Introduction

Silverlight™, Microsoft's programmable browser plug-in for creating rich Internet applications, promotes rapid development by allowing developers to use familiar languages (C#, Visual Basic) within their customary development environments (Visual Studio, .NET Framework). The Geocortex Essentials Silverlight API builds on the power of ESRI's ArcGIS Server Silverlight API by extending its feature set and enhancing your ability to build mapping applications quickly and efficiently.

ESRI publishes a geomatics API based on Silverlight, the ArcGIS API for Silverlight, that enables developers to add GIS functionality, such as map display, querying and geoprocessing, to their Silverlight applications. The Geocortex Essentials Silverlight API offers features that complement the features provided by the ArcGIS API, such as template-based reporting, print templates and data linking. Silverlight applications can make use of both APIs freely.

In addition to extending the feature set, the Geocortex Essentials Silverlight API simplifies the creation of GIS applications by exposing Geocortex Essentials' powerful site-based model of application development, which frees you from having to load layers and manage map service connections in your code. 

One of Silverlight's strengths is its support of reusable components that developers can employ in their own applications. Common examples include grid views, tree list views, and enhanced combo boxes, as well as more advanced components that interact with server-side databases and multimedia resources. ESRI publishes a range of components that enable developers to integrate GIS capabilities into their web applications quickly and easily. The ArcGIS Resource Center for Silverlight provides sample applications that demonstrate ESRI's Silverlight components. Similarly, this resource center provides sample applications that demonstrate the use of the Geocortex Essentials Silverlight API. Developers can use these samples as they stand or customize them as needed, referring to the API specification in the Reference section for more information.

As a web developer working with the Geocortex Essentials Silverlight API, you will write your applications in XAML and whatever language you have chosen for the code behind. Silverlight API calls can either be inline (in the XAML code) or in the code behind. The sample code presented in this resource center has Silverlight API calls in the code behind. In either case, the API communicates with Geocortex Essentials' server-side REST API to obtain map service and configuration information, which is then passed back to your application. This is illustrated in the following diagram. 

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What can you do with the Geocortex Essentials Silverlight API?

• Use the features of the ArcGIS API for Silverlight
• Use Silverlight components