WebAqua.NET 2.0 for Silverlight 2.0 RTW is here.

Microsoft has finally released Silverlight 2.0 earlier this week. That means it’s busy time for RIA, component and platform vendors to update their applications to run on Silverlight 2.0 RTW.

Our special thanks goes to Scott Guthrie and Silverlight Development team, who have incredibly resolved dozens of bugs that we submitted during Beta 2 phase. One of the most significant fixes is related to performance which is causing CPU usage to 80% – 99%. It’s a pleasure for us to work directly with Silverlight development team!

WebAqua 2.0 is ready for Silverlight 2.0 RTW.

Although our development team managed to upgrade the codes to support Silverlight 2.0 RTW in only several days, it doesn’t mean painless. In fact, there are a lot of breaking changes — from syntaxical errors to storyboard behaviors. Not to mention the API changes from beta 2 to RTW. I’ll post more about the upgrade tips later.

By the way, we have updated Sirius 2 showcase to run on Silverlight 2.0 RTW. Check it out here. Our Developer Network has also been updated so that you can use the docking navigation in Silverlight 2.0 RTW environment.

For existing customers, login to Developer Network to obtain WebAqua 2.0 update, or use Update Manager to download and install the update automatically. For prospects, please send your email to sales@intersoftpt.com to obtain the lightweight Silverlight installer.

Breaking Changes

WebFishEye has no breaking changes. The application that you built using WebFishEye should work flawlessly as soon as you update to the latest version of WebAqua.

Similarly, WebCoverFlow has no breaking changes in general. However, if you’re customizing the ItemsReflection with LinearGradient brush, there is a minor breaking changes that introduced by Silverlight 2.0 RTW. You need to swap the StartPoint and EndPoint. See following example.

Beta 2 codes:

<ISNet_Silverlight_WebAqua:WebCoverFlow.ItemReflection>
      <LinearGradientBrush StartPoint="0.5,0.75" EndPoint="0.5,0.25">
            <GradientStop Offset="0.506"/>
            <GradientStop Color="#33000000" Offset="1"/>
      </LinearGradientBrush>
</ISNet_Silverlight_WebAqua:WebCoverFlow.ItemReflection>

Change it to (RTW codes):

<ISNet_Silverlight_WebAqua:WebCoverFlow.ItemReflection>
      <LinearGradientBrush StartPoint="0.5,0.25" EndPoint="0.5,0.75">
            <GradientStop Offset="0.506"/>
            <GradientStop Color="#33000000" Offset="1"/>
      </LinearGradientBrush>
</ISNet_Silverlight_WebAqua:WebCoverFlow.ItemReflection>

Enhancements 

The updated WebAqua 2.0 for Silverlight 2.0 RTW (Build 210) also includes several top enhancements requested by customers. They are:

• Improved performance to flow logic and animation.
• WebCoverFlow now supports item template while enabling VirtualFlow (Load-on-Demand) at the same time. With this feature, you can bind to a larger datasource (let’s say, a list of customers or products) and let WebCoverFlow manages the presentation in blazing-fast speed.

Applying the updates

• Open your Silverlight 2.0 applications in either Expression Blend 2 or Visual Studio 2008 SP1.
• Remove ISNet.Silverlight.dll and ISNet.Silverlight.WebAqua.dll from your project reference.
• Add both new assemblies from the update package to your project reference.
• Rebuild your project.

We will also release an update to ASP.NET product lines (2008 R2 Service Pack 1) by next week. The new WebAqua bits will also be included in the SP1 release. Stay tuned! 

All the best,
Jimmy.