Actually I always thought SIlverlightDesktop did work with Firefox since Silverlight works with Firefox. However, the first time I tried it I got nothing, just a blank screen.  For some reason I assumed it was the web service since Silverlight uses the web browsers communication stack. However 3 hours of reworking it I realized that even if I took all the web services out it still would not show anything. 

Fast-forward 2 hours and I have replaced the assemblies in the bin directory and tried every possible configuration to no avail.

I created another Silverlight application that did work with Firefox but I could not figure out what the difference was. Finally I found it. In the SIlverlightDesktop.aspx file I had the word “tag” with a lowercase ‘t”. It needs to be “Tag” with an upper case “T”.

I posted the update to the source code repository. A new install release should be available next week. Read More »

Live Example: SilverlightDragAndDrop

Download Code: SilverlightDragAndDrop.zip

One of the points of SilverlightDesktop is to allow you to drag and drop information between the modules. This is a task that is not easily done in any other web technology.

We are referring to dragging and dropping ... Read More »

1) Backup the SilverlightDesktop database and the entire SilverlightDesktop directory. This is very important.

2) Obtain the "upgrade" package of SilverlightDesktop. The difference between the normal installation package and the upgrade package is that the upgrade package does not contain a web.config file.

3) Unzip the entire contents of the "upgrade" page over the existing files.

4) Navigate to the Default.aspx page in the root of the website. The code will automatically detect that the site needs to run the upgrade process and will preset a link to enter the set-up wizard.

Read More »

The WhoAmI module that is provided in the basic installation package of SilverlightDesktop, performs two functions. First, to confirm that your SilverlightDesktop is working properly and second to provide an example of the process that SilverlightDesktop modules use to communicate with the Silverlight installation.

A SilverlightDesktop module does not have to communicate with the SilverlightDesktop installation, it can simply launch and communicate with an external web service or not communicate with anything at all. However, when you desire to know who the user is that launched the SilverlightDesktop module, you will use web services.

The WhoAmI module consists of two parts. The WhoAmI& ... Read More »

Now that we have SilverlightDesktop working again we are now creating modules for it.

The first problem we ran into was that we had to remove the .dll from the .xap and place the .dll in the /Clientbin directory.

When you are constantly building your project and testing it, this gets old really fast. We realized we have to allow you to keep the assembly in the .xap and allow you to load it from there.

This is the new code we are using:

#region Load Assembly

        void proxy_GetDesktopModuleCompleted(Read More »
          
        
  
        

          

          	
            
            
          
          
          

            
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We fixed the window resizing error that was caused by the Silverlight 2 Beta 2 update. We posted the new release on the download page and updated the Live example.

Right now SilverlightDesktop is in an odd state. It runs but it doesn't do much. We were not ready! Microsoft came out with a new version of Silverlight that completely broke the example we had.

So we published the half-finished version we were working on because something was better than nothing.

Well once we get the window sizing problem fixed and finish the WhoAmI module, we will do a tutorial that shows you how to build a email module for it. It will show how the SilverlightDesktop framework handles the security.

I think people will discover that creating secure web services for your Silverlight apps and allowing people to “log in” is more code than the rest of the app. Using SilverlightDesktop eliminates that work.

Let’s say you have a Silverlight game, If your want to have high scores and allow people to create accounts and compete you have a bunch of work ahead of you, right?

Installing SilverlightDesktop using Visual Studio 2008

1) Unzip the SilverlightDesktop .zip file into a directory on your hard drive

2) In SQL Server create a new database

3) In Visual Studio select File then Open Web Site...

... Read More »