Speed!This "small" overhead is not important when dealing with a handful of objects, but the more you have the worse it'll get.
Furthermore full 3D support requires a huge amount of new objects, which would bloat the runtime.
The best bet is to speed up overall rendering, which would allow third parties to create viable 3D environments as it is already happening, unfortunately current implementations fail to live up to expectations, due to slow rendering.You can also enable and disable GPU acceleration in Flash. If you enable it, everything you draw, no matter what or where or when, is done so by the GPU, as it should be in Silverlight. The BitmapCache was a nice idea, unfortunately it creates more problems than it solves.
No, WPF integration is a big no no ... please don't!Silverlight could bring games to the next generation, but not with half baked tools.Ever wondered why there are no 3D browser games like Quake or Unreal or Warcraft3 (and no, Quake Live is no browser game) ?Up till now there was no possibility, since Flash just isnt up for the task. Developing a complex system with Flash would take twice as much developers and a tenfold of time compared to using the .NET environmentnot to mention flash's lack of calculation speed, my lil' brother can multiply floats faster using his fingers.
For the first time there's a tool out there, which could be up to the task. Development tools for Silverlight are excellent, in fact the best this world has to offer, calculation speed is excellent, we have more than enough speed here.
So, whats the catch ?
To be completely neutral and to continue my sarcastic statements, my lil' brother can paint faster using pen and paper than silverlight currently does ;)So, that's the problem, there will be no 3D without better rendering performance, no matter how much we wish, no matter what will be included.
I hope the SL team reads this, for I'll drop some knowledge passed along to me from my university professor for artificial intelligence."Boy ... do or don't, theres no room for maybes here".
If you decide to include full 3D support please do it the correct way or else leave it be.
my 2 cents
07-24-2009 6:19 AM |
Krasshirsch:Ever wondered why there are no 3D browser games like Quake or Unreal or Warcraft3 (and no, Quake Live is no browser game) ?
Quake [Silverlight 3] -> http://www.innoveware.com/quakelight.html
Unreal'a'like [Shockwave] -> http://www2.rasterwerks.com/game/phosphor/beta1.asp
footnick
33 points
62 Posts
07-24-2009 6:52 AM |
Krasshirsch:Most users, me included, jump onto the "3D" train to be able to develop games with it. Although WPF satisfies basic 3D needs it is not suited for game development whatsoever.A 3D Environment requires heavy work in both graphical visualization as well as pure floating point calculation speed.
Hi Krasshirsch
I don't think you are correct to say that 3D is primarily a tool for developing games. I used to work for a company developing a 3D toolkit that supported 100's of applications in none games environment such as design, marketing, training, simulation, etc all of these were growing rapidly and many would benefit from 3D support in web client applications.
Floating point calculation speed or bloated silverlight engines shouldn't be an issue as I had assumed that any implementation would make use of graphics hardware rather than implementing 3D rendering directly. Given that Silverlight already apparently supports hardware graphics extending this to 3D shouldn't be a huge overhead.
I agree that Xaml isn't appropriate for defining larger data sets, but Silverlight isn't all about Xaml.
Nick
07-24-2009 7:38 AM |
I agree. We use 3D for medical visualization. Implying 3D is just for games simply doesn't take into account what business apps really do. I'd like an easy port, but would gladly rewrite using writeable bitmap in order to get the other benefits on silerlight (i.e. easier deployments, etc). The real deal-breakers for us are printing and flow/fixed document support and xps viewer. The bloated engine statement is putting the cart before the horse. We're not architecting yet, just offering requirements. The engineers will figure out how to implement later, and perhaps they can find ways to accomplish the task.
07-24-2009 10:15 AM |
Montago:Quake [Silverlight 3] -> http://www.innoveware.com/quakelight.html Unreal'a'like [Shockwave] -> http://www2.rasterwerks.com/game/phosphor/beta1.asp
I'm sorry, I should have mentioned state of the art 3D Games. 40 FPS, no lighting, 320x200 resolution for "Quake 1" on a 2,6 Ghz Quad Core is not really what I had in mind, especially when the original Requirements were 66 Mhz and a 1MB SVGA video card ..., so no ... it's a nice experiment but it doesn't count.
I can't say much for Shockwave, I dislike using it, but still ...
if you squeeze ten more of those "Wannabe" 3D games it's still nothing compared to the vast amount of client games.
07-24-2009 10:50 AM |
footnick:Hi Krasshirsch I don't think you are correct to say that 3D is primarily a tool for developing games.
I don't think you are correct to say that 3D is primarily a tool for developing games.
This is a very subjective view, I never said it is the only, but we could argue for days 'bout that ...
Nevertheless, if you want to venture beyond displaying a handful of static 3D entities and perhaps rotating a camera a bit a WPF like environment will just not do.
Even if your assumptions were true and 3D would be primarly used in design, marketing, training, simulation, many of these usages would operate in a game like environment.
You have user input, you generate data on top of this input and then you display the result.
Let's take the simple fact of displaying a car engine in all details using 3D visualization. We habe thousands of unique parts (screws, platings, pipes, ...) all tied together in this huge scene graph.You should be able to view those parts seperately, take them apart, put them together.
Let's take CAD systems, you add/remove and swap items all the time until you created whatever it was you wanted to create, you will not do this in XAMLyou will do this in code.
I'm not saying this is not possible using WPF, but it's just not suited for complex dynamic scenes with lot's of interactions.#
Sure, for the 3D piano with 5 Buttons and perhaps a handful of visual states, which is shipped as an example, it's enough, but c'mon ...
footnick:Floating point calculation speed or bloated silverlight engines shouldn't be an issue as I had assumed that any implementation would make use of graphics hardware rather than implementing 3D rendering directly.
This is because you appearently have no clue how a 3D engine operates, even rather simple well designed engines need a minimum of a couple dozen extra classes and structs. The more complex engines have hundreds of objects in addition to the DirectX and OpenGL Sdk's. There is a reason why the Ogre3D engine binaries are larger than the whole SL plugin itself.
footnick:I agree that Xaml isn't appropriate for defining larger data sets, but Silverlight isn't all about Xaml.
Unfortunately when it comes to visualization of any kind it is, the SL team will not add any objects to the visualization tree that cannot be integrated or merged with other obejcts using XAML. For XAML integration and interaction all objects must derive from DependencyObjects which unfortunately bloats them and makes them useless in large quantities.In 3D we leave the 1 - 10 world and enter the 1000 - 10000000 universe, even with more or less small and uncomplex objects, and no, a plane is not a complex object.
07-24-2009 11:38 AM |
Krasshirsch:This is because you appearently have no clue how a 3D engine operates
Not sure if that counts as 'abuse'
Suffice to say that we have an excellent 3D application that uses WPF to produce some really cool results and more importantly exceeds the original requirements in terms of both quality and performance. Our real world experience doesn't match your theoretical view point. Unfortunately the app isn't out to market yet so I can't demonstrate it to you.
If we wanted a games engine then we'd use one. What we want is a WPF level API to 3D hardware graphics within Silverlight.
07-24-2009 12:20 PM |
I'm sorry, I didn't want to offend anybody. My apologies if it sounded that way.
The point is: A WPF 3D Environment may suite you, but it doesn't suite the game sector at all. So here's the question, implement a new feature that helps one side a lot and leave the rest standing on the shores, or implement a feature were all can benefit from ?
Therefor I do not want to see any WPF like 3D implementations, I'd rather see GPU accelerated rendering and leave the hard part to third party companies.Kit3D is modeled 1:1 after it's WPF counterpart, even the namespaces are identical, you can nearly copy paste your 3D code and it'll work, it's just currently pretty useless, since there is no GPU accelerated drawing, so a handful of FPS @ most.
Balder is a 3D "game" engine build with SL 3, it's really nice and fast, since it doesn't use dependencyobjects, but it too is pretty useless since there is no GPU accelerated drawing yet.
You see, all those engines are already out there only the fuel is missing ;)
07-24-2009 1:11 PM |
LMAOROF!!!! Awesome Montago!!! Good job dude.
As for Silverlight and gaming my humble (heh) opinion would be that like Flash, and regardless of hardware acceleration, there will be little usefulness in Silverlight for such applications for some time. In my mind, the biggest mistake Macromedia made in marketing Flash was taking the easy way and allowing artists and designers dictate the market potential for such a tool. They got lazy and instead of creating a robust programming environment for developers to create something truly original and out of the box, they slapped in together as an afterthought and as a result Flash became mainly a cute little IDE for creating banner ads and maybe some rudimentary games. They missed the opportunity to create a real alternative to HTML based web interfaces; true business RIA. There were a few amazing demonstrations of what could actually be accomplished with such a tool such as Marketrac: http://marketrac.nyse.com/mt/, but by then it was too late. Flash had already been pigeonholed into a world of tunnel-visioned idiocy. Trying to make Silverlight into a game development platform would run the risk of doing the same. I see Silverlight as providing the tools to invent and create the next generation of user interface for web based business applications: RIA!!!!! Sure it’s fun to create game like environments for Silverlight, and indeed that may provide some of the forward vantage point that will lead to the aforementioned next gen web based GUI. However, I truly believe it’s better to let Silverlight become something greater.
As for "bloaty-ness" of introducing some or all of the WPF 3D engine, I guess I must be missing something because it seems a simple to me as referencing libraries, or not. If you want a 3D light, include that. If you want a full implementation, include that. Why should everyone’s ability to apply their ideas be preempted because some just don’t "get it"? Only on the backs of new tools can the next vistas become visible. As B. L. Whorf once said: "Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about." In this case Silverlight is the current state of the language. Don't screw it up.
PS: There is a trend that XAML should be the end all for creating Silverlight applications. This would be a HUGE mistake. In enterprise level applications, much must be generated at runtime. For instance, the Entity Frameworks apparent insistence that a data object be defined in advanced ("strongly typed"), is just plain silly. (Back to Comp Sci 101 guys!!! Who the heck knows 100% of the time what your data structure is going to look like in advance???) This unfortunately renders the .NET RIA Services pretty much useless except in a few applications. It's like the 80-/20 rule ... in reverse. My point is that not everything should be restricted to a purely ZAML perspective.
07-24-2009 1:24 PM |
PS: Using Kit3D and some quaternion rotation math, I was able to render a set of up to 4000 cubes (6 polygons each), in a slow albeit reasonably useful manner. This, without hardware acceleration. Again, it was very slow; way to slow for gaming, but plenty useful enough to provide some amazing capabilities to a next gen web based GUI for serious business applications.
07-24-2009 1:42 PM |
mbrookfield:Flash had already been pigeonholed into a world of tunnel-visioned idiocy. Trying to make Silverlight into a game development platform would run the risk of doing the same.
Currently Silverlight's only purpose besides creating RIA's is flickering banner ads and pacman games just like flash, since there is no capability to support something visually more demanding. Why not try to skip this pathetic part and move into the real entertainment market ?And I don't mean ports of 1000000 year old games that barely run on todays high end machine's.
mbrookfield:As for "bloaty-ness" of introducing some or all of the WPF 3D engine, I guess I must be missing something because it seems a simple to me as referencing libraries, or not.
07-24-2009 2:05 PM |
Krasshirsch:Currently Silverlight's only purpose besides creating RIA's is flickering banner ads and pacman games just like flash, since there is no capability to support something visually more demanding.
What a shame if that were true. Luckily its not. Period!! The things I'm working on fly directly in the face of that belief. I think you'll find a lot of other voices out there opposing your view.
Krasshirsch:If it just were that simple ..., but true, if the SL team could completely isolate the WPF 3D part it would be great, inside WPF it's not.
Sigh (rolls eyes): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.media.media3d.aspx
Small or large parts of which could be broken out as needed.
07-24-2009 2:13 PM |
MBrookfield:Sigh (rolls eyes)
MBrookfield:The things I'm working on fly directly in the face of that belief.
07-24-2009 2:18 PM |
I just tried this one http://www2.rasterwerks.com/game/phosphor/beta1.asp Really nice, it would be really awesome to be able to create something like this for the web without having to rely on archaic scripting languages and debuggers.
07-24-2009 2:40 PM |
Krasshirsch:if it can be completely isolated, great
I think that’s what MS should be focusing on. Maybe this dialog will contribute to that happening.
Krasshirsch:Like what ?
Without going into details as its proprietary, the ability of the user to say:
Click on a data grid entry representing some actual physical or representation object and that object being located and identified within a 3D space wherein the space and or object might be flipped in three axis’s, 360 degrees. Likewise, another object might be located within the given space clicking on which would bring up details of that object in a data grid. The objects and construction of the space are completely data driven and created at runtime ... for instance.
07-24-2009 5:24 PM |
one of my friends and his team made this game in 3 weeks:
http://www.amazingmonk.com/
powered by the Unity3D engine: http://unity3d.com/gallery/
its amazing what it can do, and how simple it is... there is a demo of a FarCry island... really amazing !
http://unity3d.com/gallery/
http://unity3d.com/gallery/live-demos/tropical-paradise <-- farcry in the browser...
danielkward
35 points
07-24-2009 5:42 PM |
PRINTING!
07-25-2009 8:28 AM |
Krasshirsch:it would be really awesome to be able to create something like this for the web without having to rely on archaic scripting languages and debuggers.
Several years ago Microsoft joined teams with Dassault Systems [the creator of CATIA Software] to develop a standard and format called "3DXML". The nice thing about it was you could create any object you wanted using the CATIA 3D CAD Software, and then export it to a 3D XML file. In other words, if you know CAD [like I do], then you had the ability to create these amazing 3D worlds with little effort, and then export it to a 3D XML file that can be viewed in their player online.
When I first heard of Silverlight, I thought, okay now things are making sense. It thought, this was the reason why Microsoft helped Dassault come up with a 3D XML standard that could be viewed on the web. Back in 2006, I was experimenting with CATIA to make these amazing 3D objects with little effort. So this was why I was a bit disappointed with the 3D in Silverlight [because of my assumptions]. Don't get me wrong, Silverlight is great and I'm excited about its future. It's just I was hoping for something similiar to my experiences with 3D XML.
click http://www.3ds.com/company/3d-experiences/ to see some of the 3D experiences and games.
Gallery at http://www.3ds.com/products/3dvia/3d-xml/gallery/
If you haven't seen 3D XML yet, it's worth taking the time to download their player and check it out. Their player is a lot larger, so it takes a little longer to download. The 3D format and specification is also there.
http://www.3ds.com/products/3dvia/3d-xml/overview/#vid1
CarlBrui...
07-25-2009 8:32 AM |
Interesting.
I dabble with Flash every now and then. I'm a .NET developer and have started using Silverlight more and more.
The killer features that Silverlight lacks is;
Someone mentioned a killer feature, imagine this;
Whilst Wii controllers have been done, it would be seriously cool if users could use their Xbox360 Natal controller to manipulate 3D in Silverlight. Consider the user base of Xbox360 users, that would give MS the user numbers to finally boast that it's taking chunks out of Flash.
Carl[::TILL THE END::]
07-25-2009 10:25 AM |
rshelby:you could create any object you wanted using the CATIA 3D CAD Software, and then export it to a 3D XML file
XAML supports true 3D just fine. What is required are tird party tools that translate various formats back and forth. ZAM3D for instance not only provides a basic 3D creation environment but imports from 3DS Max, DXF, etc. When you have what you want, ZAM3D kicks out pure XDAML that can be used directly in Blend. What is missing is the support in Silverlight to consume that output. Part of it can be consumed by employing KIT3D, but only a small subset of functionality. Also, Sketchup does a pretty good job of it as well and seems to support more formats. This functionality has been available since Silverlight/Blend 2.
ZAM3D:
http://www.erain.com/Products/ZAM3D/DefaultPDC.asp
Sketchup:
http://sketchup.google.com/
KIT3D:
http://www.codeplex.com/Kit3D
Hope this helps :)
07-25-2009 10:46 AM |
CarlBruiners:Whilst Wii controllers have been done
For those who may not know what Carl is talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgKCrGvShZs
CarlBruiners:3D data format,
Xaml is quickly become one of the many standard formats available out there. See ZAM3D by Electric Rain for instance. (Since you’re a flash developer you may remember the name from Swift3D)
07-25-2009 12:04 PM |
quick fixes for serious regression errors
http://silverlight.net/forums/t/103424.aspx
marcoenxuto
07-27-2009 9:07 AM |
Good afternoon gentlemen,
the Only think i would like to see, is a very important thing which i havent seen no one report, i guess... The connection to sql databases, like *.vb os *.cs does.
ADO.Net
just like that, get datasource from SQL Server, and workaround of that.
Thats all!
Regards
staceywi...
07-27-2009 12:32 PM |
"Creating a 3d cube by simply taking a rectangle and setting a thickness / depth property. Or doing the same thing to a circle in order to make a 3d cylinder."
1) Totally. Also be able to extrude text (embos, bevel, etc) and have shadow effect respect the thickness and a light position. Is this 2.5D? Even lift the 2.5D elements off a Z-axis. Also be able to easily place and "stick" images on cubes and balls so they rotate with the cube and not have to program the perspective for each image seperatly- it would just work as expected. Then be able to set the view-port to *inside the cube to create easy carosel effect with images stuck inside the cube (instead of outside). Being able to "wrap" a stack panel around a ball or cylinder would be interesting also to create circular queue effects without having to deal with end-point logic.
2) Print. One cool idea would be to expose a system PrintCanvas. You can just add controls to it like a normal canvas using code or xaml strings - then have a Print() method after adding is complete. As async is the model, you could also just keep adding to it as you get data (say from a server or sql report) and it will page and print as data is produced. The user could control this behavior from the silverlight Properties dialog. Default would just queue xps documents with some kind of default DOS limits. Policy would allow user to select which apps can queue and/or print to which printers. Being xps based, user could then right-click on queued documents and view or print or email or delete, etc.
3) In the same way, policy could be used to control external devices such as sound and webcams. Maybe in a VirtualPC fashion. Where local SL devices are virtual and map to real local or network devices. That way, even devices become "composable" and pipeline-able. For example, a speaker Line device may be mapped to a remote internet mic, that can be piped into your mixer control to add background music which could be piped into live sound feed control of a new channel, that could then be Tee'd off to a recording device, etc. Ultimately allow all kinds of ways to hook things up.
the.boarder
07-27-2009 5:51 PM |
jredfield
20 points
10 Posts
07-29-2009 11:16 AM |
As a SL developer, I just want better error messaging. Xaml parsing errors are still difficult to debug sometimes. The features mentioned above are certainly important, but faster development time, due to better tools and error messaging, debugging, etc. is really important. The faster we can crank out those totally cool SL apps, the faster it will catch on universally.
Other than that, PRINTING for sure!
Meanwhile, one item on the SL3 wish list that was done, and we don't have to worry about, is considerably better font rendering. SL3 is now a legit LOB tool!!
puckoff7337
71 points
57 Posts
07-29-2009 11:28 PM |
Most important for me is to make it possible to do more minor designer changes.... a display that is also movable would be nice (similar to what we have in C#) I know there is expression blends but it would be really nice to have this possible w/o leaving VS2008
Also more closely matching classes like the sockets class to C# would be nice, the sockets class now still leaves a little to be desired.
Better MDI support would also be a huge plus (though the Code Plex toolkit does a good job making up for this)
Some other good ones I saw others mention were:
1) Host html inside of Silverlight control
2) Full support of all mouse buttons
3) Full Linux support
4) Better integration of the various components that are now in the CodePlex silverlight toolkit natively
07-30-2009 5:30 AM |
Our focus is on property marketing and the features that we would most like to see include ....
1. 3D rendering with HW acceleration (we had been excpecting this at SL3 - in our view the simple perspective offered at SL3 is just a gimmick whilst proper 3D offers real functionality for business applications of the future - hopefully the simple perspective was just a stop gap because 3D missed the cut?)
