15.9. Deep Linking and Browser History

A major problem with Silverlight applications is that you cannot directly link to content within the application in the same way you can with web pages. This makes it difficult for users to share or bookmark content and makes search engine indexing impossible. Silverlight 3.0 attempts to solve this issue by using HTML bookmark syntax in your application's URL.

15.9.1. Navigation Application

Navigation Application is a new type of project in Silverlight 3.0. If you say Navigation Application quickly, it sounds like gangsta rap, argued Silverlight MVP Chris Hay, and he was right. But that doesn't have much to do with anything, so let's take a look at Navigation Application now:

  1. Create a new Silverlight Navigation Application project called Chapter15.NavigationApplication.

  2. Press F5 to run the application, and you will see the default Navigation Application project (see Figure 15-26).

  3. Click the About button, and notice how the URL changes to something similar to this:

    http://localhost:51951/Chapter15.NavigationApplicationTestPage.aspx#/About

You can use this URL to refer directly to the About page—try navigating to a different page and then pasting the URL into the address bar. This new URL format allows the browser to maintain a history of pages the user navigated through, which means the back and forward browser buttons can be used to move around your applications.

Figure 15.26. Default Navigation Application project

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