eclipse4SL Allows Eclipse Developers to Build Silverlight Applications on Windows
and Mac

Demonstrating its commitment to openness and support for interoperability, Microsoft has collaborated with Soyatec on the Eclipse Tools for Silverlight project, an open source, cross-platform plug-in for the Eclipse development environment designed to enable Eclipse developers to build Silverlight Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). This project also provides guidance for greater interoperability between Silverlight-based applications and Java-based web sites and web services, including REST, SOAP, JSON and other standards.

The Eclipse toolkit provides choice and enables interoperability by allowing Eclipse developers to develop code for the Silverlight platform using the popular Eclipse development tool and collaborate with developers working with Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft Expression Studio tools.

Microsoft and Soyatec expanded their interoperability collaboration by releasing a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the eclipse 4SL project that adds support for the Macintosh platform. With this plug-in, both Mac and Windows developers using Eclipse can develop RIAs using the Silverlight platform. The CTP not only enables support for the development experience on a Mac, it also includes many new features also available for the Windows version.

Cross-Platform, Cross-Tool Capabilities Allow Collaboration between Web Designers, .NET and Eclipse Developers

eclipse4SL integrates advanced Silverlight development capabilities into the Eclipse Foundation's integrated development environment (IDE) and enables Eclipse developers to create applications that run on the Silverlight runtime platform.

It allows collaboration between Web Designers and .NET and Eclipse Developers, with the XAML and Silverlight projects created by Eclipse being fully supported by both Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft Expression Studio tools.

Some of the new and compelling features of the Eclipse toolkit include an advanced project system for creating Silverlight applications and media experiences, as well as a standards-compliant XAML editor with code hinting features to suggest appropriate code and parameters.

"We are proud of working on this project to provide professional Eclipse Tools focusing on Productivity and Industrialization for enterprise developers," said Yves Yang, CEO of Soyatec . "This project enforces our business position on the professional services in Eclipse tools development and the product development of declarative UI based on XAML for Java. And it concretizes a fructuous collaboration with Microsoft France teams which have supported us with their architectural expertise and enthusiasm to answer real-world enterprise interoperability issues."

The Eclipse Tools for Microsoft Silverlight Project is available as a free and open source project on SourceForge and has been submitted to the Eclipse Foundation and released as an open Eclipse project.

Microsoft-Novell Technical Collaboration Enables Open Source Implementation of Silverlight

Microsoft has also collaborated with Novell on the Moonlight Project, an open source implementation of Silverlight 1.0 that provides Linux users with access to Microsoft Silverlight and Windows media content. A pre-release of Moonlight delivered on January 19, 2009 allowed the official Internet stream of Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony to be accessible to Linux and Mac users.

Moonlight 1.0 was released in February, and is part of a technical collaboration announced by Microsoft and Novell in September of 2007. Microsoft has provided Novell with access to its test suites for Silverlight, and provides Linux end users of Moonlight with free access to the Microsoft Media Pack, a set of licensed media codecs for video and audio.

Silverlight 3 Beta Delivers Out-of-Browser Capabilities

Microsoft has announced the availability of the Silverlight 3 Beta a preview release which continues Silverlight’s track record of rapid innovation with a wide range of platform features and tooling options that enable better collaboration and more accessible and secure end-user experiences.

Over the past year Microsoft Silverlight has led the way for developers and designers to create compelling media experiences and rich Internet applications via an easy-to-use, quickly installed browser plug-in. With the preview release of Silverlight 3, developers are enabled to create lightweight Web application experiences that can exist out of the browser and build the best experiences for their customers through the creation of cutting-edge Web applications. Silverlight 3 also gives users more video format choices than ever before along with enhancements to improve navigation in Silverlight content and automate search engine optimization (SEO) tasks.