5 Steps to Developing Silverlight Application in Effective Way

10 Jun 2014

Microsoft’s Silverlight has been here for a quite ling stretch of period. It was released initially as a tool to help developer with application development powered by .NET framework. Now with the latest release of Silverlight 5 it has many more things to offer. This development tool is now used for developing gripping user experiences for both web and mobile platforms. This is meant for being friendly with any browser, operating systems and devices adding more dimensions to its implementation scope. With the whole attention being shifted to cross-platform application development these kinds of rich features from Silverlight 5 came as a string supporting hand for developers. All the power it offers makes people deliver app which are more interactive. With such a vital set of power one must know right approach for developing app using it and this write-up deals with that only.

Rich internet applications are run with the help of Silverlight framework. This base feature of it has been behind the usage of it by developers for cross-platform app development. There is a constant rise in the demand for this and is expected to rise more with every passing year as PCs are being replaced by Smartphone and tablets. Wearable gadgets are the future and so something that can keep everything stitched together will be on demand, just like Silverlight from Microsoft.

A report over the usage

W3Techs.com shared information in a report shared in 1st of April 2014 which is very relevant in this context. It tells about the usage of this in websites around the globe.  The number of websites who actually make use of Silverlight is 162,714 according to builtwith. The trend being shown below portrays that Silverlight has maintained its popularity among websites and if things goes the way intended will see much more loyal followers of it.

The 5-point ‘Program’

Being responsible for the execution of any project which involves app development using Silverlight needs the developer to have a thorough idea about the power it offers. Silverlight programming is considered a prestigious domain in development industry and hence much experience is always asked for. There are certain things which everyone must keep a tab on while developing app using it. For the help of the developers some of the major steps and tips have been shared below.

1. While doing the programming never employ ‘xmlns’ unless they are needed in XAML file. The whole page becomes heavier doing that and it increases the page loading speed. This off course is bad from the perspective of user experience.

2. The formatting of your XAML codes should be balanced in all times. While modifying the codes and even having a look over those, such format helps a lot.

3. Always make sure to close a control while adding it with a ‘</>’.

4. Stay away from using extra panels such as Grid and Stackpanel unless it is called for.

5. Make use of grid. This make the adjusting of your app be seamless in any platform due to flexible UI it offers.