Building a photography portfolio site in Silverlight - your input wanted!

Question

I'm a .NET newbie and I want to learn more about programming a Silverlight webapp. In my spare time Photography is a big passion of mine, so I thought why not try to build myself a portfolio website in Silverlight as a nice project to focus on and learn from.

I've started digging into the world of Silverlight and i'm already completely blown away by the fact that there are many frameworks etc I can use, like Caliburn (micro), RIA services, WCF data services, etc etc.

Perhaps you can help me out to choose what's best to use (and what not). I've made up a basic list of stuff I want to have on the site:

• Navigator-style interface (some text and/or images to click on to swap pages)
• A portfolio page with photos grouped in albums
• A blog with comments section (should I even build this myself?)
• A few textbased pages including some graphics, like "about me", "gear", etc (nothing special)
• A guestbook where people can drop a line (or is this soooo 1999?)
• A contact-me page (mailform style)

Basically, I need to know what I need to be able to build the site I have in mind. Should I be using stuff like Caliburn Micro, EF, etc? I hope you guys can help me on my way.

Thanks for any help offered. Ted

Answer 1

I know this is only a project for you to learn in but I personally wouldn't make my whole website a silverlight application. Instantly you are alienating users that don't have silverlight (a big enough section of users). Instead I would create a HTML/CSS (Could use a server side technology such as asp.net) website that contains silverlight parts for fancy functionality that would be difficult to implement using other web technologies.

In terms of a blog it is rarely worth writing your own when there are so many available to use often for free.

haha a guestbook certainly does seem very 1999 but don't let that discourage you if you think it adds value to your site.

As you say there are many frameworks available to use and it largely comes down to personal preference. I have used MVVM light for Windows phone 7 silverlight applications and found it to be pretty useful but it is not for every situation.