WHAT’S NEW IN SILVERLIGHT 3 BETA?

FULLY SUPPORTED BY VISUAL STUDIO AND EXPRESSION BLEND, HIGHLIGHTS OF NEW FEATURES AND FUNCTIONALITY OF SILVERLIGHT 3 INCLUDE: MAJOR MEDIA ENHANCEMENTS, OUT OF BROWSER SUPPORT ALLOWING WEB APPLICATIONS TO WORK ON THE DESKTOP; SIGNIFICANT GRAPHICS IMPROVEMENTS INCLUDING 3D GRAPHICS SUPPORT, GPU ACCELERATION AND H.264 VIDEO SUPPORT; AND MANY FEATURES TO IMPROVE RIA DEVELOPMENT PRODUCTIVITY. ALSO, IN ORDER TO FULLY INTEGRATE ALL THE .NET DEVELOPER TOOLS, VISUAL STUDIO 2008, VISUAL STUDIO 2010 AND VISUAL WEB DEVELOPER EXPRESS WILL SUPPORT A FULLY EDITABLE AND INTERACTIVE DESIGNER FOR SILVERLIGHT. NEW FEATURES IN SILVERLIGHT 3 INCLUDE:

完美支持VS和EXPRESSION BLEND, 特别强调的一些新的特性包括：主流媒体方面的增强，支持OUT OF BROWSER（即可以使WEB程序在桌面运行而不用运行浏览器程序）; 图形方面有很大的提升，包括支持3D图形，GPU加速和H.264高清视频格式的支持; 另外还有很多提升RIA开发的特性。   当然，为了完全与。NET 开发工具集成，VS2008，VS2010及VISUAL WEB DEVELOPER EXPRESS将支持SILVERLIGHT完全的可编辑和交互设计体验, 具体的新的特性如下：

• SUPPORT FOR HIGHER QUALITY VIDEO & AUDIO. WITH SUPPORT FOR NATIVE H.264/ADVANCED AUDIO CODING (AAC) AUDIO, LIVE AND ON-DEMAND IIS7 SMOOTH STREAMING, FULL HD (720P+) PLAYBACK, AND AN EXTENSIBLE DECODER PIPELINE, SILVERLIGHT 3 BRINGS RICH, FULL-SCREEN, STUTTER-FREE MEDIA EXPERIENCES TO THE DESKTOP. NEW AND ENHANCED MEDIA FEATURES IN SILVERLIGHT 3 INCLUDE: 
  • LIVE AND ON-DEMAND TRUE HD (720P+) SMOOTH STREAMING. IIS MEDIA SERVICES (FORMERLY IIS MEDIA PACK), AN INTEGRATED HTTP MEDIA DELIVERY PLATFORM, FEATURES SMOOTH STREAMING WHICH DYNAMICALLY DETECTS AND SEAMLESSLY SWITCHES, IN REAL TIME, THE VIDEO QUALITY OF A MEDIA FILE DELIVERED TO SILVERLIGHT BASED ON LOCAL BANDWIDTH AND CPU CONDITIONS.
  • MORE FORMAT CHOICE. IN ADDITION TO NATIVE SUPPORT FOR VC-1/WMA, SILVERLIGHT 3 NOW OFFERS USERS NATIVE SUPPORT FOR MPEG-4-BASED H.264/AAC AUDIO, ENABLING CONTENT DISTRIBUTORS TO DELIVER HIGH-QUALITY CONTENT TO A WIDE VARIETY OF COMPUTERS AND DEVICES.
  • TRUE HD PLAYBACK IN FULL-SCREEN. LEVERAGING GRAPHICS PROCESSOR UNIT (GPU) HARDWARE ACCELERATION, SILVERLIGHT EXPERIENCES CAN NOW BE DELIVERED IN TRUE FULL-SCREEN HD (720P+).
  • EXTENSIBLE MEDIA FORMAT SUPPORT. WITH THE NEW RAW AV PIPELINE, SILVERLIGHT CAN EASILY SUPPORT A WIDE VARIETY OF THIRD-PARTY CODECS. AUDIO AND VIDEO CAN BE DECODED OUTSIDE THE RUNTIME AND RENDERED IN SILVERLIGHT, EXTENDING FORMAT SUPPORT BEYOND THE NATIVE CODECS.
  • INDUSTRY LEADING CONTENT PROTECTION. SILVERLIGHT DRM, POWERED BY PLAYREADY CONTENT PROTECTION ENABLES PROTECTED IN-BROWSER EXPERIENCES USING AES ENCRYPTION OR WINDOWS MEDIA DRM.