2. XPS and printing
3. Support for Mobile devices.
4. Mic support and speech recognition (ideally on mobile devices)
Given that adding new features will increase the size of Silverlight we would prefer some granularity with Silverlight applications including optional modules as required (such as the Silverlight Toolkit). We would be happy to disable functionality for platforms that don't support optional modules.
Whilst some of our applications are used by the general public and require the sort of public trust and system penetration offered by Flash and hopefully Silverlight in the future, other applications could support an installation process which could perhaps allow applications to control security issues such as access to trusted native DLL's, more control of file open and save, and easier management of local storage. Currently we use WPF for some of our applications but we would much prefer to manage a single development environment with wider platform support such Silverlight.
chaitany...
252 points
07-30-2009 12:50 PM |
I wish to see some more killer features, to win against FLASH, like
1. More timeline animation control functions
2. Printing/Webcam/Audio Input support
3. Lesser file size (more easy to load)
usamakhan86
7 Posts
07-31-2009 12:04 AM |
Map Contorl for gis
rmcsharry
345 points
239 Posts
07-31-2009 8:25 AM |
We have just lost a client who were really keen on using SL3. This is a direct copy from the email I got this morning:
We cannot use Silverlight for this solution. Reason: XMPP requires some bindings / protocols for file transfer that are missing from Silverlight, additionally there are some cryptography classes / functions missing from Silverlight (God knows why Microsoft did this if they were looking to attract app developers) that are CRITICAL for what we are doing.
So there is a feature request direct from a client.
Thanks for listening,
Richard
epodolyak
07-31-2009 8:41 AM |
The FlowDocument support. It is the main problem why we cannot develop our application using Silverlight.
07-31-2009 9:18 AM |
epodolyak:The FlowDocument support. It is the main problem why we cannot develop our application using Silverlight.
that wish x5 !!!
im stuck right now, because WrapPanel sux (no linebreak) and StackPanels^2 is ugly to code...
try making a <div>text text <br><a href="">link</a>text text</div> in silverlight !!! ARGHHH
07-31-2009 9:50 AM |
i think silverlight 3 needs a sp1 BEFORE silverlight 4.
otherwise the market will wait a lot for all those recent requests:)
fashai
1492 points
295 Posts
08-02-2009 9:51 AM |
Hi narcienxuto,
I guess you havent yet tried the latest .net ria services and the linq to sql pattern and the ado.net entity model which does the same thing that normal aspx pages connect via ado.net.
we can now connect sqlserver database via silverlight. that has already been addressed well enough and more effeciently.
08-02-2009 5:58 PM |
KeyPress event support with proper keycodes.
There is no way to properly support controlling what the user types in the text control because we only have access to a "Platform Keycode". I know there are some deeper problems associated with this support, but in the end Silverlight does decide what to display to the user and if we had a KeyPress (or even the TextInput event) that provided that information we could write better handling of the keyboard. I've even seen solutions that allow the input to the keyboard, grabs the character typed (based on comparisons and carot position) backs that character out of the text box and continues on based on that character. The only other solutions I have seen involve mapping the keyboard of each platform and language.
godlikem...
0 points
08-03-2009 6:51 PM |
I would love to see real GPU Shader Support. Just my opinion, but performance wise, the current shader technology in 3.0 is a waste of time. The whole purpose of having shaders (from a game developer standpoint), is to enable fast rendering effects that don't leave the GPU.
08-05-2009 9:58 AM |
pelister:i think silverlight 3 needs a sp1 BEFORE silverlight 4. otherwise the market will wait a lot for all those recent requests:)
Agree! Can't wait for another year to have printing and mouse wheel support!
08-05-2009 12:51 PM |
dovepanda: pelister:i think silverlight 3 needs a sp1 BEFORE silverlight 4. otherwise the market will wait a lot for all those recent requests:) Agree! Can't wait for another year to have printing and mouse wheel support!
FYI MouseWheel support is already available in SL3 RTW.
Printing support... depending on your exact scenario, there are quite a few techniques available now that WriteableBitmap is usable in SL3 RTW.
whaledev
08-06-2009 5:42 AM |
Most business apps I develop need multiple windows to be visible concurrently to the user; with a Java Applet that's easy to do right from the browser - an applet can just open (in the same app/process space) another window that is NOT limited to the applet or browser canvas but just behaves as a normal app window. The SL3 OOB experience is nice but still doesn't give the opportunity to make a truly multi-windowed application (and I'm not talking about child windows within a parent window !) which is usually nessary in many business contexts.
Some people argue that multiple window apps should be re-engineered to become single parent window/canvas with child panels apps, but that really is not sufficient in many cases - as quite large panels/windows need to be visible at the same time + need the ability to be moved around on the screen according to the user prefs.
The socket port limitation also is quite annoying, I'd be happy to see that disappear.
So my list would be:
twsilver...
08-08-2009 3:11 PM |
I am desperately looking for
zhouyou
08-10-2009 2:56 AM |
1. Better mouse support. (Scroll wheel, doubleClick, right-CLick)
2. Printing
3. Being able to host HTML content within the SL app would be nice
4. Full 3d support
greenway
08-11-2009 11:08 AM |
Hi all
1. Make dynamic downloading and incorporation of user controls into the running code "Drop Dead Easy". Most "Grest" Apps are too slow to load - users don't like it. - use just a small part of MEF!
2. Make it easy to display and work with my word docx
3. Make a table for the server, that can hold simple data. Many don't need a complex data base.
thank you
Mike
08-11-2009 5:24 PM |
More LINQ
distinct, in
the ability write a where clause against a column in a third level table
from a.expand("b/c") where c.status = "A"
08-12-2009 2:40 AM |
estern: More LINQ distinct, in the ability write a where clause against a column in a third level table from a.expand("b/c") where c.status = "A"
distinct, in the ability write a where clause against a column in a third level table
You can submit such request at : http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/linqtosql/threads
or learn how to LINQ...
samcov
966 points
08-12-2009 3:29 AM |
footnick: Our focus is on property marketing and the features that we would most like to see include .... 1. 3D rendering with HW acceleration (we had been excpecting this at SL3 - in our view the simple perspective offered at SL3 is just a gimmick whilst proper 3D offers real functionality for business applications of the future - hopefully the simple perspective was just a stop gap because 3D missed the cut?) 2. XPS and printing 3. Support for Mobile devices. 4. Mic support and speech recognition (ideally on mobile devices) Given that adding new features will increase the size of Silverlight we would prefer some granularity with Silverlight applications including optional modules as required (such as the Silverlight Toolkit). We would be happy to disable functionality for platforms that don't support optional modules. Whilst some of our applications are used by the general public and require the sort of public trust and system penetration offered by Flash and hopefully Silverlight in the future, other applications could support an installation process which could perhaps allow applications to control security issues such as access to trusted native DLL's, more control of file open and save, and easier management of local storage. Currently we use WPF for some of our applications but we would much prefer to manage a single development environment with wider platform support such Silverlight.
Brilliant!!!
I think the modular approach, and even modules that aren't cross platform would work in a big way.
Wardy
08-12-2009 9:48 AM |
Ok there's a lot of posts above, I've read a lot but not all so I apologise if anything here is repeated but here goes ....
1. Make Silverlight handle drag and drop with in its area of the screen properly, here's a scenario for you :
In Java I can take any object and mark it as a drop target (I can do this in SL3 yes but ...) when I mark an object as being a drop target in Java it then accepts drag and drop from anywhere not just within controls on itself.
I'm building a Content Management System using sl and would love to mark a treenode as a drop target (likely a custom tree control) and then handle a drag and drop from a file from the users desktop. I'm not interested so much in going the other way (from the tree out to the users desktop) because the mechanisms for downloading data that currently exist are pretty "user intuitive and friendly" as things stand.
In java this is by no means easy but judging by some of the current drag and drop functionality it looks like a xaml property like ExternalDropTarget="True" would be all that would be needed, then handle the Drop event.
This would really help bridge the gap between the web and desktop apps not in content management circles but in a wide variety of apps, google for example have recently announced wave, imagine web components like that allowing you to drag and drop a home movie or directory full of photos on to the web to share with friends.
Also, my app (mainly because silverlight can't do everything) isn't just silverlight it's a mix of silverlight, html, javascript and possibly even some java if this drag and drop issue is not implemented, It would be good to see silverlight accept drag and drop operations between silverlight objects on a page so if I have 2 "object tags" in my html both with silverlight controls loaded in them why can't i drag something from one in to the other?
I would expect silverlight (like other platforms) to take full control of that area of the screen when visible (when the containing window is on top of everything else on my desktop)
Users are used to this in a desktop app, it's time they had this on the web too.
At the moment this scenario results in the browser picking up the drop event and doing the browsers default action with it.
2. Proper positioning / handling of HTML :
If I put a html based drop down on the page then render a silverlight instance on top of it (maybe as some form of modal dialog) I get the age old problem that the drop down renders on top of everything ... isn't it time this sort of thing was handled? As requested above, the silverlight object should be in total control of the screen real estate it ocupies.
If I use flow layout in a html page I can float something right or left or center it, it seems that there are xaml "FlowPanel" type containers but they don't offer such options unless i'm mistaken.
3. More efficient tooling :
XAML is a new language and to my mind there seems to be near limitless syntax to it because its based on XML, it would be cool to have tools that are easier to use to help be develop / design custom styles (I know about blend but its not always helpfull).
I want to be able to create a custom look button for example that maybe looks like a glass container (vista / windows 7) where the glow eminates from cursor rather than from a fixed point, doing this is entirely possible with some clever xaml but beyond mere mortals.
4, Clipboard support :
In my Content management app I am considering offering the the user a chance to download a desktop plugin that accepts input from the web server running the CMS. I'd like to be able to pass data from silverlight to the clients clipboard that can then be processed locally by that client component (possibly not even a silverlight app but maybe WPF)
Eng Moha...
