Microsoft Silverlight Books

Excellent Silverlight 3 Reference/Classroom

Matthew MacDonald's book is excellent, it is a full blown workout on Silverlight 3 so be prepared to roll-up you sleeves and dive in. This book is not only a learning tool but also a great reference source that you will go back to time and again. Plan on buying MM's Silverlight 4 book soon.

Jon in Florida
18 September, 2010

WELL DONE

well done , and waiting for the new version(SL4). A good solid foundation before Diving into SL4(silverlight).

eric njoroge
29 August, 2010

Great book

I highly recommend this book for new and experienced developers, I rarely use books as I find most information online. However this book is really good with many great examples and broad coverage of all important Silverlight topics. A must for any serious Silverlight developer!

johnm
23 July, 2010

A Deep Reference that Reads Like a Blog

Matthew MacDonald is a name I look for in software development books, and this is the third one of his books that I would rate as best I've found on its topic.

I'm using Pro Silverlight 3 in C# as a deep reference for two Silverlight projects I'm working on. I had learned the basics of Silverlight 2 at user group and training events, but needed to refresh my knowledge and extend it to version 3 features. Also, I wanted to be able to look up specific topics as I encountered a need for a particular functionality. Pro Silverlight 3 in C# was the only book I needed to accomplish al of this.

A detailed and well-organized table of contents let me pick out several chapters I started out with for review. Each chapter includes a "What's New" tip box at the beginning that allows the experienced reader to focus immediately on what sections present features added in version 3. And between the table of contents and index, I was always reading what I needed within seconds of turning to the book.

The book is enhanced with many Notes and Tips sections, and appropriately focuses on the essentials. In many ways, it reads like a series of blogs.

This book is for experienced programmers, but Silverlight beginners can still consider it. Simply start with the introduction, then a first chapter, that go from a basic description of what Silverlight is, all the way to coding and deploying a barebones Silverlight web app that prepares the reader for implementing the features discussed throughout the book. The coverage is comprehensive, even including data binding topics for data-driven web apps.

For beginning to advanced learners, the book's color-coded sample code and screen illustrations are very useful visual aids that speed learning. And the code from the book that I've tried has always worked!

Note that developers who want a visual design experience for Silverlight will need to use the new Visual Studio 2010, since VS 2008 omitted this. Or try out Microsoft's separate Expression Blend product, which is outside the scope of this book. MacDonald explains the differences in his Introduction.

I will definitely upgrade to MacDonald's next version for Silverlight 4, when it is published.


Robert Latulipe
01 July, 2010

Nice Book

I like this book, The Author has simplified the learning process. It's easy to understand with simple examples.

Nikul D. Padhya
21 June, 2010

Good Choice for Learning Silverlight

This book is well written and covers most of what you need to know about Silverlight. If you are new to Silverlight then you probably need this book.

Bob Flora
02 June, 2010

Not for designers.

Bought this to learn my way in Expression Blend to support the programming staff. So far, there has been no useful information to use for anything I've been looking for. Obviously this whole environment is a developers toolkit, but learning to integrate a design, animation and stuff that would normally be in Flash, well, it's better to search the internet.

R. Rivera
12 May, 2010

Excellent coverage of Silverlight

This is a great book for anyone wanting to get into Silverlight development. The book covers a wide array of Silverlight topics at a fairly low level providing the reader with a solid all round knowledge of the technology. Matthew MacDonald's writing style is also clear and easy to follow.

I'd like to give this book 5 stars but the editing, formatting of this book is a little sloppy. Not that that really matters to much, but it does detract from an otherwise excellent read.

S. Thompson
03 April, 2010

Best in class

By far the best book I've found on Silverlight. And I bought 4 of them. That said I still consider it a bit lightweight on Enterprise interaction and there's very little coverage of the Silverlight Toolkit. I KNOW that's technically not part of Silverlight but most developers would use many toolkit controls in a production application. Regardless - I highly recommend this book.

