Database Connectivity / Silverlight Controls & Silverlight Components / Embarcadero / CodeGear (Tools & Components)

What is a Silverlight control? A .NET Silverlight control is a Silverlight software component that is utilized in the user interface of a Silverlight based application to allow the end-user to enter data, display data, or interact with the app in some way to control the way the Silverlight app behaves. A Silverlight control is visible and can be seen and interacted with at run-time on their screen, example being a Silverlight list box or combo box that allow users to select items from a drop down list to input data into the Silverlight program.

What is a Silverlight component? A Silverlight component is a special type of Silverlight object in that it may not have a visible interface that the user can see, but runs hidden in the background. For example you can download a Silverlight file upload component from our Silverlight product gallery that allows you to upload files over the Internet using HTTP, you cannot see the interface to this Silverlight component, as it is non-visual.

Silverlight itself is part of the Microsoft .NET Framework and is the latest user interface app platform from Microsoft aimed at Internet developers to use to create dynamic Web sites and corporate Intranets. It can be viewed as a step on from ASP.NET, in as much as it supports multi-media, video, sounds, graphics and animation better than previous Microsoft technologies and thus offers a cross-platform and cross-browser alternative to Flash from Adobe. You can use Silverlight to create Silverlight apps that run on Windows PCs, Macs, Windows Phone 7 devices and some other Symbian based mobile phones.

Silverlight has gone through several developer iterations already: Silverlight 1.0, Silverlight 2.0 & Silverlight 3.0 with Silverlight 4.0 being the latest version released in April, 2010. The latest Silverlight 4 release added support for new Web browsers like Google Chrome and support for local Microsoft Component Object Model objects (also known as COM objects or COM components). There is also an implementation of Silverlight that runs on Linux as a plug-in from Novell, another ComponentSource partner, and this is known as Moonlight, but at present is several versions behind Microsoft and only supports Silverlight 1.0 compatibility.

In this filtered view of our full product catalog, you will find both .NET Silverlight controls and .NET Silverlight components, as well as some Silverlight utilities to help you create your Silverlight app faster. The Silverlight component products listed here are created as third party Silverlight components by software companies specializing in the creation of Silverlight software component products. As such by using a Silverlight library, you are re-using the knowledge and expertise of another Silverlight developer inside your app. For example, by downloading a Silverlight charting control from our Silverlight product gallery, you are able to implement lots of different chart types and graph layouts for your users rapidly, without the support burden falling on you or your team. Or if you need to add a good text editor to your Silverlight app, you will find several Silverlight Rich Text editors to compare, download and review from our Web site.

The selection of Silverlight controls available is growing very fast, so the width and depth of Silverlight products listed here is expanding all the time. To help you keep up to date with this fast moving area, there is a Silverlight News RSS feed for you to subscribe to, with all the latest Silverlight News on product releases.

In this filtered view of our main product catalog, you will find a selection of products that are compatible with Embarcadero Technologies products, as well as CodeGear products that were formerly owned by Borland Software. Embarcadero bought CodeGear in June, 2008, CodeGear was previously a division of Borland, making the Borland IDEs known as: Borland Delphi, Borland C++ Builder and Borland JBuilder. These products were sometimes referred to as CodeGear Delphi, CodeGear C++ Builder and CodeGear JBuilder, but are now known as Embarcadero Delphi XE and Embarcadero C++ Builder XE. Plus there is an Embarcadero developer tool suite, consisting of all .NET Embarcadero developer tools known as Embarcadero RAD Studio XE. JBuilder is also available from Embarcadero, along with other Embarcadero database tools.

This Embarcadero product gallery or CodeGear marketplace is full of products that are compatible with the Embarcadero product range, CodeGear tools and Borland dev tools. For Delphi developers there are Delphi components available as CodeGear VCL products, there are CodeGear components and Borland library products that will work with both your old Borland IDE, Borland C++ Builder and the new Embarcadero IDE environments, such as Embarcadero C++ Builder XE. The products here are compatible with CodeGear tools (formerly Borland tools) and can be evaluated by downloading the product trial from the CodeGear download page for each specific CodeGear tool or CodeGear component that you are investigating. You can then evaluate the CodeGear library or CodeGear extension downloaded, read the CodeGear reviews written and posted by other CodeGear developers about it or as a CodeGear developer you could write a CodeGear review yourself.

You will find lots of mature products that are: Borland .Net compatible tools, Borland component products, Borland tools, Borland libraries and many newer or up to date products that are: CodeGear tools, CodeGear component extensions, CodeGear tools or CodeGear libraries. Finally, for the newer and more up to date products, you can read the Embarcadero News pages, that highlight the Embarcadero product news every time a new Embarcadero compatible product is released. This Embarcadero News feed is also available as an Embarcadero News RSS data feed for you to subscribe to, so that you can keep up to date with all the latest Embarcadero product news.