Where does Off-Browser Silverlight Run?

Off-browser Silverlight is pretty cool. And one of the first questions that got raised is ‘where is it running’. Obviously, it’s not running within the browser. I mean, duh. But if not there, then where?

I got the first inkling of an answer listening to Mike Harsh’s presentation on off-browser Silverlight at MIX ‘09 (slides, demos and video can be found on his blog). Actually, it wasn’t his presentation, per se, but his answering of questions afterwards. I actually give Mike props for doing this presentation. Off-browser Silverlight is very easy to configure and use. It’s difficult to find 60 minutes worth of content when the user experience is ‘right-click to install…right-click again to uninstall’ and the developer experience is ‘check a box in the property sheet’. But from his easy handling of the questions afterwards, it’s pretty obvious that he knows the topic well.

One of the post presentation questions Mike was asked was related to the ‘how’ of off-browser Silverlight. Mike intimated that, basically, the Browser control was used. In other words, when installed on a client’s machine, launching the Silverlight application actually launches an application which hosts the Browser control. The Browser control then hosts the Silverlight application.

As it turns out, this is “basically” true. For the Windows platform, it’s precisely true. From Chris Hayak, the application which is launched is called SLLauncher.exe. This is also the application to which you will attach if you want to debug Silverlight apps in off-browser mode. For the Mac platform, the SLLauncher application runs webkit, which in turn hosts the Silverlight application.

The one downside of this approach is that, at least during the beta, there is no way to distinguish between multiple, simultaneous off-browser Silverlight apps. They all appear in the process list as ‘sllauncher.exe’. Hopefully this will change before SL3 goes gold.

Consuming WCF in Silverlight 3 Session at MIX ‘09

This session covers three separate scenarios for Silverlight and WCF interactions. The basic functionality of adding a service reference, creating proxy class and calling method hasn’t changed. However, they are trying to address some of the common pain points related to WCF

It’s now possible to remove the network traffic associated with ‘fat’ SOAP/XML messages by using a binary XML format to send the message. The demo reduced message size by 30%. But size was not the main design goal for binary XML. While compression is possible at the HTTP level, apparently binary XML reduces effort on the client and server as messages are compressed and decompressed. Binary XML is intended to improve speed. And while not every message is affected significantly (small messages and strings don’t really benefit), there is no case that MS is aware of where it gets worse. So binary XML becomes an appropriate default formatting standard.

Also included in this section was a description of why server-side error information is not accessible from within Silverlight. Specifically, if you have a server-side HTTP 500 code, the information related to the error does not get pushed to Silverlight. This is a fairly hard limitation related to how browsers pass HTTP information to plug-ins. And Silverlight is really a plug-in. The solution is an HTTP hack, there internal server errors get returned as HTTP 200 codes. And Silverlight 3 is built to pull the error information off of the response and surface it through the normal SOAP faulting mechanism.

When it comes to security WCF calls in Silverlight 3, there are two choices: browser-based and manual. The browser-based approach depends on cookies and Forms authentication at the browser level. This is easy to implement, but is open to cross-domain threats IF you have enable cross-domain access for every Web site. The manual approach has identity managed by Silverlight. When the credentials are added by Silverlight (instead of the browser), the cross-domain thread is eliminated. SL3 provides an out-of-the-box mechanism for creating the SOAP headers associated with the manual mechanism. It’s the ‘out-of-the-box’ that is new in SL3, not the technique itself.

The big gotcha in the manual mode is found in the method that WCF uses to prevent replay attacks. There is the concept of a MaxClockSkew. In indicates how far apart the client and server clocks can be. The default value if 5 minutes. which is to say that if the server system has a time of 11:05 and the client system has a time of 11:11, all messages will be rejected. This is the kind of situation that I’m sure will bedevil developers. MS is still trying to decide what the default value of MaxClockSkew will be when SL3 is released.