Matthew J. Reines
02 April, 2010

Book Review for Pro Silverlight 3 in C#-Cecil Champenois

I was first amazed at the XAML and C# code being laid out in color, as well as the graphics, or screen shots. I thought that was cool and more realistic to what you'd see in Visual Studio. Other similar books do not go to this much trouble to turn out such an appealing product. The book also contains 792 pages, including the index in the back.

This book is so well-organized and excellent in its presentation that I would not doubt if colleges and universities throughout the United States are using it for their course's text, and if not, they ought to use it to teach Silverlight to their web-programming students. This book is exceptional! I'd highly recommend it as the best book for Silverlight 3 on the market.

Matthew MacDonald explains the separation between creating the code for the Silverlight application in Visual Studio and the graphics portion (WYSIWYG) in Expression Blend. Too bad Microsoft hasn't combined this capability into one application.

This book explains XAML and the Silverlight controls in detail. The other benefit is that you get the C# code with it, which helps a lot for those who favor C#. (I favor C#.) XAML really isn't that difficult to learn. If you are an Adobe ColdFusion web developer, you will easily pick up Silverlight's XAML code. Also, when you lay out your Row Definitions, you should note that the XAML controls are not contained within the beginning and ending XAML code. Yeah, it's weird, but just realize this is how it is and move on.

You can do a lot of graphics development in Silverlight 3 with somewhat better control than by using Adobe's Flash. The more difficult graphics, of course, are prepared more easily in Expression Blend.

There is a comparison between Flash and Silverlight at the beginning of the book you should read. If you learn the XAML code in this book, it will also prepare you to write WPF forms, which have replaced Windows Forms. Or, if you are already developing desktop apps using WPF, that knowledge will also help you with XAML for Silverlight.

At first, I didn't know that there was a graphic representation of whatever XAML code you'd write, using Visual Studio 2008, but the graphical design is actually there in VS 2008. You have to pull the graphical page up to see what the XAML code is building.

If you want to see the properties for your Silverlight 3 XAML code, you will have to use Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 (not the more recent RC1). Hopefully, Microsoft will fix the Silverlight 4.0 deficiencies in their final Visual Studio 2010 release.

This is the un-official go-to Silverlight text-book. If you want the best book from which to learn Silverlight 3, get this book.

Cecil T. Champenois Jr.
08 March, 2010

The best Silverlight book I have ever purchased

Not only does this book explain XAML and the silverlight controls in details, this is the only siverlight book that gives some insight on how the silverlight framework process dependency and attached properties work. Unlike the other authors of silverlight books I bought, Mr. MacDonald takes the time to explain each Silverlight control in depth. Every chapter is filled with useful information and provides exactly what I need to make me want to continue reading some more. After reading this book, I am more confident on how to develop applications using silverlight.

David Taylor
17 February, 2010

C# and Silverlight Web Development

Pro Silverlight 3 in C# is an excellent book for applying C# and Silverlight Web design and development techniques on the job, as well as providing a good conceptual foundation of important Silverlight features.

Robert S. Hellestrae
14 February, 2010

Surprisingly Good Book

While it could have been shorter with smaller pictures, and better text layout to avoid wasting space, these aspects are hardly author's fault - unless he was doing layout and typesetting. I have to praise good, judicious use of color however - to make code much more readable and faster to follow.

Author seems to be brave and boldly going into potentially tricky matter that many authors try to avoid at any cost. In particular I opened this book after completely misleading Wrox "Silverlight 3 Programmer's Reference" (which is neither programmer's nor a reference) and to my pleasant surprise not just that I've found info on the classes the other book omitted but also examples of their actual use and in two chapters.

This is not to say that you can use this book as a reference, you'll usually have to read the whole chapter or two even if you are looking for something particular. It is however a very good how-to book that can actually show you how to do things that go bellow the surface of mere illustrations.

Zarko Berberski
10 February, 2010

Silverlight 3 in C#

This book is not for beginners, if you are looking for a beginners book I would recommend Apress Beginning Silverlight 3. Now back to the Pro Silverlight 3 in C#, I have read a couple of books but this book is different. The book is very detailed when it talks about Silverlight it also has lots of references to the Silverlight toolkit. If you are new to Silverlight this book will deliver deep knowledge to start building Silverlight applications. You will master Silverlight from the ground up and no Silverlight experience is required. You will have a solid understanding of the complete Silverlight platform. I used to develop flash sites but when Silverlight came out it opened my eyes to a whole new world. I recommend looking into Rick Barraza's blog to see what you can do with Silverlight. There you will see samples and code on Silverlight. For this book you can download the code from Apress and they also have an ebook available don't forget the book is in color!

