Silverlight Interview Questions

A list of frequently asked Silverlight interview questions and answers are given below.

1) What is Microsoft Silverlight?

Microsoft Silverlight is an open-source development tool that is used for creating and deploying interactive user experiences, internet applications and media experiences for web and mobile application.

2) Is Silverlight compatible with multiple browsers and operating system?

Yes. Silverlight is compatible with multiple browsers, devices and operating systems. It is a free plug-in, powered by .Net framework.

3) What is RIA?

RIA is an acronym stands for Rich Internet Applications. These are web application with rich features. These features include built in AJAX support, layouts, animations, audio, and video components.

Silverlight is an example of RIA.

4) What are the components of Silverlight?

Following are four main components of Silverlight:

• Silverlight Plug-in
• Silverlight Host, the Web Page
• Silverlight Application File (.XAP)
• The Interface language, XAML

5) Explain the architecture of Silverlight?

The architecture of Silverlight is made of three components:

1. Core presentation framework: This framework includes the components like data binding, vector graphics, text, animation, images for presenting various features.
2. .NET framework for Silverlight: It includes the libraries and components like XLINQ, XML serialization, Syndication, base class libraries, networking and common language runtime.
3. Updater and Installer: It is a control for installation and provides automatic updates.

6) What are the features of Silverlight plug-ins?

Silverlight plug-ins comes with the following features:

• Presentation Engine
• XAML Parser
• .NET Parser
• .NET Framework
• Media Features
• Browser Interaction
• Downloader

7) What is .xap file in Silverlight?

.xap file is a compressed file for the Silver Application. It contains AppManifest.xaml, compile output assembly of the Silverlight project (.dll) and any other resources by the Silverlight application. Visual studio creates two files while creating project; App.xaml and Page.xaml.

8) Which tools are required to build Silverlight applications?

Following are the two important tools required to build Silverlight applications:

1. Microsoft Expression Studio: This tool is used by web designers to create rich visual elements for Silverlight applications with enhanced visual contents and graphics.
2. Microsoft Visual Studio: This tool is used by programmers whose application is based on logic or requires programming. It permits programmer to build Silverlight applications in any .NET language like C#, Visual Basic.NET, etc.)

9) Which .NET applications are supported in Silverlight?

These two .NET applications are supported in Silverlight:

1. Embedded Common Language Runtime (CLR)
2. .NET Framework Libraries

10) How can you host a Silverlight application?

You can host a Silverlight application on most types of web server like Apache and IIS (Internet Information Server). If you want to host Silverlight application from your web server, you need to allow the following MIME type.

11) What is the difference between WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) and Microsoft Silverlight?

All the features of Silverlight are incorporated in WPF. So you can say that Silverlight is the subset of WPF.

Silverlight is just like Adobe flash and is designed for developing rich browser based internet applications while WPF is used for developing enhanced graphics applications for desktop platform.

12) Is it possible to pass parameters to Silverlight controls from ASP.NET pages?

Yes. It is possible to pass parameters from your aspx pages and HTML pages to the Silverlight controls by setting InitParameters.

The XAML page user control has a property known as InitParameters. From your ASPX pages, you can set a value in the form of key value pairs. Since this property accepts key-value pairs, you can pass any set of string values.

13) How can you check the internet connection status in Silverlight?

You can check the internet connection status by using the following code: