Microsoft Silverlight is a software platform that is distributed as a plug-in for the browser and allows you to run audio, video clips, as well as animations and vector graphics on websites where this technology is implemented.
Silverlight application
Silverlight is responsible for rendering graphics and images to the user's browser, providing an implementation of technology for displaying active content. The platform is also widely used to create widgets for Windows Vista and Windows Sidebar.
The technology implements the playback of WMA, WMV and MP3 formats, but does not need to install additional modules from the user, as it was implemented in the Windows Media Player extension. Silverlight is widely used on the Internet because of the large number of possible tools for working with the interface, extending the capabilities of the user and the web developer.
Silverlght coding can be done in any language from the. NET framework.
Silverlight is an alternative means of creating live content on websites. In addition to this solution from Microsoft, technologies such as Adobe Flash, HTML 5 and JavaFX are widely used on the Internet.
Installing Silverlight for a User
To date, the latest version of the module is Silverlight 5, which is available on the official website of the project created by Microsoft. Go to the company's website in the plugin download section using the browser you are using. Click on the Download Now link and wait until the installer file is downloaded.
Silverlight is supported by all modern Windows and MacOS desktop operating systems.
Run the downloaded file and in the window that appears, click on the "Install now" button to start installing the product. Close the programs you are using for working with the Internet and wait for the completion of the operation of unpacking files. After the installation is complete, you will receive a notification on the screen. Click the "Close" button and launch your internet browser. You can now play content on sites that use this content display technology.
Disadvantages of technology
There is also a Silverlight version for Windows Phone based phones. However, Silverlight is not available for Android and iOS platforms, making the technology unavailable for almost all mobile platforms. This means that applications written on it are available only to computer users.
Among the disadvantages of the technology is the impossibility of the plug-in to work with other systems other than Windows and OS X. Also, a program written in Silverlight will not start if the user does not have an Internet connection.
