The Big List of What’s New or Improved in Silverlight 5

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04 SEP 2011

The Big List of What’s New or Improved in Silverlight 5

.NET    Silverlight  

Several of you have asked for a more complete list of the features that are new or improved in Silverlight 5, especially those new to the RC. Here is my mostly complete list of major features. I haven't included the tons of fixes and improvements, but maintained a focus on major features. (I say "mostly complete" so I have an out when I later realize I forgot something.)

Binding and Related

• ICustomTypeProvider
• Custom Markup Extensions
• Ancestor RelativeSource Binding
• Implicit Data Templates
• Binding in Style Setters
• DataContextChanged Event (new since beta)
• PropertyChanged now an UpdateSourceTrigger option (new since beta)

Graphics

• XNA 3D API
• Improved Graphics Stack
• 3D Render targets (new since beta)
• XNA 3D built-in effects (new since beta)
• 3D surface composition settings (new since beta)
• 3D multi-sample anti-aliasing (new since beta)

Media

• Low-Latency Sound using XNA SoundEffect and SoundEffectInstance
• Hardware decoding of H.264 media
• Variable Speed Playback and Trick-play (new since beta)
• Remote Control and Media Command (Keys) Support (new since beta)

Text

• Text Tracking and Leading
• Linked and Multi-column Text
• OpenType Support (new since beta)
• Pixel Snapped Text and TextOptions (new since beta)

Operating System Integration

• P/Invoke (new since beta)
• Multiple Windows
• Unrestricted File System Access in Full Trust
• Full Trust in-browser
• Default Filename in SaveFileDialog and OpenFileDialog (new since beta)
• 64 bit browser support (new since beta)
• Power awareness for media apps (keep the PC alive while a movie is playing, for example) (new since beta)

Productivity and Performance

• Network Latency Improvements
• Databinding Debugging
• Parser Performance Improvements
• Multi-core JIT for improved start-up time

Controls

• Double and n-click support
• PivotViewer (new since beta)
• ComboBox type-ahead/incremental search

Other

• In-browser HTML
• PostScript Vector Printing (new since beta)
• Tasks from TPL (new since beta)
• C# Covariance and Contravariance

Why weren't these all in the initial list?

My initial list only had a few key features listed. Some, such as Tasks and Covariance/Contravariance made it into Silverlight without me realizing it. For the most part, I got the feature list by checking with the product team and by trolling our specs repository.

So how does stuff make it in without it being on a master Silverlight list? That's easy. Many teams at Microsoft contribute to Silverlight either directly, or through other things such as the core CLR, framework, and C# language. Since Silverlight shares much of that code, cool and exciting features make it in without showing up in a Silverlight feature list. A great example of this is Tasks from TPL. The right people did know those features made it in (people actually writing code, the testers etc.), I just hadn't noticed it. It's not a conspiracy to keep the TPL folks down, trust me :)

Learn More

Many of these features are documented on http://silverlight.net/learn via an increasing number of tutorials.

In addition to that, if you're looking for a one-stop shop for learning Silverlight 5, consider my book Silverlight 5 in Action, to be released in print near the end of this year. It's currently in MEAP, with purchasers able to download chapters as I make them available.

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