Ricardo Martinez
05 February, 2010

In-depth coverage for developers with some knowledge of Silverlight

This is an excellent book, but with a couple of qualifications. First, it's not a tutorial-oriented book. If you're brand new to Silverlight and learn well by doing guided walk-throughs, you might want to start elsewhere. I started out with some online tutorials and another book (Silverlight 2 Unleashed). I found the content here really helped round out my knowledge of Silverlight. MacDonald does go a lot deeper than the other sources I've used.

Second, don't expect coverage of Expression Blend for designing applications - there's almost no coverage here. Creating complex animations and styles can be much easier in Blend, so you'd want to get that coverage elsewhere. It certainly helps to understand how things like layout and animations work under the hood, and the book gives a good grounding there.

B. Baker
27 January, 2010

Great Resource, Even for Amateurs

I am a developer, but fairly new to .NET, and brand-spanking new to Silverlight, so I was coming at this with brand new eyes. This book does a great job of introducing Silverlight, starting with simple examples, and building on those examples while introducing new concepts. Matthew MacDonald has a very pleasant writing style, and he clearly knows his stuff. What I particularly liked were the explanations of some of the quirks of the language or environment; Whenever I found myself thinking "Why do they do it like that?" there was a sidenote that would essentially say "You may be wondering why they did it like that..." Prescient, and clearly shows empathy for the reading experience.

Beware this is a long book, and there's more information than necessary if you just want to get up and running right away. But if you want a deep understanding of the Silverlight development experience, I think you'll find what you're looking for here.

[Full Disclosure: I signed up and was accepted to receive an e-copy of this book for review]


Eric Selje
15 December, 2009

Excelent book about Silverlight

If you want to developer in Silverlight, this is your book. It has a simple language and shows, using many examples, how to create a Silverlight application.
The author cover many aspects about how to developer using Silverlight, for example: Silverlight Tools, XAML, controls, data manipulation, layouts, events, transformations, animations, styles, data binding, templates, Multithreading, Networking and much more.
All content has many examples that show how to apply the techniques shown by the author. Out of browser application also are covered by author, using many examples and show many possibilities about this tecnique.
This book is very excelent for beginners and advanced users too, because it has all the content is very well divided into chapters, thus you can find any information quickly.
All source codes can be downloaded and they are very usefull.
This book is very enjoyable to read, why have many examples and has a very clear language.



Carlos Dos Santos
14 December, 2009

Undoubtedly the best Silverlight book

I purchased Matthew MacDonald's previous book (Silverlight 2) and was also very happy with that. I looked at a few other Silverlight 3 books (I even purchased Essential Silverlight 3 whilst I was waiting for this book to be published) but this book is seriously the one to get for both beginning and experienced Silverlight developers. It has comprehensive coverage of the things that developers need to know in order to implement and deploy a professional Silverlight application. I doubt whether you will see a bad review for this book; it was worth the wait.
As a side note, I have purchased numerous books by Apress and I commend them on their selection of authors.

Graham Churchley
14 December, 2009

Pro Silverlight 3 in C#

Book Chapters 1.Introducing Silverlight 2.XAML 3.Layout
4 Dependency properties,routed events 5.Elements
6.The Application Model 7.Navigation 8.Shapes and Geometries
9. Brushes,Transforms,BitMaps 10. Animation
11.Sound,Video,Deep Zoom 12. Styles and Behaviors
13. Templates,Custom Controls 14. Browser Integration 15 Asp.net Web Services 16.Data Binding 17. Data Controls 18. Insolated Storage 19 Multithreading 20.Networking
As you can see this book covers more ground than any other silverlight programming book and that is why this book is on my book shelf because it provides so much useful information. I wish this book would have provided greater details using web services, WCF, and Restful web services,asp.net mvc.
This book does not covers entity services, wcf ria services, Silverlight MEF, WCF 4.0, Rest 4.0 ado.net data services or Visual Studio 2010, This should be reserved for a silverlight 4 book.


