IE8 Web Slice and Silverlight

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

Subscribe to Imagine Cup Web Slice here: www.ieaddons.com/en/details/news/Imagine_Cup_2009
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Next: what do Web slices eat and share experiences in their development?

What is Web Slice?

Web Slice is an innovation in Internet Explorer 8 that allows you to embed a mini web page in the Favorites panel of the browser. Thus, it simplifies the display of frequently updated information: for example, follow up on new offers for your go-ahead on eBay or the weather forecast .

It may seem to you that this is a more interactive RSS subscription, however, if RSS is in most cases 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 than any other site development. Just remember the limited size of the visible area - 320x240 pixels. For more information on how to make your “slice” can be read on MSDN .

Web slice for Imagine Cup

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

Architecture

Who cares: code samples and more detailed information about the architecture can be found here .

Screenshots

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