check out the PDC09 videos here

The Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) has been getting a lot of interest lately and it’s something that’s out on CodePlex and it’s also part of .NET Framework 4.0.

It’s also part of Silverlight 4.

The name’s a good one – it’s a framework for building an application that is made up of a bunch of loosely coupled components with a lot of flexibility around component discovery, registration, lookup and lifetime management. If I had to sum it up in my own words I’d say something like;

MEF composes an application by extensibly discovering a set of components which offer exported functionality and ( possibly ) rely on imported functionality. The link between the two is a simple string name ( a MEF “contract name” ) which is usually represented by a .NET type name and MEF has the capability to plug things together where it finds ( possibly further constrained ) matches.

Read full post of mike here

As Silverlight increases its Out of Browser features it will become more important to detect if the application is running in or out of the browser.  This is the check:

if (Application.Current.IsRunningOutOfBrowser)
{
       // Out of Browser 

}
else

{
      //   in the browser

}

Thanks to Andy…….

Here are some links to get you past the burn and into the groove...

Silverlight 4 Beta, RIA Services... and Beer!
I've updated my Beer database demo with a walkthrough for Silverlight 4, VS2010, and the latest RIA Services.

Silverlight 4 Beta: Implicit Styles
We've been waiting for this little feature for awhile! Finally we can set a global style for a control.

Silverlight 4 Beta - A Guide
This is a great overview of new stuff from Tim Heuer.

Silverlight 4 Tech Whitepaper
John Papa walks through lots of the new goodies in SL4.

 

1. RIA Services
   WCF RIA Services (formerly .NET RIA Services) makes it quick and easy to create a Service layer that wraps your Data Access Layer - whether your DAL uses the Entity Framework, LINQ to SQL, or another technology. Note the name change from ".NET RIA Services" to "WCF RIA Services." As confusing as another name change is, this helps clarify that this new release is built on top of WCF - The communications channel from the Silverlight client to the RIA Domain Service is now a *.svc file - which means we can Add a Service reference to the service side, get WSDL, and customize WCF service settings.
2. Cider Support
   VS2010 includes a XAML editor (Cider), supporting drag/drop forms design and data binding. In the past, developers needed to learn Blend to do basic GUI form design. Don't get me wrong, I love Blend : and we will still need to switch over to Blend to take advantage of Behaviors, States, Templating, animation, drawing, and other tasks. But many developers were turned off by the fact that Visual Studio had no WYSIWYG designer for XAML.
3. Data Sources Window
   WCF RIA Services and VS2010 now support a rapid Drag/Drop design experience which allows you to quickly put together data-enabled Silverlight applications.

Yesterday, at the PDC in Los Angeles, Scott Guthrie announced the availability of Silverlight 4 beta, just four months after bringing Silverlight 3 to market. With the help of several customers we showcased the new features that will enable developers to create the highest quality media and RIA applications for the Web and desktop. These powerful new features offer developers significant benefits in rapidly creating rich software experiences, and include:

· Enhancements to Silverlight out-of-browser capabilities which enable high quality application experiences on the desktop;

· Advancements in business application development, including access to other Microsoft products like SharePoint 2010, Office, and Internet Information Services (IIS);

· The most amazing HD-quality video experiences on the Web with native multicast and offline DRM support.

In addition, our list of customers and HD streaming events continues to grow, with 45 percent of Internet-connected devices worldwide using Silverlight. Today we highlighted the diverse ways Silverlight is being used to power the applications we use every day such as, Portland, OR startup SnapFlow, who demonstrated their new workflow-making platform. We’re also looking forward to helping NBC broadcast the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games in HD-quality video with Silverlight and IIS Smooth Streaming on NBCOlympics.com beginning February 12, 2010.

Drop by the PDC Virtual Pressroom to view Scott Guthrie’s keynote and to find out more information about Silverlight 4 beta. To download Silverlight 4 beta visit the Silverlight.net community site.