IE8 Web Slice and Silverlight

The other day, we completed work on the Web Slice for the international student technology cup Imagine Cup . For the 7th time, the organization of the competition has proved its popularity: the number of registered participants this year exceeded 300 thousand people.

You can subscribe to the Imagine Cup Web Slice here: www.ieaddons.com/en/details/news/Imagine_Cup_2009

Next: What are Web Slices eaten and experience sharing in developing them.

What is Web Slice?

Web Slicer is an innovation in Internet Explorer 8 that allows you to embed a mini web page in your browser's Favorites panel. Thus, it simplifies the display of frequently updated information: for example, keep track of new offers for your goodness on eBay or weather forecasts .

You might think that this is a more interactive RSS subscription, however, if RSS in most cases is limited to textual information, then the Web Slice may contain, say, your entire Silverlight application.

How to create your own?

Web slice development is no different from any other website development. Just remember the limited size of the visible area - 320x240 pixels. You can read more about how to make your own “slice” on MSDN .

Web Slice for Imagine Cup

Now you can follow the final of the contest directly through a slice that shows the latest news, “tweets” and photos. The slice is based on Silverlight technology and uses the information collected and cached by the web service on the server from several Twitter and Flickr accounts at once. A slice is placed on the "cloud computing" platform of Windows Azure , the so-called Windows "in the cloud."

Architecture

To whom it is interesting: code examples and more detailed information on architecture can be found here .

Screenshots

Many thanks to my colleague Giorgio Sardo for their support in the project.