08-12-2009 1:22 PM |
I Think That Silverlight 4 Must Have an Arabic Support
Or if it is Possible in The sp1 For SilverLight 3
Since Arabic is Very Important
gapipro
08-12-2009 1:29 PM |
I would realy like that you make support for XSLT in new version of Silverlight. It would make things much more easier then now.
rvaleriote
08-12-2009 3:50 PM |
At this point the above limitations are show stoppers for us and we will probably have to move forward using flex/flash instead.
:(
08-12-2009 5:36 PM |
gapipro: I would realy like that you make support for XSLT in new version of Silverlight. It would make things much more easier then now.
say what !
don't ask what silverlight can do for you - ask what Javascript can do instead !!! :-D
the browser (Javascript) has a full blown XSLT engine available... how about using that ?...
i know that speed might be a slight issue if you want to transform many documents pr second...
08-12-2009 5:49 PM |
how about making a site with multiple SL instances... using the message system to sync the instances...
you could surround your flash/pdf "frame" with SL instances ... and thereby make a mutli-activex site....
nothing is impossible if you are creative !
08-13-2009 6:50 AM |
I agree ... Why should microsoft have silverlight support flash or java .... there's no need for it.
The sl infrastructure already in place means a javascript call can handle communications in to those type of components on the page, and xslt, again a valid point its already there but also most silverlight apps are bound to a server application in asp.net ... whats wrong with using that to provide the data in a format that suits your client.
I think you'll find the sl dev team are looking for new things that can't be done any other way or by using js !!
08-13-2009 8:07 AM |
Yea I know that I can use Javascript, but then you instantly have problems with different browsers and that is something I don't like to have!
08-13-2009 8:57 AM |
Hi Wardy,
I think I can give a genuine reason why silverlight should allow flash to be sidebyside as well. Well we all know Flash has its own reach and there are billions of apps that are already being used. I bet even microsoft has used flash in most of their ventures. But now that we have silverlight stepping in. It would be a huge task to immediatly upgrade all the flash to silverlight. So in that perspective if we can make silverligth and flash coexist with one another probably we can slowly kill flash as days go by. Most of the customers would be hesitant to lose their years of work in flash to go in vain just like that.
Infact we can give them an option saying they can still use the flash temporarliy and slowly migrate it. This would be a better option than scaring the customers saying flash cant co-exist with silverlight..
There might be other thoughts as well but I would like to hear more from people. On saying that this may not be included in the SL4 wishlist but atleast provide an alternative so that we can easily gain and expand the reach of silverlight to customers who already are using flash.
swight
08-18-2009 8:22 AM |
What I would like to see is a persistant storage option that is accessible to all instances of a silverlight application regardless of wether it is on the same computer or not. Also a communication system that works under the same conditions.Most likely stored on the server. All of this without creating another project or using a non-.net language.
08-18-2009 9:07 AM |
I've managed to solve the Printing problem
read more about it here : http://blog.mdk-photo.com/post/Printing-in-SL3-e28093-design-pattern.aspx
08-18-2009 3:01 PM |
AFAICT, Live mesh and/or Azure should accomplish these goals.
08-18-2009 3:37 PM |
swight: What I would like to see is a persistant storage option that is accessible to all instances of a silverlight application regardless of wether it is on the same computer or not. Also a communication system that works under the same conditions.Most likely stored on the server. All of this without creating another project or using a non-.net language.
08-18-2009 11:55 PM |
I admit the functionality could be present and I just don't know where or how to use it properly I tried like 5 or 6 different ways failing in one way or another trying to get any form of two way communication going between a silverlight app and the server. Most of the tries were with 2.0 so there could have been changes in 3.0 that I didn't see.If there are feel free to let me know.
Basically I want to do simple cross-communication between game clients and be able to keep game world state info available to all clients(stored on the server). closest thing I can think of to what I am looking for would probably be the Local Connection API but without the same computer limitation.
Wouldn't WCF entail another project outside of the silverlight project?(feel free to correct me). I think I tried WCF before with 2.0 and there was some reason I couldn't get it to work that I can't remember at the moment. basically I think that silverlight should have built-in(or automatically generate a service behind the scenes,maybe when the compiler detects the API being used) basic communication(maybe even some FileIO) to the server which hosts it which can in turn act as pasthrough to communicate with other instances of a given client. The implentation details of the service if required probably should be hidden by the API as it is likely to be relatively boilerplate code.
08-19-2009 2:28 AM |
swight:I admit the functionality could be present and I just don't know where or how to use it properly I tried like 5 or 6 different ways failing in one way or another trying to get any form of two way communication going between a silverlight app and the server. Most of the tries were with 2.0 so there could have been changes in 3.0 that I didn't see.If there are feel free to let me know. Basically I want to do simple cross-communication between game clients and be able to keep game world state info available to all clients(stored on the server). closest thing I can think of to what I am looking for would probably be the Local Connection API but without the same computer limitation.Wouldn't WCF entail another project outside of the silverlight project?(feel free to correct me). I think I tried WCF before with 2.0 and there was some reason I couldn't get it to work that I can't remember at the moment. basically I think that silverlight should have built-in(or automatically generate a service behind the scenes,maybe when the compiler detects the API being used) basic communication(maybe even some FileIO) to the server which hosts it which can in turn act as pasthrough to communicate with other instances of a given client. The implentation details of the service if required probably should be hidden by the API as it is likely to be relatively boilerplate code.
brainbox
97 points
133 Posts
08-20-2009 1:51 AM |
Full BINDING SUPPORT!
I'm really tired of Silverlight poor binding!
Please provide whole WPF binding features in next version!
1. Style Setter binding
2. x:Type x:Static etc.
3. Ancestor in relativesource binding
4. Binding of non ui elements
It is critical features for NON HELLO WORLD PROJECTS.
08-20-2009 8:57 AM |
Window-Less OOB...
Just like we know it from WPF, which is AWESOME !!!
Will make our SL3-OOB applications look extremely good !
JNoel1234
08-23-2009 7:58 AM |
There needs to be V-sync!!! Get rid of the fricking page tearing.
Timmy TCC
08-25-2009 5:10 AM |
Too many posts here to read through to avoid duplication of requests, so I'll just throw in my 2 pence.
Thank you!
dhavalma...
08-26-2009 4:31 AM |
Watermark property for the input controls like textbox,autocomplete box, date picker.....
08-26-2009 4:32 AM |
Support for the SSRS reports !!
libra84
08-26-2009 7:15 AM |
1) FocusManager.FocusNextControl() - method that focuses next control. And works exactly like pressing TAB key
2) Ability to validate an XML over a XSD schema
3) Add the .net events to XmlSerializer (UnknownAttribute, UnknownElement, UnknownNode and UnreferencedObject)
Eugene A...
26 points
08-26-2009 9:18 AM |
dhavalmania27: Support for the SSRS reports !!
if you need to view SSRS reports in silverlight applications try our viewer component.
raptorX
08-26-2009 10:03 PM |
DynamicResource
08-27-2009 6:05 AM |
Eugene Akinshin: dhavalmania27: Support for the SSRS reports !! if you need to view SSRS reports in silverlight applications try our viewer component.
Does this have Drill down functionality ??
08-27-2009 6:22 AM |
dhavalmania27: Eugene Akinshin: dhavalmania27: Support for the SSRS reports !! if you need to view SSRS reports in silverlight applications try our viewer component. Does this have Drill down functionality ??
What do you mean by drill-down?
If it is hyperlinks beetween reports with parameters when referenced report shows you additional details than yes. If you mean expanding and collapsing of report sections than no, this feature is not supported in current release but we will implement it in the future versions.
andrewaggb
08-27-2009 5:55 PM |
My application is a live viewer for ip video surveillance.
What I would like -
2. Microphone support to enable two-way audio, so I can send audio to my server which can transcode it and send it along to the camera/sound card/whatever.
3. Right click support. Simply displaying 'silverlight' is a waste. We can be better than flash, isn't that the point?
4. Lower video/audio stream latency. I'm using my own mediasource and the latency is fairly low, but any further latency reductions would be welcome.
******** Suggestion for SL4 installer ************
It seems everybody using silverlight wants half of .net 3.5 but they all also want a small download.
Can we have the silverlight 4 installer be only 3mb or so and contain the basic stuff but have it download in the background any other class libraries required by a running application or optionally just while the browser is running? I still think it should be kept minimal in overall size, but if 3mb was enough for basic apps (like banners, menu's, simple media players - typical flash stuff) then you could install it quickly enough, but people wanting to use it for business apps/games could still have access to the frameworks that make .net so great at the expense of some additional download time when an app is first started.
08-27-2009 6:18 PM |
What about linux support? Moonlight is not even close. From a windows perspective sure, it's one more reason linux sucks and you get what you pay for etc.
But from a silverlight perspective, linux users are very vocal, and no linux support when the competition does have it makes a hard sell when you're trying to get people to switch. If silverlight market share is your goal I think microsoft should make it for linux, bsd, solaris, whatever - it might not help the windows group but it helps your project, which in turn helps the visual studio and .net groups which all goes back to windows anyways.
The same could be said for ms office as well, the only reason open office is even relevant is because there is a common platform that doesn't run ms office. If ms office ran on linux I doubt open office would even exist as it does today.
barryhagan
08-28-2009 11:30 AM |
As far as media streaming goes, there are a couple of things that should be considered for SL4:
1) Proxy authentication for streaming media. Just about every corporate user is behind a proxy server that requires authentication. The inability of Silverlight to deal with a proxy server for streaming content has severely crippled our ability to deliver live streaming content to corporate audiences. This is simply a must have and long overdue.
2) Playback speed control for media. WMP has this feature and it is used extensively by our customer base. Watching content at 1.5x or 2x is very useful.
kiener
127 points
42 Posts
08-29-2009 5:54 AM |
One point that I did not find in the posts above is about code coverage while unit testing.I know all of the existing solutions use instrumentation on fully trusted apps, or other process communication, that just isn’t available inside the sandbox.Since this is a wish list, it's worth to post it here.
viral0028
22 points
149 Posts
08-29-2009 6:32 AM |
May be it Provide Validation Control ......
doncaste...
