The Silverlight Streaming service has just been refreshed in production with a few goodies that I hope you'll enjoy using as much as we enjoyed creating them.
First, you'll notice is that there is a new way of invoking applications hosted in Silverlight Streaming. The good old iFrame and the more recent Windows Live invocation methods are still there for you, and we have added a way to redistribute applications hosted in SLS as Windows desktop applications. To see it in action:
- Uploaded an app in your SLS account
- Go to the Application Properties page (by clicking on the app name in the Manage Applications page)
- Scroll down to the bottom of the page, look at the Method 3
- Click on [link] to see the end result
- Save the link as a shortcut, send it to your friends, et voilà!
Second, we have deployed a very significant performance improvement for the accounts that use a large number of file sets, like several thousands. Popular applications hosted in SLS, or dealing with content hosted in SLS, may require a very large number of file sets if they create one or more for each of their users. This prop will dramatically improve the performance in terms of page load times when rendering the iFrame coming from SLS.
A good example of such an application is Photozoom, which leverages the oh so sweet DeepZoom functionality in Silverlight 2. If you haven't already tried it, go check it out, it will be worth your while.
Third, the previously very restrictive naming support for file sets of applications uploaded to SLS using the administration web site has been improved to be on par with the WebDAV API character support. This apparently innocuous change will make the life of many of our International friends happy no doubt, and will contribute to a more consistent user experience whether you use the service API or admin web site.
And of course we fixed a few bugs that will make this Silverlight Streaming beta even better. Keep using the service, spread the word, and the feedback coming on the developer forum.
Thank you!