Bill Gates and S. Somasegar announced several new features at TechEd for Silverlight Beta 2 that are great additions to the existing functionality. Here's a list of the highlights in Beta 2:
- UI Framework: Beta 2 includes improvements in animation support, error handling and reporting, automation and accessibility support, keyboard input support, and general performance. This release also provides more compatibility between Silverlight and WPF.
- Rich Controls: Beta 2 includes a new templating model called Visual State Manager that allows for easier templating for controls. Other features include the introduction of a TabControl, text wrapping and scrollbars for TextBox. DataGrid additions include Autosize, Reorder, Sort, performance increases and more. Most controls are now in the runtime instead of packaged with the application.
- Networking Support: Beta 2 includes improved Cross Domain support and security enhancements, upload support for WebClient, and duplex communications (“push” from server to Silverlight client).
- Rich Base Class Library: Beta 2 includes improved threading abilities, LINQ-to-JSON, ADO.NET Data Services support, better support for SOAP and other improvements to make networking and data handling easier.
- Deep Zoom: Beta 2 introduces a new XML-based file format for Deep Zoom image tiles as well as a new MultiScaleTileSource that enables existing tile databases to utilize Deep Zoom. Better, event driven notification for zoom/pan state is another improvement in Silverlight 2 Beta 2.
Check out Scott Guthrie's blog for a complete list of features and additional details: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/06/06/silverlight-2-beta2-released.aspx
I'll be posting more about the new features soon....stay tuned! In the meantime, here's where you can get Silverlight 2 Beta 2: http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/