08-29-2009 9:57 AM |
I've read a lot of the suggestions in this forum, all of which are great ideas.......... BUT
Many people are asking for special features that will only be used by a small percentage of designers. These "special features" very well may be needed in the future. At this point I suggest getting back to the basics, general usability and efficiency in designing a project has to be solved at the ground level so it doesn't screw up special features down the road.
First.... BRING BACK WORKSPACE ZOOM!!!!!! (Why was this taken out from Blend2 to Blend3?)
Next implement standard RMB editing in the XAML editor (cut/copy, paste, code segment dragging etc...)
Code folding for the XAML editor.... for some reason even VisualStudio doesn't have XAML code folding (nested object collapse). This is a HUGE plus when working on a large file/project where the greatest percentage of your code is working and can be hidden. Bind the code to the tree-view, so when you collapse a branch of the tree, the code is hidden as well.
Lastly at the risk of violating my first comment because 3D could be considered a "special feature". I feel this needs to be addressed ASAP because more and more people are being forced to find work arounds to implement 3D content. The problem with work-arounds is no standardization which will give Silverlight a bad reputation, and too much content will be deployed on the web before Silverlight catches up. This will make Silverlight web content inconsistent, broken and buggy. Designers will be forced to use Flash to maintain professional results. WPF works so well for 3D, it would be a shame to have Silverlight fail when WPF has all the capability needed.
Let's get the basics down, debug the tools, make Blend efficient for designers, THEN add the "bells and whistles"
mtiede@s...
148 points
274 Posts
08-29-2009 10:20 AM |
doncasteel8587:...Code folding for the XAML editor.... for some reason even VisualStudio doesn't have XAML code folding (nested object collapse). This is a HUGE plus when working on a large file/project where the greatest percentage of your code is working and can be hidden. Bind the code to the tree-view, so when you collapse a branch of the tree, the code is hidden as well.
...
hmm... Works for me. Code and Xaml in VS 2008 Shell.
MarkMonster
5220 points
1,046 Posts
09-01-2009 2:25 AM |
Support for Credentials in WebClient / WebRequest / ServiceReferences.
We want this for a long time, it wasn't there in SL2, it was almost there in SL3 (http://mark.mymonster.nl/2009/07/11/silverlight-3-did-we-get-support-for-credentials/). Or let us modify the Authorization header ourselves, to get similar effect.
JeffWeber
139 points
92 Posts
09-01-2009 3:15 PM |
Well, since this is WISH list... Not all these are strictly Silverlight features, but I wish for them non the less.
1) I want the Silverlight team to get with the XNA team and inject Silvelight into XNA in all ways that make sesnse. It'd be nice to be able to use Xaml and other Silverlight constructs to build XNA screens and simple games. Silverlight/Xaml has a more friendly dev/tooling environment than XNA.
2.) In leiu of 1), I want the XBox 360 to support Silverlight for more than just advertising. I want to write games in Silverlight and release them on the XBox. Could be done by simply adding a web browser to the XBox 360 and hooking in the controllers.
3.) Silverlight app support on the Zune HD.
4.) Silverlight for the IPhone... even if it has to be done the way Mono-Touch is doing it (Compiling to Ojbective C I think). It'd be nice to have a MS supported option.
That should keep the SL team busy for a while.. :-)
MaikelDe...
09-01-2009 3:36 PM |
Zack123:Currently the proxy generation marks Begin and End operations as private. So now I need to edit the reference.cs everytime I refresh a service reference, or do a yucky macro to find replace, which is always iffy. This is not great if you have a service caller helper that abstracts away the service calling process, where you need to pass around functions. It is great that you want enforce async, but the best way to deal with that is to implement functional handlers, and then you make it difficult by not exposing the functions for use.
In addition to Zack's comment I have the following scenario. One of my Silverlight apps is based on an 'asynchronous' Model-View-Presenter framework which consumes a web service. I am re-using some of my Silverlight presenters in ASP.NET and vice versa.
Public Begin.. and End.. operations in the generated proxy class will simplify code re-use in ASP.NET with AddOnPreRenderCompleteAsync(BeginMethod, CallbackMethod).
09-01-2009 3:55 PM |
My scenario: an interactive web application for viewing 2D artworks in a 3D environment (a living room). I can think of numerous realistic scenario's in which consumers like to configure and/or preview their product in 3D.
* 3D support like in WPF (Viewport3D, ModelVisual3D, etc.)
* Scroll-wheel and right mouse button support would be great for navigation and interaction
Helen W
138 points
79 Posts
09-01-2009 7:09 PM |
Here's a really simple one: Add HorizontalContentAlignment and VerticalContentAlignment properties to the ContentPresenter.
Helen
sophisindia
09-02-2009 12:59 AM |
To Craete Better Graphics Applications in Silverlight we must need below in upcoming version
1. RenderOptions.BitmapScalingMode to spport NearestNeighbor
2. PixelFormat in WritableBitmap to support more formats
3. TileMode to support Tile Options in ImageBrush
These are already very much present in WPF, so atleast include in Silverlight 3 SP1 or Silverlight 4
Resharpe...
09-02-2009 5:26 AM |
It would be cool to get full DirectX 11 support :) including geometry, pixel, vertex, computing shaders... and PhysX. Then the day of release of Silverlight 4.0 will come into history as the day at which Web programming and Gamedev get together...
09-02-2009 5:36 AM |
Resharper123:It would be cool to get full DirectX 11 support :) including geometry, pixel, vertex, computing shaders... and PhysX. Then the day of release of Silverlight 4.0 will come into history as the day at which Web programming and Gamedev get together...
hmm... wouldn't it be easier to create a new browser... which is able to recieve scriptet documents and play them inside a DX11 environment ? rather then rely on HTML-browsers + plugins to do it ?
A browser really isn't the best environment for HW accellerated games, although its fun sometimes.. the amount of data you need to download is huge !, just think of all the textures and sounds !
although - you could make som pretty amazing "homepages" with particle effects and stuff... :)
balkanski
09-02-2009 9:00 AM |
1) Printing support2) Integration of database connectivity within .NET for Silverlight (not only services... which are unaccessible if you're using Blend)3) 3D support
But these things sound like ones that would appear in version... 10 maybe ;)
Well, it's your business after all and you decide if you want a product to be selling good
Rock on
09-02-2009 9:21 AM |
balkanski:2) Integration of database connectivity within .NET for Silverlight (not only services... which are unaccessible if you're using Blend)
understanding RIA / Web application architecture - failed
You'll atleast need Webservices to talk to a DB.... thats life ;-)
09-03-2009 5:53 AM |
WPF and Silverlight are very similiar.
Just one is used for rich desktop applications and other for rich web applications...
So, my suggestion is to make only Silverlight OOB and discharge WPF.
Because SL OOB almost equal WPF.
I think Silverlight should stand for both desktop AND web aplications.
Also that would help to fastly get real 3D into Silverlight, because WPF already have that one...
And at all SL app is different from WPF app, just because first is contained by web browser, second by desktop...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am VERY dissaponted that XNA is not multiplatform ("multiplatform" just for Windows and XBOX)!!!
SL should have XNA inside!!!!
Bijoy Th...
29 points
29 Posts
09-04-2009 3:04 AM |
Audio recording capability: http://silverlight.net/forums/p/50596/281675.aspx
Play hundreds of free games at JoyRack Games
mepfuso
667 points
148 Posts
09-04-2009 11:36 AM |
09-04-2009 1:38 PM |
In Silverlight 3 it is not possible to listen for routed events like MouseWheel from a nested popup control, because the poup control breaks the visual tree. See http://silverlight.net/forums/t/36899.aspx
With a few hacks it's still possible to get the events from the child content of the popup control (see http://blog.thekieners.com/2009/09/04/mouse-wheel-behavior-with-native-uielement-mousewheel-event/), but I can't get the event without to "walk down the tree". And this is always annoying.
Why the popup child lives in a separate tree? Is it not possible to integrate the tree into the "standard" tree, so that the routed event can bubble up as excepted?
SharpGIS
3397 points
611 Posts
09-05-2009 2:44 PM |
My number one feature request is improved binding support. This is truly where Silverlight is lacking behind WPF, and what causes us to create horrible code and xaml. I want to be able to bind on dependency objects, not just framework elements, and I want to have fewer cases where I need to use converters, like for instance binding to dictionaries. Yeah the added ElementBinding in Sl3 was nice, but it needs to be pushed much further.
In general I'd like to see better parity between Silverlight and WPF xaml. ie. XAML I write in Silverlight should just work in WPF (since it's supposed to be a subset), but the fact of the matter is that it doesn't, and we don't have compiler conditionals in XAML to work around that.
And just to restate everyone else, printing support is pretty important.
09-08-2009 6:27 AM |
09-08-2009 10:46 AM |
Access to TreeViews scrollbar offsets.
When I save the current layout to file (per the users request) I can save other scroll bar positions but I cannot get at the TreeViews.
So, when the user reloads that setup all of the scroll bars come back to there original position exceptany TreeViews that are displayed.
dfbaechtel2
09-08-2009 4:02 PM |
SL needs an RTF text editor/display control(s) with enough features to load/store/edit items like blog posts and news items.