W. Simons
03 December, 2009

This is the ultimate Silverlight tutorial, reference and bible!!

This is really the only book you need to become a proficient Silverlight 3 developer. It teaches you Silverlight from the ground up following a tutorial style. It covers so much of the really important things for the developers (not just drawing and doing some simple things like the Silverlight Essentials 3 book, avoid it). A book than can be read from cover to cover and it's a joy to read while you learn. Then it can be used as a reference book to check things when you need it and also because it covers so much material it becomes your Silverlight 3 bible. Only buy this book if you need to buy just one and then you will be good enough to get any remaining stuff from the web itself. This is pure gold!!

Alexis Rios
01 December, 2009

The go-to book for Silverlight development

Matthew MacDonald's Pro Silverlight 3 in C# should be regarded as the "go-to" book on Silverlight 3. This book has it all, and is approachable by all audiences, seasoned developer and beginner alike. From an introduction to XAML, Microsoft's new standard UI language, to a fine-grained, in-depth discussion of animation in Silverlight, MacDonald gives you everything you need to create functional, real-world applications in this emerging and rapidly developing platform.

The most notable and impressive aspects of this book is its applicability to very diverse audiences. Regardless of where you are coming form, this book will guide you to the point where you can create compelling and useful applications.

If you are coming from a WPF background, you will be most interested in which of the WPF features you are accustomed to using you will have to abandon to conform to Silverlight's more restrictive feature set. Fortunately, this book does a good job of pointing out those differences, and explaining how one goes about working around these deficits.

If you are new to Silverlight, Pro Silverlight 3 will deliver a wide and deep base of knowledge to start building your Silverlight 3 applications on. The first several chapters on XAML, Layout, Dependency Properties and Routed Events and Elements introduce the reader to the building blocks of Silverlight applications. A reader experienced in Silverlight 2 or WPF development could probably skip these chapters, noting only the properly distinguished notes on the differences between full WPF and Silverlight.

Throughout the book, MacDonald does an excellent job of noting the differences between Silverlight 2 and Silverlight 3. In terms of the total content of the book, these differences are relatively small, yet the power and freedom in your apps that is afforded by the new features they cover is tremendous. Readers coming from an in-depth knowledge of Silverlight 2 (or those who read his previous book) will find the differences clearly noted at the beginning of each chapter - making it easy to find just the bits you are looking for.

So no matter where you are coming from, Matthew MacDonald's Pro Silverlight 3 in C# will help you develop or grow your Silverlight skill set. This is a must-have book for developing rich internet applications on the .NET framework. I highly recommend it.


Adam Barney
30 November, 2009

A very good book that touch all the core topics needed to develop a silverlight application

It's very easy to say that " I loved reading this book and worth my time and money". The book is very easy to read. All the chapters are arranged systematically, that way it's easy for readers at every level. It starts with explaining the history of Silverlight and slowly introduces all the basic concepts necessary to develop Silverlight applications.

I loved that the author has a "What's New" sections wherever applicable, that way for people like me who is upgrading their skills from Silverlight 2 can jump to those areas if they are only interested in the new features of Silverlight. As far as the depth, the author has done a very good job of explaining all the important concepts and almost all the controls available out of the box and controls available in Silverlight Toolkit.

What I liked is that the author also mentions the limitations if any or cautions and because I have implemented multiple projects in Silverlight, I can tell that all those tips , cautions and Notes can save you lot of time and frustration. For example, the mouse wheel event only fires in IE and not in other browsers or how to handle exceptions at an application level and how VS handles them when you are in debug mode vs. release mode. Those types of tips are very useful when implementing a feature and when you put the app in productions.


All the new features like Out of Browser, Navigation are discussed. Individual chapters are dedicated to Animation and Sound, Video and Deep Zoom to go deep in these areas which was very useful for me personally.

