Will Deep Linking be part of Silverlight by MSFT?

07-19-2008 8:20 AM |

As the title says, can we expect from MSFT to incorporate Deep Linking into SL framework, or do we need to resort to our own soluttion?

If the later, can you [MSFT] provide a guideline how we can change the URL and bookmark and also, if the user enters a URL, how we can jump to the section of t he application is pointing to?

Thanks!

Re: Will Deep Linking be part of Silverlight by MSFT?

07-19-2008 10:38 AM |

Hi Ben,

How about using HtmlPage.Document.QueryString?  So a user could access your hypothetical SL app with any of these URLs:

www.mydomain.com/mypath/MySLApp.htm  or
www.mydomain.com/mypath/MySLApp.htm?SomeDeepLinkingID=1234 or
www.mydomain.com/mypath/MySLApp.htm?SomeDeepLinkingID=5678

(Edited per Ben's comment:)
www.-YourDomain.com-/YourPath/YourSLApp.htm  or
www.-YourDomain.com-/YourPath/YourSLApp?SomeDeepLinkingID=1234 or
www.-YourDomain.com-/YourPath/YourSLApp?SomeDeepLinkingID=5678

In Nikhil Kothari's (MS SL/ASP.NET guy) blog post from 2008-Jul-02 http://www.nikhilk.net/Search-RIA.aspx he says in part:

"...Silverlight apps can also support deep linking which is also important for facilitating relevance. Essentially, Silverlight provides simple APIs to allow the app to easily consume the URL it was loaded from, and use information on the URL query string to load and display appropriate data."

See also: http://silverlight.net/forums/p/19979/68877.aspx#68877

Alan Cobb
www.alancobb.com/blog (Silverlight blog)

Re: Will Deep Linking be part of Silverlight by MSFT?

07-19-2008 10:53 AM |

Hi Alan;

Thanks for the info. but the three links you provides, don't take me to anything related to this subject.

www.mydomain.com/mypath/MySLApp.htm  or
www.mydomain.com/mypath/MySLApp.htm?SomeDeepLinkingID=1234 or
www.mydomain.com/mypath/MySLApp.htm?SomeDeepLinkingID=5678

Re: Will Deep Linking be part of Silverlight by MSFT?

07-19-2008 11:15 AM |

Hi Ben,

Yes, I see how that is a bit confusing .  (There really is a domain called mydomain.com.)  I just edited my original post to make it clearer.  Those URLs were just supposed to indicate how you could use a query string with a hypothetical SL app.

Alan Cobb
www.alancobb.com/blog (Silverlight blog)

Re: Will Deep Linking be part of Silverlight by MSFT?

07-21-2008 8:04 AM |

If the user types the above link in the browser, you should handle it on the server side to retrieve the tag followed by #. Then pass the tag to Silverlight as an InitParam. In the Silverlight application, you do the proper work based on the InitParam.

Hi anf Thanks for reply Yi-Lun;

Since I'm not an ASP guy, this was the mysterious part in my head, to see how the client needs to fetch after # sign. It's more clear now.

Thanks!