Plain Text display/entry alone is not sufficient.
jimmccurdy
09-08-2009 4:05 PM |
@tfmillet - Check out my article The simplest way to detect DoubleClick in Silverlight
http://yinyangme.blogspot.com/2009/07/simplest-way-to-detect-doubleclick-in.html
09-09-2009 5:19 AM |
In case anyone missed it, they opened a better way to track Silverlight 4 feature requests, it seems more serious ( http://blogs.msdn.com/jstegman/archive/2009/09/08/silverlight-4-feature-requests.aspx )
http://silverlight.uservoice.com/pages/4325-feature-suggestions
Careful with your votes, you only have 10
Also, I noticed there a few requests for profiling features, I missed it from my list because I considered it rather an IDE (VS) request than an SL4 one. It seems like however it's handled amongst SL4 requests, so don't miss this feature if you want official support to profile your SL apps
http://silverlight.uservoice.com/pages/4325-feature-suggestions/suggestions/311046-ability-to-profile-silverlight-app?ref=title
Also excuse me but I gotta point out another feature there that seems to me highly underrated (full screen full keyboard support)
http://silverlight.uservoice.com/pages/4325-feature-suggestions/suggestions/311096-full-screen-with-full-keyboard-support?ref=title
09-09-2009 7:35 AM |
Woo nice.. http://silverlight.uservoice.com/pages/4325-feature-suggestions
DanielAuer
09-09-2009 7:46 AM |
My list is:
1. Full 3D support (as in WPF)
2. Better mouse support (scroll, right click, double-click, etc.)
3. Support mobile OS's and real cross-platform
09-09-2009 7:55 AM |
Scroll is actually supported in SL3 final
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd759034%28VS.95%29.aspx
odahan
1625 points
291 Posts
09-09-2009 10:53 AM |
* MediaElement loop mode with no gap in sound.You can't play a sound (a music) that must be repeated without having a silence.
* Dependency property metadata overrideNot serious. You can't inherit from a base class en reuse inherited properties ! incredible.
* Animatable sound player to sync sound with animationYou can't sync sound on a timeline. This, with the 1st item in my list is making Silverlight unusable for most Flash developers. So they will not switch to Silverlight.
* Report generation will be certainly very useful for any serious application.
09-09-2009 2:37 PM |
Hmm...
Builders of Silverlight should make it SMALLER and FASTER. Two basic needs everything else goes further...
3D gaming needs good graphics, so make team for "universal computer graphics (especialy 3d!!!!)"!!!!
09-09-2009 5:38 PM |
ernestasju: Builders of Silverlight should make it SMALLER and FASTER. Two basic needs everything else goes further...
are you talking about XAP files or Silverlight installers ?
jamesnw
17 points
31 Posts
09-09-2009 6:15 PM |
It would be nice to provide a method that can hook up events in a XAML string during runtime by supplying the host control instance. It is obviously possible for a unit via LoadComponent, so I don't see why XamReader.Load cannot do this also.
If that cannot be done, then perhaps supply an event that tells me the control is added to the tree view BEFORE the "Loaded" event triggers (i.e. OnAdded), or an event on the parent that tells me a child has been added to the tree view (i.e. OnChildAdded - for both Panel and Content type controls), or both. This is so that I can create a more efficient custom-hookup-code ON MY OWN using either events, or an attachable property.
Currently, I am using an attached property which in turn uses the Loaded and LayoutUpdated events to traverse parents for the first control found that contains the requested event hookups. This however is no ideal, of course.
kamii47
70 Posts
09-10-2009 2:27 PM |
I were waiting for print support in SL.
DJanjicek
968 points
323 Posts
09-11-2009 3:02 PM |
I'm not sure if already mentioned, but a ReportViewer control would be nice...
FlappySocks
09-12-2009 8:21 PM |
1. SSL/TLS support for sockets. We are planning to rewrite a huge application with Silverlight as the front end, but unless we can get a secure socket with the server, it's a no-go.
2. Printing. We want to create a document server-side, and send it to the users local printer.
09-13-2009 1:26 AM |
Hi.
The name
09-13-2009 10:43 AM |
TileBrush
FlowDocument
HTML browser component (simple)
09-13-2009 5:35 PM |
Implement a new keyword.
It might be called something like interfaced or interfaceElement. It would be used similar to the override keyword.
In this case if someone implements an interface - either automatically or by hand - there would be a requirement to prefix each method with this keyword. Then if the interface changes, so that this method no longer belongs to it, the compiler would produce an error and the programmer would be required to remove the keyword or restore the interface to it's original form.
Without a keyword like this methods can get "orphaned" because these methods compile but you may not be aware of the change. Or,you need to manually search through all or your code comparing interfaces to implementations.
09-14-2009 1:51 AM |
@K2P2
public interface IDemo { void Run(); } public class Demo : IDemo { #region IDemo Members void IDemo.Run() { // implementation goes here } #endregion public void Run() { ((IDemo)this).Run(); } }
Vidds
64 points
09-14-2009 2:43 AM |
1) Printing Support
2) Report Viewer
Regards,
09-15-2009 1:47 PM |
SSL only works with HTTP requests, not sockets as far as I can tell.
Lack of right-click support is monsterious!
RQ
09-15-2009 7:26 PM |
A while ago I would vote for reporting and printing, but now I vote only for printing. I am developing applications for business, where Silverlight as it is now not really strong. Well, I closed one gap, I found a third party reporting tool with Silverlight Viewer, Report sharp-shooter for Silverlight. As for reporting features, it is cool, but it does not support printing, my customers need to export reports first ro some format, only then they can print, not very convenient, but anyway for now, I feel ok … I just still believe that Microsoft will make printing in Silverlight 4… otherwise I will be completely destroyed
laksmina...
09-15-2009 10:26 PM |
Hi all,
1. Printing tech
2.Mouse over
3.Effects
carlsjf
09-16-2009 2:34 AM |
I wish:
SL4 can support much more imageformat than SL3.
for example: multi-page tiff, GIS, and so on.
fljohwat
09-16-2009 3:19 PM |
My wishes are: Support for printing Better WCF Support: - wsHttpBinding - Sessions - Easier built in handling of Faults - Easier built in support for the Cross Domain docs in Self Hosted apps Support for the DataTable datatype More compatibility with the desktop framework (string.compare etc) Better Proxy generation (the use of types/bos in existing SL assemblies does not work) Thanks John
bobbby
173 Posts
09-18-2009 3:21 AM |
There should be good design rendering in IDE....
09-20-2009 11:52 AM |
mousewheel event
right contextmenu
09-20-2009 1:26 PM |
If you haven't seen it yet, I'd like to direct you to the now official Silverlight feedback forum
Vote on your favorite features there, or add ones you don't yet see. You get 10 votes to distribute across the ideas, so be sure to check around a bit, and maybe reserve a vote or two for ones you haven't yet thought of.
gvinsot
09-20-2009 2:53 PM |
Better ability to dynamicaly load xap packages : - include loaded xap resources in current resources when calling AssemblyPart.Load() - ability to load xap/dll which call SOAP web services
nhylz
3 points
09-20-2009 3:15 PM |
I want to see SL4 capable of creating Runescape like, browser game.
avbersSL
164 points
09-22-2009 4:37 AM |
I would like support for webservice-validation support..
eg: before committing the change of a property, call a webservice to validate the object.. (eg countryname in table countries)
mojtaba_...
09-23-2009 12:18 PM |
1- We think RTL (Right To Left ) is a very very (very^n) important feature if we want use silverlight every where. we speak Persian we cant use silverlight because that.
for LOB application with silverlight may be better instruments for manage dlls.
thanks alot .
RealLife...
09-23-2009 9:52 PM |
1. Can we please get rich textbox.
2. UDP socket would be nice.
3. Not sure if silverlight has this cause until it gets richtextbox I'm not programming to silverlight. Would like webcam , audio and good render speed.
At least add the basics(rich textbox,webcam, etc).
jigs_jig...
182 points
09-25-2009 3:35 AM |
1. Triggers in xaml
2. Better Grid
3. Styling more easier as in WPF ;)
Liuxm
09-25-2009 5:06 AM |
Attached Behavior Binding ，need Parameter by UIElement property
Lucid00
6 Posts
09-27-2009 2:44 AM |
I know I'm late to the party but, I want to clear a few things up. Silverlight is a port of .NET to the web, Silverlight doesn't rely on .NET to run, it's standalone. Microsoft actually has a working version of Silverlight for Linux, and they're bringing it to Intels Moblin OS (which is Linux). I really don't get why Microsoft won't openly provide Silverlight for Linux (aside from support the Moonlight project), but .NET isn't one of the reasons. Also to clear another thing up Flash is just a Virtual Machine, no different than the .NET or Java platforms. To explain better every processor has it's own type of code, Intel processors have x86 code, ARM processors have ARM code. For Silverlight it's CLI code, for Java it's Java bytecode and for Flash it's Actionscript bytecode. They're all the same thing, just designed differently with different architectures. A possible issue with Silverlights speed is that it's taking .NET which wasn't designed for other operating systems let alone the web and bringing it over into new territory (this was the same issue Sun had with Java in terms of speed).
09-29-2009 2:25 AM |
Not very Lucid, please stay off the drugs before you post.
Flash should not be mentioned in the class of Silverlight and Java. Yes, you can think of Flash/Flex as virtual machines, but they're stretching the definition a bit.
I don't have a problem with Flash/Flex, but until they start supporting modern programming features, I don't and won't classify them with the big boys.
What kind of modern system can it be if it doesn't support THREADING? Geezzzzzz, give me a break.
zakkar
67 Posts
09-29-2009 7:32 AM |
Hi ,
1. Printing
2. Html Editor and Viewer controls. Support for all browser types
3. Better treeview control. Assigning images from code
09-29-2009 7:45 AM |
Hi Folks
Please remember (as mentioned above): scenarios, not bullets. "Printing" is way too broad to be a really useful feature request.
Also be sure to check the official SL4 feature feedback/voting site linked to in one of my above posts.
Thanks!
brad.sic...
16 points
09-29-2009 4:53 PM |
Ultimately, anything you guys can do to close the gap between WPF and Silverlight would be great.
There are many scenarios where our company wants to have lots of code reuse between a windows application and a web application.
More specifically, collapsing the differences in XAML would allow code reuse in our UI implementations.
The biggest disparity between WPF XAML and Silverlight XAML right now is Triggers vs. VSM. Having TemplateSelectors and Styles assigned based on TargetType that cascades to every control of that target type would be very nice as well.
09-29-2009 7:52 PM |
lol, I hate this fanboy crap. Honestly I dislike Flash, Silverlight and Java altogether, Java and Silverlight are cool but one is really slow and the other is proprietary. But aside from what is provided and what isn't, the bottom of the line technical detail is that all three provide virtual machines for executing byte code. Also if you want to code for Flash without learning Actionscript, you can just download Adobe Alchemy. It converts C/C++ into LLVM code and then into AVM code for running within Flash Player.
