Introducing Silverlight 2: Table of Contents and bonus chapters!
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Lots of folks have been asking me for a TOC for the Silverlight 2 book, so here it is. The book is divided into 2 parts (Introducing Silverlight 2, and Programming Silverlight 2). Note also that there are some upcoming bonus chapters that will be a download for readers. These will include chapters on Visual State Manager, More Controls, Install UX and more on Networking including sockets and duplex:
Part 1: Introducing Silverlight 2.
Chapter 1: Introducing Silverlight 2:
This Chapter introduces Silverlight, what it is, what it does, what its Architecture is and more. It talks about XAML and why XAML was designed. It also introduces the Expression suite, including Design, Blend and Encoder. You'll see how to build your first Silverlight application -- a media player.
Chapter 2: Expression Blend and Silverlight 2:
Using the Expression Blend design tool to build Silverlight experiences. You'll be given a tour of the tools and a taste of what you can do with them! You'll also see how Expression Blend wizards create the Web page and all associated files that you'll need to deliver Silverlight to your users.
Chapter 3: Using Visual Studio with Silverlight 2:
How to install and use the Silverlight tools and SDK. You'll then be taken step-by-step through building a casual game.
Chapter 4: XAML Basics:
So you've been playing with Silverlight 2 to build apps, and you've used Blend. These have been generating your UI using and XML variant called XAML. Here's a tool of XAML that will get you very familiar with the basics of it.
Chapter 5: XAML Transformation and animation.
XAML is very useful for defining your UI -- but it is much more powerful than just UI layout and controls declaration. You can also declaratively define how your UI can transform over time, and define timeline-based animations easily in XAML. THis chapter shows you how. Incidentally, an excerpt from this chapter has been published in the August 2008 copy of MSDN magazine.
Chapter 6: The Silverlight Browser control.
Everything you wanted to know about the browser control but was afraid to ask! This details the control itself, how to use it in a page and how to program against it using JavaScript.
Part 2: Programming Silverlight 2.
Chapter 7: Silverlight Controls: Presentation and Layout
This chapter will tour you through the most commonly used controls in Silverlight, namely the Button, Checkbox, HyperlinkButton, Image, ListBox, RadioButton, TextBlock and TextBox controls. You'll look at the main use-case for each of these controls and investigate their most commonly used properties, methods and events. You'll also build some sample applications that demonstrate them, as well as how to use control extensions such as IME with the TextBox.
Chapter 8: Silverlight Controls: Advanced Controls
This Chapter will go into some of the more sophisticated and useful controls that are available in Silverlight 2. It includes the DataGrid, Calendar, DatePicker, RepeatButton, ToggleButton, ScrollViewer, Slider and more. It goes through the typical usage of each of these, and will help you get up and running quickly with using them.
Chapter 9: Building your own Silverlight control
A great feature in Silverlight is its extensibility. This chapter will take you step-by-step through building your own control by subclassing an existing one.
Chapter 10: Building Connected Applications with Silverlight
Let's face it, an application without connectivity, will, regardless of how cool it is, grow stale quickly! In this chapter you'll look at connectivity scenarios, where you can deliver Silverlight from, and connect Silvelright to server technologies such as Java (JSP), PHP and of course ASP.NET!
Chapter 11: Media, Ink and DeepZoom
The title says it all. This chapter drills down into programming using these three technologies. You'll do a lot of media work, looking at the Silverlight Media APIs for managing everything from buffering to adding interactivity to your media application using markers. With Ink, you'll get a ramp-up on how to use the Ink APIs to allow tablet users to interact with you app. Finally, with DeepZoom, you'll go into the ins-and-outs of building a multi layered deep zoom application (where you zoom into a picture in a picture in a picture etc.). If you've seen the 'Hard Rock Cafe' demo, you'll see how some of the fancy tricks in that were built.
Chapter 12: Styles and Templates
This chapter will give you an introduction into how to build reusable and interchangeable styles for your Silverlight controls. In addition it will show how these can be brought together into templates.
Chapter 13: Silverlight ASP.NET Controls
This chapter details the ASP.NET controls that ship with the Silverlight SDK and how they can be use to deliver Silverlight in an easy manner without you having to twiddle with HTML. Additionally it details the Silverlight media control that allows you to deliver a ready-baked media player for Silverlight media.
Chapter 14: Dynamic Languages and Silverlight
This chapter details the new DLR in Silverlight that allows you to program rich UI applications using IronPython, IronRuby or Managed JavaScript. If you've been wondering about these, and have been loooking for a good place to dip your toe in the water -- this is it.