The second scenario covered in this session involved pushing messages to Silverlight. It was possible in SL2 to push message to the Silverlight application, but the knowledge required by the developer to implement it has been reduced. Because I’m very familiar with WCF, the technique does not seem advanced. Basically, the idea is to have the SL3 client make a one-way WCF call with a callback contract. The OneWay mode means that there is no calling context hanging around on the client. The callback allows the service to call back to the Silverlight application. In the Silverlight application, there is an event raised when the callback method is invoked from the service.

The third and final scenario talked about REST in Silverlight 3. As it turns out, SL3 doesn’t have much added in this area. Mostly because “the REST story in SL2 was pretty complete” This is actually pretty true about WCF in Silverlight in general. It’s not that there aren’t things that people would like to do with WCF in Silverlight (different bindings, for example). But the reality is that the limiting factor for most new feature requests is the HTTP stack from within the browser. It was mentioned that it’s possible to roll your own HTTP stack by going out to JavaScript through the HTTP DOM, but that technique will probably not work if the Silverlight application is running on off-browser mode.

Off-line and Off-Browser Silverlight

The big announcement at yesterday’s keynote was the availability of an off-line and off-browser mode for Silverlight 3.0. Just to clarify the terms, off-line mode indicates that Silverlight will not require a live connection to the Internet in order to continue functioning. Practically, this means that a Silverlight application will able to be installed on the client’s computer. Off-browser means that Silverlight apps will no longer appear to need to be running within any browser.

As a point of clarification, this last feature doesn’t mean that Silverlight will have free reign over your computer. Off-browser Silverlight apps will still run in the same security sandbox that they have in the browser. It’s just that you won’t need to explicitly launch the browser to start the application. In fact, the installation process for the Silverlight application includes the ability to place links on the desktop on the system tray

So what are the ramifications of these changes?

First, it opens up a world for Silverlight applications. While I’m a huge fan of WPF, there are a number of roadblocks to wide acceptance. It needs to have the .NET Framework installed (3.5 or 3.0). Which, in itself, implies a Windows platform (according to the Mono project, they are not planning to support WPF). Full WPF applications need to be installed. Yes, you can use XBAP to deploy the application, but that model has implications on security (it runs in the browser-driven security sandbox).

Silverlight, on the other hand, runs on both Windows and Mac. And while it requires an installation step, to call it an install is really overkill. It’s basically an XCOPY from one place to another on the client’s system. The conclusion, though, is that WPF and off-browser Silverlight do hit different target markets.

The second question is how does it change your Silverlight development process.

The goal of off-browser Silverlight was to have the same application run in both modes. And it certainly appears that is the case. However, being able to run the same application off-line and on-line does have an impact on your approach to development. For example, UI pieces might be different. The ability to retrieve data for a combo box, for example, might depend on being able to call out to a WCF service. That isn’t happening in off-line mode (although it would if you were just off-browser). So to create a solid off-line scenario, you may need to provide additional functionality or enable/disable functionality that is currently in place. This is not an insurmountable problem, but it does require some care and design effort.

All in all, off-browser/off-line Silverlight is an interesting idea and I’m looking forward to not only working on apps in this space, but also to see how others take advantage of it. Exciting times indeed.

Having an Out-of-Browser Silverlight Experience

The fundamental philosophy used to develop the off-browser functionality for Silverlight applications was to reduce the friction surrounding the moving of the application from in-browser to out-of-browser. Specifically, there is no separate download that is required to take a Silverlight application off-line. As a developer, you need to make a change to the manifest to support installation, but nothing more than that. And because the off-browser application runs in the same sandbox as the in-browser application, there are also no security warning messages on installation.

From the user’s perspective, there are two methods to take the application off-browser. The first is the right click on the application. A second option (besides the Silverlight Configuration that has always been there) is visible to indicates that the application to be installed. Also, it is possible to place a button on the application that will install the application.

The manifest is where most of the information used in the installation exists. The name, description and icons related to the application are stored there, along with the flag indicating whether the application can be taken off-browser.