09-30-2009 2:44 AM |
*deleted* Chrome is still not supported by this forum... argh !
09-30-2009 4:41 AM |
Lucid00:lol, I hate this fanboy crap. Honestly I dislike Flash, Silverlight and Java altogether, Java and Silverlight are cool but one is really slow and the other is proprietary. But aside from what is provided and what isn't, the bottom of the line technical detail is that all three provide virtual machines for executing byte code. Also if you want to code for Flash without learning Actionscript, you can just download Adobe Alchemy. It converts C/C++ into LLVM code and then into AVM code for running within Flash Player.
Lucid, thanks for the info on Alchemy, that's a value add. HOWEVER, you seriously need to learn the difference between being a fan, and STATING FACTS.
When I say Flash/Flex doesn't support threading, it's a FACT, not my opinion. However, while it is my opinion that this is a failing, and not modern, I think even Adobe would like to change it(but it's hard).
I just wonder why you're here if you dislike RIA systems, but that's another conversation. Thanks for the info.
kvishalv...
11 points
11 Posts
09-30-2009 5:36 PM |
Can have the control to group controls
eg: Group a Line to a rectangle ----[]----[]----
also, Grapevine control like a treeview control
kwaclaw
10-01-2009 1:23 PM |
I would also like to request SSL support for sockets.
I am using a 3rd party middleware library called ICE (http://zeroc.com), which has a Silverlight client library already, but lacks the SSL support it provides for all the other platforms it runs on.
10-02-2009 12:03 AM |
I never said that your statement was an opinion. I only called it "fanboy crap", because of the whole threading thing is a preference of your own. And thanks for reminding me, I only came in here to add my requests to the wish list. I just want to see C/C++ support in Silverlight, Direct X, an SDK for porting Silverlight to other platforms and support for 3rd party extensions to the feature set. And to answer your last question, I don't see how they're Rich Internet Applications if they rely on plugins, especially when the web standards alone are capable of everything these things provide or could be extended to support these things, plus I'm personally waiting for Native C code to take off on the web (look up Google Native Client).
10-02-2009 2:10 AM |
Lucid, I hope you've got a BIG lolly pop to suck on while you wait for C & C++ to take over the web.
You're scaring the begezzers out of me, and I didn't even know I had any until you came along with this wierd stuff.
I guess what they say is true... opposites attract! That's why you got attracted to the name lucid, because you're ....
10-02-2009 2:25 AM |
Waiting for something to happen won't do me any good. I'm serious look up "Google Native Client" in whatever search engine you choose.
10-02-2009 2:42 AM |
Lucid00:Waiting for something to happen won't do me any good. I'm serious look up "Google Native Client" in whatever search engine you choose.
it seems rather silly that someone like you are requesting features for a plugin you don't like, don't use and don't understand.
if you like C/C++, GNC or Flash, then what are you doing here ?
10-02-2009 2:45 AM |
lol, didn't I state earlier that I dislike Flash (What's GNC?). and that I'm here to make requests (C/C++, Direct X and 3rd party extensions in Silverlight).
10-02-2009 3:54 AM |
Lucid00:lol, didn't I state earlier that I dislike Flash (What's GNC?). and that I'm here to make requests (C/C++, Direct X and 3rd party extensions in Silverlight).
You DO know what .NET is all about, dont you ? and why native C/C++ is not part of the "sharp" languages - C# is the closest you'll get to C++ (unless it's the managed CLI variant of C++)
You'll never get native C/C++ (unmanaged code) in Silverlight, because of the security issues involved. (Managed C++ might come some day though, if not allready available... havent checked)
when you mention 3rd party extensions, you mean extesions that enable HW support ?
DirectX won't come, not as long MS wants to enable Silverlight on Apple computers ;-)
10-02-2009 4:16 AM |
Yea, I understand .NET and I think Microsoft needs to make some exceptions here. I know the security risks regarding the C/C++, but that doesn't mean it's not possible, they could sandbox all of the code or use some other technique to ensure security. They have money, might as well put it to use. And regarding the 3rd party extensions, yea I mean hardware. And DirectX isn't ruled out because of support for other platforms. I mean look at all of the people who used to say .NET would never come to Linux or Mac OS X or Android or [insert non-Microsoft platform here]. Just because it hasn't been done, doesn't mean it can't be. Plus Silverlight is still controlled by Microsoft, with DirectX support they'd still control the platform itself. All in all it'd be like having an OS that could run on your opponents hardware/software which with a larger adoption rate would put them in a good position market wise and I think DirectX would be a great contribution to that. Plus how will Silverlight hold it's own against the up and coming WebGL and O3D standards.
Leonardo...
10-02-2009 5:36 AM |
I think it is a great idea to get a SL4 wish list going but wouldn't it be better if we had a proper list going... With sections, voting and all the other neat features that a forum post cannot provide.
I would love to see this on the silverlight.net site! (ie. this implies that you don't need to reply saying 'Why don't you make one then...')
Kind regards,
LS
10-02-2009 5:45 AM |
Read back a little, it's like the 4th reference to this
(it was created by some developers of the Silverlight team)
10-02-2009 6:13 AM |
someone should LOCK this thread with a final reference to http://silverlight.uservoice.com/pages/4325-feature-suggestions thereby forcing all people onto the Uservoice site...
Christia...
10-07-2009 8:02 PM |
Hi,
I just voted :-)
Seems like not the "official" way, but still nice page. Perhaps a good idea to create a for this page (with 10 votes per forum user)..
Or is there any other official place for feature request?
10-08-2009 2:14 AM |
The uservoice page is the official wishlist, it's created by/for the Silverlight Program managers I think.
10-08-2009 5:46 AM |
Microsoft these days are pretty open to 3rd party services. They flirt a lot with Twitter, Facebook etc. They collaborate very well with a lot of companies... except google.
johnny_job
10-09-2009 9:09 AM |
1. Add LastAccessTime and LastModifiedTime for entries in the IsolatedFileStorage.
2. Throw clean InsufficientFreeSpaceException (or something like that) when we exceed free space during writing to the storage. Right now we can figure out the reason of IsolatedStorageException only by reading the Message, which you know may be localized...
rancedow...
10-09-2009 12:52 PM |
As a developer specializing in LOB applications in the State Government sector I would really like to see
* FlowDocument support using FlowDocumentReader including it's printing capabilities. Silverlight's Flow documents should definitely be able to support UI elements using BlockUIContainer as it does in WPF
* Integrated Reporting (something along the lines of Report Sharp Shooter)
* Cross Domain configuration allowing me to configure an INTRAnet silverlight application to use web services located on my side of the firewall, in my own domain, quickly and easily, in PARTIAL trust
* The Cache should download a new .xap file if it is a NEW version, and should cache the .xap file until a new version is released (note: I've heard rumor this may be a feature already in silverlight 3, but I haven't had time to research it thoroughly yet)
Note: If you are listening MS, you guys are very very close. Great job on what you've done so far. But at the very minimum LOB developers must have the ability to easily create reports and print them. We also need to be able to consume our existing webservices in our INTRANET domains quickly and easily. We also need to be able to release new versions of our software without resorting to asp.net hacks to override the browser cache. If you fix these things I can easily see silverlight going orbit in the corporate and government sectors.
10-09-2009 1:23 PM |
rancedowner1234:* The Cache should download a new .xap file if it is a NEW version, and should cache the .xap file until a new version is released (note: I've heard rumor this may be a feature already in silverlight 3, but I haven't had time to research it thoroughly yet)
In my experience, Silverlight 3 does not yet accurately determine if it has the latest version of the .xap file in the browser cache. Would be nice though!
10-09-2009 2:56 PM |
rancedowner1234:* FlowDocument support using FlowDocumentReader including it's printing capabilities. Silverlight's Flow documents should definitely be able to support UI elements using BlockUIContainer as it does in WPF
I have developed a FlowDocumentReader for Silverlight, which does support UI elements using BlockUIContainer as well as InlineUIContainer. It doesn't support tables at this stage. I have described the project here: http://www.olsonsoft.com/blogs/stefanolson/post/Introduction-to-FlowDocument-for-Silverlight.aspx
Of course it's not possible for it to support printing :-(
fora.cof
14 Posts
10-10-2009 4:00 AM |
Increase performance of MergedDictionaries like write in this post.
It would be nice to see this built in Silverlight.
duditz
10-13-2009 12:28 PM |
Right Click - Our users are all used to right click context menus, it saves screen real estate and doesn't require the user to be fluent in spotting the correct tool bar icon
Scroll Wheel - Our users deal with long lists of data or complex reports and rely heavily on using the mouse wheel
HTML Content display - RSS feeds that utilize images / html content are very painful to deal with in SL at the moment
GIF support & native support for loading images cross domain - Until png takes over the world of web graphics we'd like to see GIF supported natively in the Image control. Part of this request ties back to dynamic content such as RSS
Giftednewt
353 points
10-14-2009 5:40 AM |
The ability to create and unload AppDomains would be much appreciated. I am currently working on a project that involves loading dynamic assemblies and I started running into issues when I needed to load a newer version of an assembly. The runtime only allows an assembly to be loaded once and you can't unload it.
memphis23
10-14-2009 11:18 AM |
I would like Integration of Reporting Services in Silverlight
10-14-2009 2:45 PM |
There's already a commercial product to view Reporting Services Reports inside Silverlight: see here
Daze55
227 points
111 Posts
10-15-2009 4:34 AM |
1. The possibility to make WCF service call during application exit (to handle user logging).2. A great improvement of GPU acceleration support. I view it as absolutly unusable in complex applications in its current state and until something is done Silverlight will remain a CPU slaughterer.3. Mouse wheel support.4. Improved binding support.
mehmet.k...
10-18-2009 7:14 AM |
Hi everybody,
In my opinion, in order Silverlight to be a market leader the following abilities are essential:
These four items make Silverlight the most powerfull tool available for any graphical / animative task.
The future target must be a tool even for everybody to create interactive cartoons thgrough web, wouldn't it be nice?
Casimodo72
299 points
151 Posts
10-18-2009 3:19 PM |
Support for something like DataGridColumn.HeaderBinding and DataField.LabelBinding, in order to mitigate localized [Display] attribute information in a clean way.Currently the only working option is to set the Header's and Label's to a dedicated StaticResource (i.e. Header="{StaticResource MyFirstNameDisplayString}"), or to explicitely XAMLing Labels and column-header-styles for each property.But this is a bit insane.Otherwise, if the items source is empty, then there's no object instance in context, thus no header/labels are created at all; I don't want my DataForm to disappear suddenly or my DataGrid to loose its headers in this case.Has anyone ever tested the usability of DataGrid/DataForm with an empty list at all?For this reason:1) I will never use autogenerated columns/fields (since relying on an instance in context).2) The PropertyPath and Target of a DataField's Label become useless (since relying on an instance in context).With DataGridColumn.HeaderBinding and DataField.LabelBinding one could easily bind to static resources(i.e. HeaderBinding="{Binding MyHeader, Source={StaticResource MyStringResources}}"),thus ensure that Header(s) and Label(s) are always displayed.In my scenario, the [Display] attribute's information is extracted and generated (via RIA Services) as an always-available static descriptor in my ViewModel(s), so I could nicely bind to that.Prerequisite for DataGridColumn: allow DependencyProperties to act as a binding targets on DependencyObjects in Silverlight 4.
[edited]Another way would be to let the DataGrid/DataForm know (programmatically and via XAML) of what type of object to operate on. DataField and DataGridColumn could easily extract the [Display] attribute's information via a property-path and the type info[/edited][edited]After inspection of the DataForm's implementation: it does not even try to display any content when there's no current item.In DataForm's internal GenerateUI(...) the content is set to null:if ((this.CurrentItem == null) || (((this.ReadOnlyTemplate == null) && (this.EditTemplate == null)) && ((this.NewItemTemplate == null) && !this.AutoGenerateFields))){ this._contentPresenter.Content = null; this.UpdateCurrentItem();} [/edited]
Regards,Kasimier
romanpetrov
10-19-2009 10:35 AM |
There are still some features provided by Adobe Flash and still missing in Silverlight 3. It would be great to have all Flash player features available in Silverlight 4. I see the following features:
These features are minor and in my opinion Silverlight 3 and Flash have almost identical volume of features. But, for examle, Camera support is important for Silverlight to build web conferencing applications. When I used Flash, I often used Scale9Grid feature to scale vector graphics and controls.
Thanks for your attention.
10-19-2009 10:55 AM |
there is a scale9grid for Silverlight out there.. i've seen at least one implementation... BTW. its pretty simple to do yourself ;) Also, there is a set of about 15 Pixel Shaders, ported from WPF to SL which is ready for download...
10-19-2009 11:00 AM |
I'd like to be able to open a word document (2007) when I'm debugging a project. Word hangs until I stop debugging.
10-19-2009 11:13 AM |
Montago:there is a scale9grid for Silverlight out there.. i've seen at least one implementation... BTW. its pretty simple to do yourself ;) Also, there is a set of about 15 Pixel Shaders, ported from WPF to SL which is ready for download...
thanks for the information. Yes, I also have seen scale9grid implementation based on pixel shaders. But such implementation requires custom shader and .NET supporting code programming. I also wonder about performance when scaling this way...
About 15 pixel shaders, could you please post a link? Do they include shaders provided by Flash Player like Convolution, Glow, etc?
stephy85
10-20-2009 5:03 PM |
Makes SmoothStreeming.dll fonctionnable even if the performance's counter doesn't work as well on every computer.
rich fro...
10-23-2009 7:14 PM |
Covariance and I need it fast seeing than .NET 4 has it
watabou
418 points
75 Posts
10-24-2009 10:51 PM |
Right click support is the most important feature that i'm waiting for.
Hacking around this shouldn't just be a solution, and the opinion to use it or not should be let to the developer.
They're is too much project where this is an important need (ie games).
Kevin Yang
72 points
28 Posts
10-26-2009 3:32 AM |
1. Path.Data support mini language which we can use simple 'mM','lL' something like this to draw any graphics we want so easily, but to write codes doing the same thing, it becomes disaster. the code is not elegant, so normally i use my own helper to draw graphics. i think it should be part of the sl library api. like class Graphics in actionscript.
2. hope the writeable bitmap can include background html element when sl is running in windowless mode and transparent background.
Ahmed El...
10-26-2009 8:08 PM |
GSv
10-29-2009 2:51 AM |
* More Bindings Supported in WCF
* Printing Capability
* OOB on par with Adobe AIR
* Silverlight Suppotr for Mobile
sasideva
240 points
10-29-2009 4:47 AM |
Reportviewer Control should be in Silverlight tools.
ankitavyas
100 points
44 Posts
10-29-2009 8:20 PM |
I would say more Cursors. At the moment very few cursors, If you are resizing something, you can't have Corner Cursors at the moment. Drag as a property of each control.
RickBull...
11-01-2009 4:41 PM |
Psychlist1972:5. We're doing a very large data-driven application here. DataTable/whatever isn't going to be your savior no matter what -- it doesn't contain enough metadata. What you can do, and this is something my colleage on the team did, is write a custom IValueConverter that takes in the field name for an item in a dictionary. Behind the scenes it does the binding for you and it all pretty much works as expected.
Not sure I agree - DataTable (and DataSet) have a ton of metadata in them, more than most applications would really need. We've had to implement our own "easily serializable"/streamable DataTable equivalent (we call it an InfoTable) to fill this gap. One of the big ugly performance issues with lots of the .NET/Silverlight stack has to do with serialization, which is an unnecessary "tax" (CPU, clock time and memory) in most cases. There should be built-in mechanisms for high performance streamed serialization instead of having to roll your own every time. We were able to reduce response time and increase performance about 3X by using a custom binary streaming serialization model for the "InfoTable" - and since passing data between server and client is one of the most common tasks for many of the targets for Silverlight, it oughta be "built in".
11-01-2009 7:57 PM |
Can't get on this wishlist but here are two things I would like in Silverlight 41) Component for VR panoramas, 360 rotation, hotspots for linking to develop walk throughs, be able to add text and note degrees of rotation, zoomin/zoomout. 2) Lip synch (like what is in MS Agent Technology)
Dabiel
11-03-2009 10:37 AM |
By far my number one feature need is PRINTING. We use Fast-Report as reporting tool. Each time that we need to see a report, we need to open a new window in the browser because Fast-Report is ASP based. Fast-Report company is waiting that Silverlight includes printing support to offer Fast-Report in SL platform, because now, it does not make sense to show a report in SL and then you cannot print it.
pjwang
11-04-2009 4:32 AM |
real time media support
Roger La...
34 Posts
11-05-2009 12:12 AM |
1) GPU accelerate pixel shaders
This is a very limiting factor for an application I'm working on now. Whenever I want to animate an object with a pixel shader effect (either custom made effect or the built in ones), the framerate drops dramatically. My workaround for all of these is to remove the effect during animation, and re-enabling them when the animation stops. Picture an image with a drop shadow effect which moves around on the screen, the only way to get decent performance is to remove the effect during movement.
2) Webcam / mic support
With P2P possibilties (not really a must, but would be nice to eliminate server bandwith requirements if you want to create meeting app and so forth)
3) Support for SQL Compact Edition on client side
This would be a very handy feature for off line cache of client data. Having to write serializers for all local object storage is tedious and having a LINQ2SQL feature for local on / off line of data would be extremely handy and would open up a host of interesting application ideas. (With change tracking to enable sync of data for occationally connected systems)
4) GPU acceleration fix for app in windowed mode on a Mac
Roger Larsen
11-05-2009 2:38 AM |
.Net 4.0 Framework incorporated.
dr d b k...
54 points
97 Posts
11-06-2009 10:38 AM |
Dear Silverlighter wishers;
this list is getting too long.
my seconds or wishes:
We setup a cubby hole/pidgeon hole bin for each feature and get to contribute to it.
PRINTING ! yes, very important for my class of users.
Direct to PDF for documentation and review.
Dead doc and post mortum.
WEEL SUPPORT:
RIght wheel, left wheel, and scroll box needs to understand wheelies.
I'm writing it in c# now.
UPDATE functionality: I am writing a "UPDATE ME" button;
silverlight should feed into a release repository, versioning, and allow
users to update or auto update under them. I am finding lots of users just won't update in the dark and it needs to be done for them.
MIDI support; i'm writing it now.
better support of vertical styles. my XAML lines get too long, and I see
better each item on its own line..... and i would like to sort long lists in some way.
better support of one off controls without making a style or template or resource.
auto styling
auto templating
look up the system tree and browse and inherite/overload from system and installed packages.
direct application of animations without linking c# or VB code; just
connect it in VRML and permit ordering of linkages (VRML code first,
c# code second, etc)
start a new forum for wishes ?
11-06-2009 11:14 AM |
@dr d b karron
The uservoice page is the official wishlist, it's created by the Silverlight Program managers.
naoufel
11-09-2009 11:16 AM |
All proposed wishes are good, in addition I want:
1- To include HTML Zone (except TextBlock win new RUN for each time), this make a freedom and easy way to design our page with HTML + CSS + Control in expression BLEND 4
2- For 3D, including GLCanvas or DX canvas to write native code C++ and use it with silverlight 4.
3- Add a set of effects like After Effects.
4- Making Binding property more easier
Naoufel
JoseRibeiro
11-10-2009 7:25 AM |
1. GPU video playback acceleration.
Flash will have this in 10.1, which is a killer feature
FuryDiamond
3644 points
741 Posts
11-18-2009 12:52 PM |
Silverlight 4 features are being presented at PDC 09.
http://www.microsoftpdc.com
Silverlight 4 Wishlist