/Visual Studio 2008/VBSL3OOB/ReadMe.txt

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    SILVERLIGHT APPLICATION : VBSL3OOB Project Overview

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Overview:



This example demonstrates how to work with OOB using VB.

It includes the following features:

Install OOB with code (but you cannot remove OOB with code).

Check if the application is already installed.

Check for updates.

Check for network state.





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Prerequisites:



Required:

Silverlight 3 Chained Installer

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9442b0f2-7465-417a

-88f3-5e7b5409e9dd&displaylang=en





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Usage:



As for the usage of this sample, first please make sure you've set the

VBSL3OOB.Web project as the startup project. Otherwise some features will not

work properly.



Click the Install with code Button, or right click and choose Install VBSL3OOB

application onto this computer, to install the application.



Close the browser, but do not close the OOB window. Update the source code,

rebuild and launch the application in browser again. You'll notice the OOB

application has not been updated yet. Click Check for update in the OOB

application (not the browser application), and you'll see it asks you to

restart the OOB. After you restart, you'll notice the update has been applied.



Disable your network connection, and note the red text (information about

network status) in the bottom of the screen being updated. Enable your network

connection again, and the red text will be updated again.





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Documentation:

OOB, as the name indicates, allows you to work with Silverlight applications

out of browser. It is very easy to configure a Silverlight application to

support OOB within Visual Studio. In the Properties page of the Silverlight

project, simply check "Enable running application out of browser". Click the

Out-Of-Browser Settings Button to configure the OOB properties. The MSDN

document has detailed description about the properties.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd833073(VS.95).aspx

    

Under the hook, what Visual Studio does is exactly creating a manifest file

that corresponds to that described in the MSDN document. You can find it in

the Bin folder after you build your application. You can also edit the

OutOfBrowserSettings.xml file under the Properties folder directly, if you

don't want to use the tool.



OOB supports update, if it is downloaded from a web site (instead of local

file system). But you have to manually check if an update is available by

handling the Application.Current.CheckAndDownloadUpdateCompleted event.



Most Silverlight features work fine in OOB. However, certain features will

only work if the application is installed from a web site. For example, check

for update. That's why this sample includes a web application. Please run the

web application instead of the Silverlight application directly. Also, if the

application needs to perform network access, you'll have to host it in a web

site. Otherwise you'll ge cross-scheme errors even if you run inside the

browser...



Network features work fine in OOB. If you're accessing a network resource

from the same domain where you install the application, no cross-domain

policy file is needed. Otherwise, as long as the cross-domain policy file

allows you to access the resource, it will work fine.



So how does OOB work? Actually the following application is always launched

when you open an OOB application:

For x86: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Silverlight\sllauncher.exe

For x64: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Silverlight\sllauncher.exe



This application accepts a command line argument like:

(a number as ID).domainname



When you install the OOB, several files will be downloaded to the following

folder:



For Vista and later:

Users\yourname\AppData\LocalLow\Microsoft\Silverlight\OutOfBrowser

\NumberAsID.domain



For ealier OS:

Documents and Settings\yourname\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft

\Silverlight\OutOfBrowser\NumberAsID.domain



You'll find a metadata file in this location. This metadata file stores

information such as where this OOB was downloaded. This affects both update

and network. If you modify this file to specify another domain, update will

no longer work, and the original domain does not contain a cross-domain

policy file, you will no longer be able to access to the network resource.

However, you can actually use it at your advantage to access network

resources on another domain that does not have a cross-domain policy file.

Please refer to the following instructions:



Create your application so that it accesses a network resource on another

domain that does not have a cross-domain policy file (such as www.bing.com).

Install the OOB.

Open the metadata file for the OOB application.

Modify the FinalAppUri, OriginalSourceUri, and SourceDomain properties, so

that they point to the external domain.

Launch the OOB application, and you'll notice you're able to access the

network resources on the other domain.



However, you have to instruct your users to perform all those steps.





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References:



http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd833073(VS.95).aspx





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