To create "toast" notifications (small popup messages that appear at the bottom right on Windows) the NotificationWindow class can be used.

NotificationWindow will only work in out-of-browser mode, if you try to show a notification when running in-browser a System.InvalidOperationException is thrown.

The default size of the toast is 400 x 100, the size can be altered by setting NotificationWindow's Width & Height, but the max size is 400 x 100;

Example 1 - Creating Some Simple Content

The code below shows a notification that contains a  TextBlock with the text "hello" and show it for 2 seconds:

var toast = new NotificationWindow();

// Create some content to show
var tb = new TextBlock();
tb.Text = "hello";

// Set content of the toast before we show it
toast.Content = tb;

// Show notification for 2 seconds
toast.Show(2000);

Example 2 - Using a UserControl as Content

This example shows how a UserControl defined elsewhere in XAML can be used as the content of the notification:

var toast = new NotificationWindow();

// Create an instance of a UserControl called SampleToast
// that is defined in XAML
var toastContent = new SampleToast();

// Set the content of the notification window to that of the UserControl
toast.Content = toastContent;

// Optionally set size to be different from the
// default of 400 x 100
toast.Width = 200;
toast.Height = 50;

// Show notification for 2 seconds
toast.Show(5000);

MSDN Docs

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In Silverlight 4 we can present HTML content to the user.

The WebBrowser Control

For example to display the content of DontCodeTired.com we can set the Source property in XAML:

<WebBrowser Name="webBrowser" Source="http://www.dontcodetired.com" />

Or we can use the Navigate method of WebBrowser:

webBrowser.Navigate(new Uri(@"http://www.dontcodetired.com"));

The user can navigate to links, right-click and open in new tab (which opens up tab in a full web browser), view source, etc.

To use the WebBrowser the Silverlight app must be running out of browser (OOB), if you view when embedded in a web page (i.e. not OOB) the control displays a message saying that it can only be used in Out-of-Browser mode.

WebBrowserBrush

Using the new WebBrowserBrush (previously HtmlBrush in beta 4) we can use the contents of a WebBrowser to fill another element.

For example, to fill an Ellipse with the content of a WebBrowser named "webBrowser" we define a WebBrowserBrush and sets its SourceName:

<Ellipse>
    <Ellipse.Fill>
        <WebBrowserBrush SourceName="webBrowser"  />
    </Ellipse.Fill>
</Ellipse>

The following example creates an ellipse which is filled with a blurred version of the content of a WebBrowser. One thing to note is that we hook into the WebBrowser's LoadCompleted event to ensure the ellipse is updated whenever a page has been loaded into the WebBrowser. When run it looks like the image below: 

XAML:

<UserControl x:Class="SL4HTMLHosting.MainPage"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
    xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
    mc:Ignorable="d"
    d:DesignHeight="300" d:DesignWidth="400">

    <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="White">
        <Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <RowDefinition Height="1*" />
            <RowDefinition Height="1*" />
        </Grid.RowDefinitions>
       
        <WebBrowser Name="webBrowser"
                    Source="http://www.dontcodetired.com"
                    Grid.Row="0"
                    LoadCompleted="webBrowser_LoadCompleted">
        </WebBrowser>
       
        <Ellipse HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"
                    VerticalAlignment="Stretch"
                    Grid.Row="1">
            <Ellipse.Effect>
                <BlurEffect Radius="5" />
            </Ellipse.Effect>
            <Ellipse.Fill>
                <WebBrowserBrush x:Name="browserBrush"
                                    SourceName="webBrowser"  />
            </Ellipse.Fill>
        </Ellipse>
          
    </Grid>
</UserControl>


Code Behind:

using System.Windows.Controls;

namespace SL4HTMLHosting
{
    public partial class MainPage : UserControl
    {
        public MainPage()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void webBrowser_LoadCompleted(object sender, System.Windows.Navigation.NavigationEventArgs e)
        {
            browserBrush.Redraw();
        }
    }
}

Interacting With WebBrowser Content

The following example uses WebBrowser.NavigateToString which allows a string of HTML to be rendered rather than a page at some Uri. The example creates a simple html button which uses window.external.notify to pass a message to the WebBroswer control via it's ScriptNotify event.

XAML:

<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="White">            
    <WebBrowser Name="webBrowser"
                ScriptNotify="webBrowser_ScriptNotify">                  
    </WebBrowser>          
</Grid>

Code Behind:

using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows;

namespace SL4HTMLHosting
{
    public partial class MainPage : UserControl
    {
        public MainPage()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
           
            // Create some basic HTML on the fly containing a simple button,
            // that when clicked passes a message to the containing WebBrowser
            var html = new StringBuilder();
            html.Append("<html>");
            html.Append("   <body>");
            html.Append(@"       <input type=""button"" value=""Show Message Box"" onclick=""window.external.notify('button click');"" /> ");
            html.Append("   </body>");
            html.Append("</html>");

            webBrowser.NavigateToString(html.ToString());
        }



        private void webBrowser_ScriptNotify(object sender, NotifyEventArgs e)
        {
            MessageBox.Show(string.Format("Message from web page: '{0}'.",e.Value));
        }
    }
}
 

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Silverlight 4 added the static Clipboard class with the clearly-named SetText, GetText and ContainsText methods.

If running in-browser or out-of-browser without elevated trust the Clipboard methods can only be called as a result of user actions (such as Click, KeyDown). The first time a method is called, a security prompt is presented to the user asking them to grant the app access to the clipboard.

If the user selects 'No' a SecurityException is thrown.

If the app is running out-of-browser with elevated trust, the above dialog is not shown and the Clipboard methods can be called even if not in response to user initiated events such as in your page constructor, in a DispatcherTimer.Tick event, etc.

Example Code

<Button x:Name="btnCopy" Click="btnCopy_Click">Copy</Button>
<Button x:Name="btnPaste" Click="btnPaste_Click">Paste</Button>
<TextBox x:Name="txtBox"></TextBox>

private void btnCopy_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    // Assumes we want to prevent the user from copy 'nothing' to the clipboard.
    // Without this check, whatever text is currently in the clipboard will be replaced
    // with nothing.
    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(txtBox.Text))
    {
        try
        {
            Clipboard.SetText(txtBox.Text);
        }
        catch (SecurityException ex)
        {
            // If the user does not grant access for the app to access the clipboard
            // a SecurityException is thrown
            MessageBox.Show("Clipboard access is required to use this feature.");
        }
    }
}


private void btnPaste_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    try
    {
        txtBox.Text = Clipboard.GetText();
    }
    catch (SecurityException ex)
    {
        // If the user does not grant access for the app to access the clipboard
        // a SecurityException is thrown
        MessageBox.Show("Clipboard access is required to use this feature.");
    }
}

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One of the new SL3 features is the ability to test if there is a network connection currently active. This complements the out of browser experience by letting an app use local (isolated) storage when off-line, and when a network connection becomes available, upload data to a central server.

To be informed when the network changes:

System.Net.NetworkInformation.NetworkChange.NetworkAddressChanged += (sender, e) => txtNetStatus.Text = "Network available: " + System.Net.NetworkInformation.NetworkInterface.GetIsNetworkAvailable().ToString();

This example uses a lambda expression as a shortcut (rather than having a separate method); when the network status changes, we set the text of txtNetStatus to 'Network available: True' or 'Network available: False' depedning on the (boolean) result of GetIsNetworkAvailable().

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If a user attempts to install a SLOOB app when it is already installed an InvalidOperationException is thrown with the message "Application is already installed.". We can wrap in a try..catch to handle this:

 try
{
    Application.Current.Install();
}
catch (InvalidOperationException ex)
{
    MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
}

Or better yet, remove the install button from the UI if the application is already installed:

if (Application.Current.InstallState == InstallState.Installed)
    btnInstall.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed;
else
    btnInstall.Visibility = Visibility.Visible;

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When running a Silverlight 3 application out of browser (OOB) {or SLOOB=Silverlight Out Of Browser} you can enable the automatic download\install of updated versions.

This is not an automatic feature and requires some (simple) coding on the developers part.

In the App.xaml.cs add a callback for the CheckAndDownloadUpdateCompleted event (the example below uses a lambda but you could use a separate method with the signature void App_CheckAndDownloadUpdateCompleted(object sender, CheckAndDownloadUpdateCompletedEventArgs e).

public App()
{
    this.Startup += this.Application_Startup;
    this.Exit += this.Application_Exit;
    this.UnhandledException += this.Application_UnhandledException;

    // Add callback to be executed when the check (and possible download) has been performed
    this.CheckAndDownloadUpdateCompleted += (sender,  e) =>
    {
        if (e.UpdateAvailable)
            MessageBox.Show("Update downloaded, plese restart to take effect.");
    };
     
    InitializeComponent();
}

 Next add a call to check for updates, this can be placed in the Application Startup event handler or you could have a "Check for updates" button in th U.

 private void Application_Startup(object sender, StartupEventArgs e)
{
    this.RootVisual = new MainPage();
    this.CheckAndDownloadUpdateAsync();
}

Now, every time the app start an update check will be performed, and if there is an updated version available it will be downloaded asynchronously. Once download the user will get the message box advising them to restart the app to start using the new version. The download\update just happens if available and there is currently no mechanism to allow the user to opt-out of an update.

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This is pleasantly simple to do :)

In response to a user action (clicking a button, etc.) add the following code: Application.Current.Install(); e.g.

private void Button_Click_1(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    Application.Current.Install();
}

Configure the application to run out of browser (OOB):

In the project properties page, tick the"Enable running application out of the browser"

The Out-Of-Browser Settings button now becomes enabled: this lets you specify OOB window and shortcut names, description, and an application icon in 4 different sizes.

You can un-install an OOB app by running it (from the desktop or programs menu) and right-clicking and choosing "Remove this application".

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