PHP and Silverlight LEVEL
200
Maarten Balliauw & Kevin Dockx
RealDolmen

Who are we?
Maarten Balliauw – RealDolmen Kevin Dockx – RealDolmen
E-mail: E-mail:
maarten.balliauw@realdolmen.com kevin.dockx@realdolmen.com
Blog: Blog:
http://blog.maartenballiauw.be http://kevindockx.blogspot.com
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/maartenballiauw
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 2

Agenda
• What is Silverlight?
• Why Silverlight?
• Why Silverlight and PHP?
• Building an application using both
• More on Silverlight
• Q&A
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 3

What is Silverlight?
• Rich Applications are the future, today
– Adobe Flex
– Microsoft Silverlight
• Silverlight
– “A framework for providing rich applications to the
browser”
– “A cross-browser, cross-platform implementation of the
.NET Framework for building and delivering the next
generation of Rich Internet Applications for the web”
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 4

What is Silverlight?
• 4-5 MB plugin
– Download once, distributed through Windows Update
– Also available on Linux (Moonlight) and Mac
• Runs in browser, on the client
– Internet Explorer
– Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome
• Subset of the full .NET Framework
– Originated from Windows Presentation Foundation
• Rich UI: XAML / .NET code: C# - VB.NET
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 5

Why Silverlight?
• HTML / PHP / ASPX / AJAX
– Best days are over…
– Extending HTML (CSS 3, AJAX, …)
– “like putting lipstick on a pig”
• Silverlight
– Stateful model
– .NET Framework
– UI Capabilities
– Cross-platform
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 6

Why Silverlight and PHP?
• Best of both worlds?
• PHP
– Rapid application programming
– Ideal as back-end using JSON or SOAP
– Re-use your existing PHP logic
• Silverlight
– Rapid user interface development
– Create rich interfaces using a rich framework
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 7

Programming Silverlight
• XAML
– “an XML file that defines user interfaces”
– Tool: Expression Blend (or Eclipse)
• .NET
– Rich framework offering endless possibilities
– Tool: Microsoft Visual Studio (2008, .NET 3.5, SP1) (or Eclipse)
• PHP
– i.e. Zend Framework
– Tool: Zend Studio (or Eclipse PDT)
 Strong separation of UI design & logic
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 8

Getting started
• Visual Studio 2008 SP1
• Silverlight Tools for VS2008 SP1
– VS2008 Updates
– Project Templates
– Runtime
– SDK
• Expression Blend 2.0 SP1
• Possibility: Eclipse4SL -
http://www.eclipse4sl.org/
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 9

• Under active development (ongoing)
• Catching up Visual Studio 2008 Silverlight editing
possibilities
– But just like VS2008: still not the rich designer that
Expression Blend is…
• Currently Win & Mac
• Next milestone: full SL debugging
http://www.eclipse4sl.org
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 10

Why Eclipse4SL?
• Allows Eclipse
developers to build Eclipse
Developer
RIA with Silverlight
• Allows Collaboration
between
– Web Designers Common
Project
– .NET Developers System
Web
– Eclipse Developers
.NET
Developer Designer
(Java, PHP, ..)
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 11

Editing a Silverlight Solution
DEMO
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 12

What about my data?
• Silverlight does not include data namespaces
(client tech)!
• For most apps, this forces you to use a Service
Oriented Architecture
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 15

Communicating (with data services)
• Silverlight includes support for
– WebClient, WebHttpRequest-classes
– REST, JSON, SOAP, …
– Windows Communication Foundation
– … almost any kind of service can be accessed
• Preferred way to communicate: through WCF
– BasicHttpBinding
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 16

Zend Framework SOAP
• Not 100% compatible WS-I Basic Profile 1.1 
– http://www.ws-i.org/Profiles/BasicProfile-1.1-2004-08-24.html
• WCF supports the ZF implementation
• Silverlight doesn’t: subset of WCF
• SOAP service should be possible with NuSOAP
• Solution we used: JSON
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 17

Communicating with JSON-service
• CrossDomain.xml / ClientAccessPolicy.xml
– Tells SL it/who can access the service
• Use WebClient
• Add handler to completed event
• Call service method (Async)
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 18

{Liquify} your brain
BarTender - Communicating with service
DEMO
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 19

BarTender - Communicating with service
DEMO
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 20

Keywords when working with data
• DataContext
• DataBinding
• INotifyPropertyChanged/CollectionChanged
• ValueConverters
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 21

What else is there?
• Localization
• Isolated Storage
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 30

Resources: Silverlight Toolkit
• Contains controls, components, utilities to use in
SL apps (MS, source available)
– AutoCompleteBox, different Panel controls, UpDown
control, Treeview, Expander, …
– Charting component
– ImplicitStyleManager
– Various themes included
• http://www.codeplex.com/Silverlight
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 31

Resources: Blacklight
• Contains components to use in SL apps,
focussed on design (3rd party, source
available)
– Glass, DropShadow, InnerGlow, OuterGlow,
Perspective Shadow, Radial Shadow Border
– DragDrop Panel, Animated Layout Panel
• http://www.codeplex.com/Blacklight
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 32

Resources
• http://silverlight.net/
• http://codeplex.com/Silverlight
• http://codeplex.com/Blacklight
• http://silverlightdragdrop.codeplex.com
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 33

Questions and Answers
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 34

Next steps…
• Since we are last today…
• Go grab a beer!
• Pay us a beer! 
• Enjoy your day and weekend!
June 1, 2009 PHP and Silverlight 35

http://blog.maartenballiauw.be
http://kevindockx.blogspot.com