·          支持高品质的视频和音频。    支持原生的H.264/ADVANCED AUDIO CODING(AAC) 音频，支持IIS7中的 LIVE(直播模式)的和ON-DEMAND(按需模式) 平滑STREAMING, 高清(720P+)的视频回放及扩展的编码管道, SILVERLIGHT 3带来了更丰富,全屏的, 流畅的可在桌面上应用的特性, 列表如下:

O    LIVE(直播模式)的和ON-DEMAND(按需模式) 的支持真正高清的(720P+)的平滑STREAMING.

O    支持更多格式

O    全屏模式下的高清回放支持

O    可扩展的媒体格式支持

O    业界领先的内容保护技术

• EMPOWERING RICHER EXPERIENCES. SILVERLIGHT 3 CONTAINS NEW 3D GRAPHICS, ANIMATION FEATURES, HARDWARE ACCELERATED EFFECTS AND TEXT IMPROVEMENTS THAT ENABLE DESIGNERS AND DEVELOPERS TO CREATE NEXT GENERATION WEB VISUALS. ADDITIONAL FEATURES INCLUDE: 
  • PERSPECTIVE 3D GRAPHICS. SILVERLIGHT 3 ALLOWS DEVELOPERS AND DESIGNERS TO APPLY CONTENT TO A 3D PLANE. USERS CAN ROTATE OR SCALE LIVE CONTENT IN SPACE WITHOUT WRITING ANY ADDITIONAL CODE. OTHER EFFECTS INCLUDE CREATING A QUEUE IN 3D AND TRANSITIONS.
  • PIXEL SHADER EFFECTS. THESE SOFTWARE BASED EFFECTS INCLUDE BLUR AND DROP SHADOW. IN ADDITION, YOU CAN ALSO WRITE YOUR OWN EFFECT. EFFECTS CAN BE APPLIED TO ANY GRAPHICAL CONTENT. AN EXAMPLE WOULD BE TO MAKE A BUTTON APPEAR DEPRESSED ON ROLLOVER YOU COULD USE A DROP SHADOW EFFECT ON THE PRESSED VISUAL STATE.
  • BITMAP CACHING. SILVERLIGHT 3 DRAMATICALLY IMPROVES THE RENDERING PERFORMANCE OF APPLICATIONS BY ALLOWING USERS TO CACHE VECTOR CONTENT, TEXT AND CONTROLS INTO BITMAPS. THIS FEATURE IS USEFUL FOR BACKGROUND CONTENT AND FOR CONTENT WHICH NEEDS TO SCALE WITHOUT MAKING CHANGES TO ITS INTERNAL APPEARANCE.
  • NEW BITMAP API. WITH SILVERLIGHT 3, DEVELOPERS CAN NOW WRITE PIXELS TO A BITMAP. THUS, THEY CAN BUILD A PHOTO EDITOR TO DO RED EYE CORRECTION, PERFORM EDITS ON SCANNED DOCUMENTS OR CREATE SPECIALS EFFECTS FOR CACHED BITMAPS FROM ELEMENTS ON THE SCREEN.
  • THEMED APPLICATION SUPPORT. DEVELOPERS CAN NOW THEME APPLICATIONS BY APPLYING STYLES TO THEIR SILVERLIGHT 3 APPLICATIONS AND CHANGING THEM AT RUNTIME. ADDITIONALLY, DEVELOPERS CAN CASCADE STYLES BY BASING THEM ON EACH OTHER.
  • ANIMATION EFFECTS. SILVERLIGHT 3 PROVIDES NEW EFFECTS SUCH AS SPRING AND BOUNCE. THESE MAKE ANIMATION MORE NATURAL. DEVELOPERS CAN ALSO NOW DEVELOP THEIR OWN MATHEMATICAL FUNCTIONS TO DESCRIBE AN ANIMATION.
  • ENHANCED CONTROL SKINNING. SILVERLIGHT 3 PROVIDES EASIER SKINNING CAPABILITIES BY KEEPING A COMMON SET OF CONTROLS EXTERNAL FROM AN APPLICATION. THIS ALLOWS THE SHARING OF STYLES AND CONTROL SKINS BETWEEN DIFFERENT APPLICATIONS.
  • IMPROVED TEXT RENDERING & FONT SUPPORT. SILVERLIGHT 3 ALLOWS FAR MORE EFFICIENT RENDERING AND RAPID ANIMATION OF TEXT. APPLICATIONS ALSO LOAD FASTER BY ENABLING THE USE OF LOCAL FONTS.

