Understanding the Silverlight Presentation Framework

Understanding the Silverlight Presentation Framework


The main purpose of the Silverlight presentation framework is to provide you with the UI controls and functionality to implement rich Internet applications. However, the presentation framework is much more than just the UI controls; it also encompasses browser interaction, threading, and system calls.

Namespaces that are part of the Silverlight presentation framework are:

System.Windows:

Provides the general presentation and base classes for Silverlight development. For example, the Application, UIElement, EventTrigger, and FontStyles.

System.Windows.Browser:

Provides the classes used to interact with the browser. For example, the HtmlDocument, HtmlElement, HtmlPage, and ScriptObject.

System.Windows.Controls:

Provides most of the UI controls. For example, TextBlock, Image, Grid, and UserControl.

System.Windows.Documents:

Provides the classes that support basic document concepts. For example, Fontsource, LineBreak, Inline, and Run.

System.Windows.Markup:

Provides the classes that support XAML processing. For example, XamlReader, ContentPropertyAttribute, and XmlLanguage.

System.Windows.Media:

Provides the classes that enable you to apply rich functionality to your applications. For example, GradientBrush, ScaleTransform, Colors, FontFamily, and PathGeometry.

System.Windows.Media. Animation:

Provides the classes used to animate Silverlight controls. For example, Begin Storyboard, Storyboard, DoubleAnimation, SplinePointKeyFrame, Timeline, and TimeLineMarker.

System.Windows.Shapes:

Provides the classes used to implement basic XAML shapes. For example, Ellipse, Path, and Rectangle.

System.Windows.Threading:

Provides the classes used to implement threads in your Silverlight applications. For example, Dispatcher, DispatcherOperation, and DispatcherTimer.

System.ComponentModel:

Provides the classes used to implement runtime and design-time behavior of components and controls. For example, ProgressChangedEventArgs, PropertyChangedEventArgs, BackgroundWorker, AsyncCompletedEventArgs, and TypeConverter.