MIX 10k entry goes OutOfBrowser

I have updated my MIX 10k Challenge entry to Silverlight 3.0 so itcan run out-of-browser!

You can visit the Silverlight 3.0 version of exploDZ, and install it locally for yourself WARNING: will prompt to install Silverlight 3.0 which is in BETA

1. Right-click and choose to Install


2. Select "where" to install (this is really only where the shortcuts go)


3. Silverlight 3.0 having an out-of-browser experience


This is really only a test of Silverlight 3.0 - exploDZ was just a bit of fun, and there is already an ClickOnce/WPF version at DeepZoomPublisher.com/Viewer.

Code changes

Thanks to Chris' Silverlight 3.0 out-of-browser instructions the ONLY change from the 2.0 to the 3.0 (out-of-browser) version was the following element added to the AppManifest.xml file:

<Deployment.ApplicationIdentity>
<ApplicationIdentity
ShortName="exploDZ"
Title="Out of browser DeepZoom Viewer">
<ApplicationIdentity.Blurb>
exploDZ out-of-browser (Silverlight 3.0)
</ApplicationIdentity.Blurb>
</ApplicationIdentity>
</Deployment.ApplicationIdentity>

What it does

The shortcut created by the 'installer' has a target like this:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Silverlight\3.0.40307.0\sllauncher.exe" conceptdevelopment.net.0
I guess that parameter reflects the 'source site' and index of Silverlight OutOfBrowser apps -stored in a safe place somewhere :) stored in Apps\LocalLow\Microsoft\Silverlight\Offline\ (on Windows 7 at least).


The index.html ISN'T the hosting page from the internet - it's a custom Silverlight object tag:


The metadata file contains
LaunchPath=C:\Users\Craig\AppData\LocalLow\Microsoft\Silverlight\Offline\conceptdevelopment.net.0\index.html
SourceDomain=conceptdevelopment.net
OriginalUri=http://conceptdevelopment.net/silverlight3/outofbrowser01/exploDZ.zip
AppID=conceptdevelopment.net.0
Description=exploDZ out-of-browser (Silverlight 3.0)
Title=Out of browser DeepZoom Viewer
Name=exploDZ

How it works?

Who knows??? Tim's Silverlight 3 Out-of-browser Update Model overview is a worthwhile read.

Adobe's AIR out-of-browser host for Html-Javascript and Flash/Flex sits atop WebKit, and from the index.html above it seems likely that OutOfBrowser-Silverlight is also sitting in a little web browser of some description. It's only 500Kb, so it's not IE :) - and there also has to be a Mac version... it doesn't appear to be managed code (or I'd guess Cassini), maybe the Mac one is related to Chiron? Speaking of Mac - this is how it looks in Safari 4 beta...