·          更强的更丰富的用户体验.

O    支持3D图形

O    PIXEL阴影支持

O    BITMAP缓存

O    新的BITMAP API.

O    程序支持皮肤更换

O    动画效果

O    增强的控件皮肤支持

O    增强的文字渲染和字体支持.

• IMPROVING RICH INTERNET APPLICATION PRODUCTIVITY. NEW FEATURES INCLUDE: 
  • 60+ CONTROLS WITH SOURCE CODE : SILVERLIGHT 3 IS PACKED WITH OVER 60 HIGH-QUALITY, FULLY SKINNABLE AND CUSTOMIZABLE OUT-OF-THE-BOX CONTROLS SUCH AS CHARTING AND MEDIA, NEW LAYOUT CONTAINERS SUCH AS DOCK AND VIEWBOX, AND CONTROLS SUCH AS AUTOCOMPLETE, TREEVIEW AND DATAGRID. THE CONTROLS COME WITH NINE PROFESSIONAL DESIGNED THEMES AND THE SOURCE CODE CAN BE MODIFIED/RECOMPILED OR UTILIZED AS-IS. OTHER ADDITIONS INCLUDE MULTIPLE SELECTION IN LISTBOX CONTROLS, FILE SAVE DIALOG MAKING IT EASIER TO WRITE FILES, AND SUPPORT FOR MULTIPLE PAGE APPLICATIONS WITH NAVIGATION.
  • DEEP LINKING. SILVERLIGHT 3 INCLUDES SUPPORT FOR DEEP LINKING, WHICH ENABLES BOOKMARKING A PAGE WITHIN A RIA.
  • SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO). SILVERLIGHT 3 ENABLES USERS TO SOLVE THE SEO-RELATED CHALLENGES POSED BY RIAS. BY UTILIZING BUSINESS OBJECTS ON THE SERVER, TOGETHER WITH ASP.NET CONTROLS AND SITE MAPS, USERS CAN AUTOMATICALLY MIRROR DATABASE-DRIVEN RIA CONTENT INTO HTML THAT IS EASILY INDEXED BY THE LEADING SEARCH ENGINES.
  • ENHANCED DATA SUPPORT SILVERLIGHT 3 DELIVERS: 
    • ELEMENT TO ELEMENT BINDING : UI DESIGNERS USE BINDING BETWEEN TWO UI PROPERTIES TO CREATE COMPELLING UI EXPERIENCES. SILVERLIGHT NOW ENABLES PROPERTY BINDING TO CLR OBJECTS AND OTHER UI COMPONENTS VIA XAML, FOR INSTANCE BINDING A SLIDER VALUE TO THE VOLUME CONTROL OF A MEDIA PLAYER.
    • DATA FORMS. THE DATA FORM CONTROL PROVIDES SUPPORT FOR LAYOUT OF FIELDS, VALIDATION, UPDATING AND PAGING THROUGH DATA.
    • NEW FEATURES FOR DATA VALIDATION WHICH AUTOMATICALLY CATCH INCORRECT INPUT AND WARN THE USER WITH BUILT-IN VALIDATION CONTROLS.
    • SUPPORT FOR BUSINESS OBJECTS ON BOTH CLIENT AND SERVER WITH N-TIER DATA SUPPORT. EASILY LOAD, SORT, FILTER AND PAGE DATA WITH ADDED SUPPORT FOR WORKING WITH DATA. INCLUDES A NEW BUILT-IN COLLECTIONVIEW TO PERFORM A SET OF COMPLEX OPERATIONS AGAINST SERVER SIDE DATA. A NEW SET OF .NET RIA SERVICES SUPPORTS THESE FEATURES ON THE SERVER.
  • IMPROVED PERFORMANCE, THROUGH: 
    • APPLICATION LIBRARY CACHING, WHICH REDUCES THE SIZE OF APPLICATIONS BY CACHING FRAMEWORK ON THE CLIENT IN ORDER TO IMPROVE RENDERING PERFORMANCE.
    • ENHANCED DEEP ZOOM, ALLOWS USERS TO FLUIDLY NAVIGATE THROUGH LARGER IMAGE COLLECTIONS BY ZOOMING.
    • BINARY XML ALLOWS COMMUNICATION WITH THE SERVER TO BE COMPRESSED, GREATLY INCREASING THE SPEED AT WHICH DATA CAN BE EXCHANGED.
    • LOCAL CONNECTION THIS FEATURE ALLOWS COMMUNICATION BETWEEN TWO SILVERLIGHT APPLICATIONS ON THE CLIENT-SIDE WITHOUT INCURRING A SERVER ROUNDTRIP: FOR INSTANCE A CHART IN ONE CONTROL CAN COMMUNICATE WITH A DATAGRID IN ANOTHER.