.NET Ria Services is slightly touched, not in depth as its relatively new which can be slightly disappointing for those who want to learn about it .Data Annotations and Data Validation for the forms and other Data Controls are discussed in depth

I wished the author has talked a little bit more about Rest Services as the web Client has some limitations in areas of REST, Frameworks like Prism and Caliburn and Commonly used design patterns like MVVM and other TDD best practices in context of Silverlight

For that reason, I would say that this book is more suitable for entry level to mid level Silverlight developers. But if you are completely new to Silverlight or just touched few areas in developing Silverlight, I seriously recommend this book to get strong in all core areas of developing Silverlight applications.



Rajesh Kanaparti
27 November, 2009

Excellent

The is the best source for learning Silverlight. I started learning Silverlight after MS released Silverlight 3. This books give you everything you need even if you have not dwelled with the earlier Silverlight version.
The book gradually explains Silverlight and the chapters are very well placed in hierarchy. I downloaded the code online from Mathew's windows' live shared space.
Thanks Mathew's for the wonderful book.

S. Kadge
22 November, 2009

Yes, that's it

This book was a little late but not too late for my needs.
Since my project started a view weeks before I've got another Silverlight 3 (Essentials) book to bridge the gap.
Big mistake. It took me 1 hour to pick up the few interesting points inside.
Lessons learned: the more paean of praise on the cover the less content to expect.

This book is exactly what you need as a business developer:
browser integration, web services, multithreading, data controls (including the DataGrid), a really great explanation of data validation and binding, isolated storage,
resources, styles, behaviours, templates, out of browser, how to split your app into separate files to improve download speed und much much more. Some weeks earlier and I would have saved dozens of hours collecting answers using the Google way.

Btw: if you are an SL/XAML rookie this book is well suited for you too. I didn't mention all the other 'basic' chapters (XAML, layout, multimedia, events etc.)
Rip them out and voila: here is your "Starting with Silverlight" book.

In the introduction the author says:
"This book has the ambitious goal of being the best tutorial and reference for programming Silverlight".
At the time of this writing: yes, it is with a clear margin.


Thomas S.
18 November, 2009

By far the best resource for Silverlight 3.0

This book is by far the best resource for Silverlight 3.0. In this version the author added a whopping 185 pages to the last edition. He added chapters on Data Controls, separated the Styles, Templates, and Custom Controls into two separate chapters name Styles and Behaviors, and Templates and Custom Controls, and added a new chapter on Navigation.

I have bought 3 other books on Silverlight 3, and put together they only contain about 1/8 of the value of this book (you can see which ones they are by Googling "Shiny Turds Books that do not Cut the Mustard").

It starts out with an introduction that covers the Visual Studio Silverlight environment. He then gives a short introduction to XAML. The introductions really help those who have no experience get rolling right away.

The author covers every out of the box element in detail (including the DataGrid control and a little on the DataForm control), and includes a nice reference for where the element can be found in the book. He also covers styles and templates, brushes and transforms, shapes and geometries, animation, and layout containers.

The book covers out-of-browser applications, assembly caching, networking, multithreading, isolated storage, browser integration, media and deep zoom, wcf services, the application model, and dependency properties and routed events.

One of the things I like best about the book is it includes a lot of references and material on the Silverlight Toolkit.

The book is very readable for those that like to read cover to cover, but it also makes a great reference.

The downloadable code is very usable and very complete.

This is a must have book for any developer working with Silverlight 3.0.


T. Anderson
07 November, 2009

Awesome - The Best Silverlight 3 Book Period

First the good news - the PDF version of this book and source code are available now from the APRESS web site.

I have had this book on order for so long that Amazon actually cancelled my first order.

The PDF (and I am sure the print version) is in full color.

The book is an updated version of MacDonald's Silverlight 2 book - from the PDF it appears to have the same print quality which is superb.

If you want to learn Silverlight 3, this is the book to own - period.

David Roh


David Roh
06 November, 2009

Shipment delays

This relates more to the supply chain associated with this product rather than the product itself. Given that, by the time I finally have access to this, Silverlight 4 will be in beta and this material useless to me!!! You people need to get it together and stop undermining MacDonald's otherwise great work.

MBBSr
29 October, 2009