Updating the Silverlight application is exactly the same as the traditional Silverlight application. Which is to say that updates are downloaded and installed automatically. This keeps it consistent with the Silverlight model, where new versions are automatically picked up. The biggest difference is that once a new version is detected and downloaded, the Silverlight application does not automatically terminate and start running the new version. It waits until the next time that the application starts before launching the new version.

Warning – in the beta version, there appears to be a bug associated with updating from your localhost. In the words of the Silverlight PM, it’s a little flaky.

In terms of interacting with the client, an off-browser Silverlight app still has access to the Insolated store. And through the OpenFile and SaveFile dialogs, access to the local file system. There is  a quota on isolated storage, but it is increased to 25MB from it’s current size of 1MB. That’s nice and probably sufficient for most applications.

There are still a number of open questions about off-browser Silverlight applications. Is there an event raised when the application is closed (this is done through Javascript in normal Silverlight applications)? Is there a mechanism that simplifies serialization and synchronization? Should there be a way to uninstall the application other than by right-clicking on it (what if the app can’t load)? I’m sure time and the need to make this work in the real world will provide answers.

Go Beyond Best Practices Session at MIX ‘09

Because I already had some exposure to Silverlight 3 at the MVP Summit, I thought I’d start off with a session directed at creating user experiences. Not to mention that I was interested in the idea of going beyond the superlative of ‘best’ :)

The basic premise of the talk revolves around the idea that companies that succeed find ways to get customers to engage with them. The experience of using the customer transcends the details of the product or service being offered. He mentioned a book called “Firms of Endearment” which describes companies that arouse passion from the people involved. The authors of the book determined that companies that fit this model, exhibit a number of characteristics. One is described by the SPICE model.

Consider the following categories.

  • Society
  • Partners
  • Investors
  • Customers
  • Employees

The value created by the companies in Firms of Endearment was equally important across all of these constituencies. Experience is about the effects that we create for these constituencies.

But experience is becoming a buzzword. That is to say, it’s a phrase that businesses use to think that

For most businesses, process is more important that effect. People follow the ‘process’ without a thought to what the effect on others might be. Experiences are a combination of behaviors, attitudes and emotions. For most companies, the emotional side is what’s lacking.

For example, Fed Ex doesn’t believe that it’s in the delivery business. It thinks it’s in the ‘peace of mind’ business. This is really about engineering the experience that people have when they use your product/service. It’s about creating clues as to how important you consider your constituents to be. These clues are frequently small and subtle. And the effort to perform them is also small. But a focus on ROI has obscured the the need to actually follow through. The suggestion is that instead, there should be some concentration on ROY. As in Y not provide the clues necessary to make customers/employees/etc realize that you are as passionate about the business they they are.

I found the presentation interesting. At a minimum, it gave me pause to think about how ObjectSharp delivers to this constituencies. While I think we do a decent job, there are certainly areas where we can improve. And we probably need to pay closer attention to the details of the experience that our customers have. And, in many cases, it’s the details that are more important than anything else.

MIX ‘09 Keynote – Part 3

Some additional Silverlight 3 improvements that are being announced.

  • Data Binding improvements, specifically element-to-element bindings
  • Validation error templates, although there is no support for the IDataErrorInfo interface
  • improvements on the ability to push data from the server to the client. Conceptually, this is similar to callback functionality in WCF.
  • Introduction of a DomainServices class that is used to generate a proxy class on the client. The proxy class has the ability to track and marshal changes between the client and server.
  • Validation logic can be declaratively defined on the DomainServices derived class. The generated proxy class will contain the same validation, triggering the error template within Silverlight.

And now, the big news.

Silverlight 3 will be able to run outside of the browser on both Windows and the Mac. Security is the same sandbox model used from within the browser. There is built-in support for automatic updates. And the application can be aware of its off-line/on-line situation. There will be more about this later in the week, I’m sure.

MIX ‘09 Keynote – Part 2

More stuff on the Web server side of the equation. There is a new version of the Web Platform Installer. This doesn’t have any impact on me, at least not in the past. But there is now a gallery of community-based applications, such as DotNetNuke, DasBlog and WordPress that can be automatically installed onto a web server through the Platform Installer. Not useful to me, but nice to people who are trying to streamline the build-out of a Web server. You can see a list of these applications here.