·          提升RIA开发效率.  新特性包括:

O    超过60种控件使用及其源代码

O    DEEP LINKING特性(大概是指可以对某个页面进行书签标记).

O    SEO支持

O    增强的数据支持   

             元素到元素的绑定

             数据表单

             新的数据验证功能

             支持业务对象

O    性能方面的提升

            程序库缓存

            增强的DEEP ZOOM

            二进制化的XML

            本地连接    此特性可以使2个SILVERLIGHT程序进行交互而不用通过服务器端,比如:一个控件中的图表与另一个中的DATAGIRD进行交互.

• ADVANCED ACCESSIBILITY FEATURES. SILVERLIGHT 3 IS THE FIRST BROWSER PLUG-IN TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO ALL SYSTEM COLORS, ALLOWING PARTIALLY-SIGHTED PEOPLE TO MAKE CHANGES SUCH AS HIGH CONTRAST COLOR SCHEMES FOR EASE OF READABILITY BY USING FAMILIAR OPERATING SYSTEM CONTROLS.
• 更先进的可用性特性.  SILVERLIGHT3是第一个可以访问所有系统颜色的浏览器插件程序, 这样可以使一些对某些颜色不太敏感的客户进行适当调整,比如对比对等等.
• OUT OF BROWSER CAPABILITIES. THE NEW OUT OF BROWSER EXPERIENCE IN SILVERLIGHT 3 ENABLES USERS TO PLACE THEIR FAVORITE SILVERLIGHT APPLICATIONS DIRECTLY ONTO THEIR PC AND MAC, WITH LINKS ON THE DESKTOP AND START MENU—ALL WITHOUT THE NEED TO DOWNLOAD AN ADDITIONAL RUNTIME OR BROWSER PLUG-IN. FURTHER, THE NEW EXPERIENCE ENABLES SILVERLIGHT APPLICATIONS TO WORK WHETHER THE COMPUTER IS CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET OR NOT—A RADICAL IMPROVEMENT TO THE TRADITIONAL WEB EXPERIENCE. FEATURES INCLUDE: 
  • LIFE OUTSIDE THE BROWSER. SILVERLIGHT APPLICATIONS CAN NOW BE INSTALLED TO AND RUN FROM THE DESKTOP AS LIGHTWEIGHT WEB COMPANIONS. THUS, USERS CAN TAKE THEIR FAVORITE WEB APPLICATIONS WITH THEM, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THEY ARE CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET OR NOT.
  • DESKTOP SHORTCUTS AND START MENU SUPPORT. SILVERLIGHT APPLICATIONS CAN BE STORED ON ANY PC OR MAC COMPUTER’S DESKTOP WITH LINKS IN THE START MENU AND APPLICATIONS FOLDER, AND SO ARE AVAILABLE WITH ONE-CLICK ACCESS.
  • SAFE AND SECURE. LEVERAGING THE SECURITY FEATURES OF THE .NET FRAMEWORK, SILVERLIGHT APPLICATIONS RUN INSIDE A SECURE SANDBOX WITH PERSISTENT ISOLATED STORAGE. THESE APPLICATIONS HAVE MOST OF THE SAME SECURITY RESTRICTIONS AS TRADITIONAL WEB APPS AND SO CAN BE TRUSTED WITHOUT SECURITY WARNINGS OR PROMPTS, MINIMIZING USER INTERRUPTIONS.
  • SMOOTH INSTALLATION. BECAUSE SILVERLIGHT APPLICATIONS ARE STORED IN A LOCAL CACHE AND DO NOT REQUIRE EXTRA PRIVILEGES TO RUN, THE INSTALLATION PROCESS IS QUICK AND EFFICIENT.
  • AUTO-UPDATE. UPON LAUNCH, SILVERLIGHT APPLICATIONS CAN CHECK FOR NEW VERSIONS ON THE SERVER, AND AUTOMATICALLY UPDATE IF ONE IS FOUND.
  • INTERNET CONNECTIVITY DETECTION. SILVERLIGHT APPLICATIONS CAN NOW DETECT WHETHER THEY HAVE INTERNET CONNECTIVITY AND CAN REACT INTELLIGENTLY INCLUDING CACHING A USERS’ DATA UNTIL THEIR CONNECTION IS RESTORED.

