SilverLight 2.0

[jordansparks]

SL 2.0 will be going into beta in Q1 of 2008. This will finally allow us to run client side code in a browser in C#. I'm very excited about this technology, and plan to fully embrace it for the web version of OD. This is a very big development, affecting our entire multi-location and multi-tier strategy.
I'm hoping that 2.0 will have premade standard controls, like textboxes and comboboxes. If it does not, then the next version certainly will. But that might slow us down slightly, as we would have to write controls from scratch. But we could still do the main appt screen, because the appointment controls are written from scratch anyway.
Also, we will no longer be held back by our need to remain compatible with Linux. We will be able to fully exploit each new feature of SL as it comes out so that we can stay on the cutting edge. One new feature I'm particularly excited about is animation. The appointment dragging and dropping is going to look so so cool when we can easily add subtle animation effects.

[jordansparks]

Well, that was a fun few days. I've had enough of working with the alpha release. It's just too raw, with too many missing features and too many workarounds to be currently useful. But the whole experience was very tantalizing. As soon as it goes to beta in a few months, I'll try again. This is definitely the technology we'll use. The extra time will be nice, because it will let us focus on sort of wrapping up some features that might nicely complement a web version of OD.

[drtech]

so, if this works out, will you be able to run OD in a linux browser, or will we be restricted to running silverlight in IE?

[jordansparks]

MS makes sure their plugin runs in all the popular browsers on Mac and Windows. They did not bother to build a plugin for Linux, but left that to the Mono folks. So far, the SL plugin for Mono is functional, but will probably lag slightly behind the regular one. My understanding is that most of the code already exists, and it's usually just a matter of bringing it together with a new wrapper. And I think most of the effort that MS is doing is for the development environment and so on.

[murmsk]

Won't IE run under wine?

steve

[Justin Shafer]

We need to find a version of OD that will run with linux before diving into the new features of SL one day. So if anyone asks hey an I run this with linux then someone can say.. .YES... but only THIS version of OD........ Weird a we based version of OD. Will we be able to host it?

When that version comes out I will make an Ubuntu LiveCD with Open Dental and mysql preinstalled and working off of the loopback. I think linux folks would like that...... What do you think?

[jordansparks]

Version 5.6 of OD seems to be running fine on Linux unless someone has a bug submission for us. But the main motivation for the web version is scalability. We want OD to be usable for a chain of clinics with 100 office locations. Massive scalability is the driving force.