Silverlight 3.0 has some new functionality to improve functionality. There will be hardware-based acceleration for compositing, where available. And there are a number of features aimed at improving the media experience. A gentleman from NBC came out and showed some stats on the Beijing Olympics and Silverlight. As well, NBC will do the same for the Vancouver Olympics. Forgive me for not caring, as none of this is available in Canada.

You will probably hear that Silverlight has 3D functionality. A warning that it is not true 3D, but the ability to move a 2D image in three dimensions. The actual term is ‘perspective transform’. If you have to ask about the difference, then you probably don’t care. But for those that do, visualize a flat-screen image that can be rotated about the X-, Y-, or Z-axis so that it appears to be spinning. Hit testing works appropriately (you can only click on the image, regardless of how it is oriented.

Silverlight 3.0 will provide a better experience for SEO. This includes the capability of supporting deep linking and navigation.

Going back to the idea that support for a sketch-based workflow, Expression Blend 3 will have a features called SketchFlow. This feature allows for easy navigation through a collection of pages. The interface allows for quick and simple creation of the workflow through an application. Each state in the workflow corresponds to a page.

One of the things that is interesting about the creation of the pages in a workflow is the inclusion of Wiggly controls. These are controls that, through their appearance, will not be mistaken for a completed application. The borders on the controls take on the appearance of a hand-drawn image. Yet the controls are still real WPF controls, meaning that they work in the Blend and, indeed, when the applications is ‘run’ through the SketchFlow prototyping tool..

MIX ‘09 Keynote – Part 1

The first part of the keynote was Bill Buxton talking about the benefits of considering user experience and design when creating an application. Certainly a good speaker with passion about hit topics. But I’m afraid that he’s preaching to the converted. He touted the idea of coming up with 5 solutions to any problem, allow the best one to float to the surface. While this is a fine idea, I’m afraid that it will run up against the shoal of fiscal prudence as soon as it gets pitched to management. The trick will be to convince management that five solutions is worth while. He mentioned sketching as a technique, but I’m still waiting for tools to support this approach. The ability to transition from a ‘sketch’ to a WPF form would be quite useful to fill this gap.

One more thing about Bill’s talk. He gave a quote, almost as a throwaway, that I’m sure I’ll use in the future “It’s too important to take it seriously”. While that sounds like a contradiction, I think that in the design space, the implication is that user experience should have some focus on fun and excitement over pure serious. When you think about the shining lights of user experience applications, you’ll find that ‘fun’ and ‘cool’ are big parts of the success.

The first portion of Scott Guthrie’s presentation talked about Web functionality. Expression Web 3 contains a feature called SuperPreview, which allows pages in Expression Web to be viewed (either side-by-side or onion skinned) as they will be rendered in other browsers. This includes browsers that you don’t have installed on your system. The functionality of SuperPreview also makes it easier to identify and isolate problems with rendering in the different versions. The Web 3 version support (at a minimum) IE versions, as well as Firefox and Safari. But there is also a standalone version of SuperPreview which allows comparison between IE 6, 7 and 8. You can download it here.

On the Road to MIX ‘09

I’m writing this particular blog post while in the air on the way to Las Vegas. For the next three days, I’m going to be at the MIX ‘09 conference. For regular readers of my blogs, that means you can expect a flurry of posts. I tend to live-blog the sessions that I’m in (particularly the keynotes) as a way of note taking, if nothing more. In this way, if nothing more, it is completely different than the MVP Summit I was at a couple of weeks ago.

Actually, there are some other differences. Where the MVP Summit is as much about giving information to Microsoft as it is about receiving, MIX is all about the receiving. While I have some inkling about some of the announcements that you’ll be hearing about, I also know that they have kept some under wraps. Which means that they were even held back from the NDA sessions at the MVP Summit. So, even though I already have some blog posts ready to go, I will still need to pay attention to what’s being discussed. And I’ll pass the good stuff on to you as soon as I can.