·          支持OUT OF BROWSER功能.  这个特性可以让用户将他们喜欢的SILVERLIGHT程序直接放到他们的桌面或开始菜单中,而不用去下载任何运行环境和打开浏览器程序. 将来,这个特性将进一步增强, 可以在有网络连接或无网络连接的前提下运行, 对于传统WEB体验这是一个质的提升. 列表如下:

O    浏览器外运行

O    桌面快捷方式和开始菜单支持

O    安全和隐私

O    轻松安装

O    自动更新

O    INTERNET 连接检测

NEW FEATURES IN EXPRESSION BLEND 3: THE DESIGNER-DEVELOPER WORKFLOW TOOK ANOTHER MAJOR STEP FORWARD TODAY WITH MAJOR INNOVATIONS IN EXPRESSION BLEND 3 INCLUDING: SKETCHFLOW, A RAPID PROTOTYPING CAPABILITY THAT MAKES IT EASY TO COMMUNICATE DESIGN INTENT TO STAKEHOLDERS; DESIGN TIME SAMPLE DATA THAT ENABLES THE DESIGN AND TESTING OF APPLICATIONS WITHOUT ACCESS TO LIVE DATA; DIRECT IMPORT OF ADOBE PHOTOSHOP AND ILLUSTRATOR FILES; BEHAVIORS, EXTENSIBLE AND REUSABLE COMPONENTS THAT ADD INTERACTIVITY TO APPLICATIONS WITHOUT WRITING CODE; A FULL CODE EDITOR SUPPORTING C#, VB AND XAML; AND MANY MORE FEATURES THAT SUPPORT AN IMPROVED DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE. FEATURES INCLUDE:

• SKETCHFLOW. SKETCHFLOW INTRODUCES A NEW SET OF FEATURES DESIGNED TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR YOU TO EXPERIMENT WITH DYNAMIC USER EXPERIENCES AND CREATE COMPELLING PROTOTYPES. SKETCHFLOW ALSO HELPS COMMUNICATE DESIGN IDEAS TO OTHER STAKEHOLDERS, AND MAKES IT EASIER TO COLLECT IN-CONTEXT ANNOTATED FEEDBACK. SKETCHFLOW ENABLES THE NAVIGATION AND COMPOSITION OF AN APPLICATION TO BE MODELED IN A VERY VISUAL MANNER FROM A SIMPLE PROTOTYPE THAT USES A SERIES OF SKETCHES, TO SOMETHING MUCH MORE EVOLVED. A PROTOTYPE CAN BE MADE AS REAL AND INTERACTIVE AS IT NEEDS TO BE TO COMMUNICATE DESIGN INTENT AND SKETCHFLOW CAN LEVERAGE ALL THE EXISTING FEATURES OF EXPRESSION BLEND.
• ADOBE PHOTOSHOP AND ILLUSTRATOR IMPORT. THE POWERFUL IMPORTERS FOR BOTH ADOBE PHOTOSHOP AND ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR ENABLE SMOOTH INTEGRATION WITH WORKFLOWS THE DESIGNER ALREADY HAS IN PLACE. THE DESIGNER HAS FREEDOM TO VIEW AND IMPORT PHOTOSHOP FILES LAYER BY LAYER. LAYERS CAN BE EASILY REGROUPED AND ELEMENTS RETAIN THEIR ORIGINAL FORMATS; LAYERS, LAYER POSITIONS, EDITABLE TEXT AND VECTORS REMAIN AVAILABLE FOR EDITING WITHIN EXPRESSION BLEND.
• BEHAVIORS. ADD INTERACTIVITY TO YOUR APPLICATION, WITHOUT HAVING TO WRITE CODE. BEHAVIORS CAN ENCAPSULATE COMPLEX DESIGN INTERACTIONS INTO REUSABLE COMPONENTS WHICH CAN BE DIRECTLY APPLIED TO A USER INTERFACE ELEMENT IN THE APPLICATION. DEVELOPERS HAVE ACCESS TO A RICH API THAT THEY CAN USE TO WRITE THEIR OWN TRIGGERS, ACTIONS, AND BEHAVIORS FOR USE IN THEIR SILVERLIGHT AND WPF PROJECTS.
• SAMPLE DATA. DESIGN TIME SAMPLE DATA MAKES IT EASY TO BUILD DATA-CONNECTED APPLICATIONS WITHOUT ACCESS TO LIVE DATA. YOU CAN GENERATE SAMPLE DATA OR IMPORT SAMPLE DATA FROM AN XML FILE AND IS AVAILABLE TO CONTROLS ON THE ARTBOARD AT DESIGN-TIME. YOU CAN EXTENSIVELY CUSTOMIZE YOUR SAMPLE DATA DETAILS, AND YOU CAN EASILY SWITCH BETWEEN USING SAMPLE DATA AND USING LIVE DATA AT RUN-TIME.
• IMPROVED DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE. EXPRESSION BLEND 3 INCLUDES MANY FEATURES THAT IMPROVE THE OVERALL DESIGN EXPERIENCE INCLUDING A BRAND NEW DESIGN SURFACE MAKING BLEND MORE ACCESSIBLE TO VISUAL DESIGNERS. TEAM FOUNDATION SERVER SUPPORT ALLOWS EASIER INTEGRATION OF THE BLEND USER INTO TEAM SYSTEM. IMPROVED ANIMATION AND EASING FUNCTIONS, 3D TRANSFORMS, VISUAL EFFECTS AND AN IMPROVED VISUAL STATE MANAGER ENABLE A GREAT TOOLING EXPERIENCE.

EXPRESSION BLEND 3中的新特性:  常用的DESIGNER-DEVELOPER(UI设计者与程序开发者)工作流有了新的改进,其中主要的创新有:  SKETCHFLOW(草图流程), 即一个快速简单的方式来使设计理念与占位符有效沟通；在设计时的一些示例数据可以使设计和测试时并不真正访问数据源；直接支持导入ADOBE PHOTOSHOP和ILLUSTRATOR文件；一些组件的行为,可扩展性,重用性的配置可以不用写代码而通过交互的配置程序进行；一个完整的代码编辑器,支持C#,VB和XAML；另外还有很多用来增强设计和开发相关应用程序体验的特性.包括:

·          SKETCHFLOW

·          直接支持导入ADOBE PHOTOSHOP和ILLUSTRATOR文件

·          新的配置行为.  减少编写代码的数量.

·          SAMPLE数据功能.    便于测试

·          增强设计和开发相关应用程序体验

THE ABOVE FEATURES WITH THE EXCEPTION OF SKETCHFLOW AND BEHAVIORS ARE AVAILABLE IN THE EXPRESSION BLEND 3 PREVIEW. BOTH SKETCHFLOW AND A COMPLETE SELECTION OF BEHAVIORS WILL BE AVAILABLE IN A FORTHCOMING BETA RELEASE OF BLEND 3.

转自silverlight上海开发团队的文章如下:
1. 支持更多的媒体编码格式

在Silverlight3中新增加的多媒体编码格式包括H.264，AAC，MP4。Silverlight这项技术，从出生以来，就一直把对多媒体，尤其是视频的支持，放在首要位置。这次对更多的编码格式提供支持，方便网站建设者更容易的发布、部署视频资料，只需要如下一行XML：

2. 利用GPU加速

随着显卡计算能力的加强，应用程序把越来越多的图形计算任务从CPU中拿出来交给GPU完成。然而，要利用到GPU，对程序员而言通常意味着更多的编码任务，在Silverlight3中，这个任务的复杂程度被大大简化，只需要在XAML中多加入几行XML代码，就可以轻松享受GPU的超强计算能力，贴一张GPU渲染的效果图：

3. 透视化3D
透视化3D，简单的说，就是把2D对象放到3D空间中去。和传统的3D把一个3D空间的对象投影到2D空间中不同，透视化3D意味着更高的性能，更友好的编程接口，同时能完成我们80%的3D任务。好了，说了那么多，来看一个demo，一行XAML带来的变化：

r.projection>

 

以上这个例子，稍加扩展，就可以在silverlight3中，在3D空间中旋转一个控件。

4. 自定义特效
在silverlight3中，引入了shader的概念，它是一个像素粒度的操作——每当silverlight3要显示一个像素的时候，它对shader说：“我要显示这个像素了，你是否要做些处理，实现某些特效？”。我们来看看shader的强大之处：下面一个示例中，左边的图像是背景图像，右边的图像是前景图像，在silverlight3之前，我们尽管可以同时显示这两个图像，但是背景图像会被前景遮住。（当然可以设 置前景的透明度，但是这样整个前景图像的清晰度就下降了）我们在显示前景图像的时候可以应用一个shader：把所有的黑色过滤掉。这样，我们在前景上过滤掉所有黑色背景的同时，还拥有了一个清晰的火焰。

5. 更多的控件支持
每一个新的silverlight版本的发布，都伴随着很多新的控件的问世。这个版本也不例外，新推出的控件有：DockPanel，Expander，Label，TreeView，ViewBox等等。在这里举一个“Save as…”(另存为)控件的例子。可能有的朋友会问，“另存为”作为一个耳熟能详的控件，为什么要等到silverlight3才提供？答案是出于安全性的考虑：silverlight为了保护用户的安全，对本地文件的读写有很大的限制。（否则的话，如果服务器端可以随意读写用户的本地文件，那么就很容易做出一个钓鱼网站了）。silverlight3中，对另存为控件的支持也有着安全性的考虑。开发人员可以创建一个SaveFileDialog实例，但是当用户选定本地文件的时候，他只能得到这个文件的stream，而不是这个文件的路径。这样的设计避免了提供一个打开任意路径的本地文件的功能，从而使silverlight运行在一个更为安全的环境中。

6. 本地消息传递（local messaging）
Silverlight是浏览器的一个插件，在同一时间可能会有多个实例。比如多个浏览器同时访问包含silverlight的网页，就会有多个silverlight的实例同时运行，本地消息传递允许这些不同的siliverlight控件实例之间互相通信。

7. 在浏览器外运行silverlight
silverlight3支持把一个silverlight页面安装到本地，用户可以像一个桌面程序一样离线使用这个程序，并且可以右键卸载这个程序。

比如下面一个浏览器中运行的国际象棋程序，用户可以在右键菜单中，把它存储为一个本地程序。

然后，就可以像一个普通的桌面程序一样，运行这个程序了。同时，也能在这个桌面程序的右键菜单中卸载这个程序。