We can easily pass initialization parameters from the HTML code that invokes the Silverlight application to the Silverlight application itself. The parameters should be placed as key value pairs, while the keys are their names and the values are the values of each one of them, as a string which is the value of a parameter placed as a child element of the Silverlight application object element. The name of that parameter should be initParams.
<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head runat="server">
<title>SilverlightApplication19</title>
<style type="text/css">
html, body {
height: 100%;
overflow: auto;
}
body {
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}
#silverlightControlHost {
height: 100%;
text-align:center;
}
</style>
<script type="text/javascript" src="Silverlight.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
function onSilverlightError(sender, args) {
var appSource = "";
if (sender != null && sender != 0) {
appSource = sender.getHost().Source;
}
var errorType = args.ErrorType;
var iErrorCode = args.ErrorCode;
if (errorType == "ImageError" || errorType == "MediaError") {
return;
}
var errMsg = "Unhandled Error in Silverlight Application " + appSource + "\n" ;
errMsg += "Code: "+ iErrorCode + " \n";
errMsg += "Category: " + errorType + " \n";
errMsg += "Message: " + args.ErrorMessage + " \n";
if (errorType == "ParserError") {
errMsg += "File: " + args.xamlFile + " \n";
errMsg += "Line: " + args.lineNumber + " \n";
errMsg += "Position: " + args.charPosition + " \n";
}
else if (errorType == "RuntimeError") {
if (args.lineNumber != 0) {
errMsg += "Line: " + args.lineNumber + " \n";
errMsg += "Position: " + args.charPosition + " \n";
}
errMsg += "MethodName: " + args.methodName + " \n";
}
throw new Error(errMsg);
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server" style="height:100%">
<div id="silverlightControlHost">
<object data="data:application/x-silverlight-2," type="application/x-silverlight-2" width="100%" height="100%">
<param name="source" value="ClientBin/SilverlightApplication19.xap"/>
<param name="onError" value="onSilverlightError" />
<param name="background" value="white" />
<param name="minRuntimeVersion" value="4.0.50826.0" />
<param name="autoUpgrade" value="true" />
<param name="initParams" value="lang=hebrew,country=israel" />
<a href="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=149156&v=4.0.50826.0"
style="text-decoration:none">
<img src="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=161376"
alt="Get Microsoft Silverlight" style="border-style:none"/>
</a>
</object>
<iframe id="_sl_historyFrame" style="visibility:hidden;height:0px;width:0px;border:0px">
</iframe>
</div>
</form>
</body>
</html>
In our Silverlight application we can access the value of the initParams parameter from within the scope of the App class definition.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Documents;
using System.Windows.Input;
using System.Windows.Media;
using System.Windows.Media.Animation;
using System.Windows.Shapes;
namespace SilverlightApplication19
{
public partial class App : Application
{
public string Language { get; set; }
public string Country { get; set; }
public App()
{
this.Startup += this.Application_Startup;
this.Exit += this.Application_Exit;
this.UnhandledException += this.Application_UnhandledException;
InitializeComponent();
}
private void Application_Startup(object sender, StartupEventArgs e)
{
this.RootVisual = new MainPage();
if (e.InitParams.ContainsKey("country"))
{
this.Country = e.InitParams["country"];
}
else
{
this.Country = "Unknown Country";
}
if (e.InitParams.ContainsKey("lang"))
{
this.Language = e.InitParams["lang"];
}
else
{
this.Language = "Unknown Language";
}
}
private void Application_Exit(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
}
private void Application_UnhandledException(object sender, ApplicationUnhandledExceptionEventArgs e)
{
// If the app is running outside of the debugger then report the exception using
// the browser's exception mechanism. On IE this will display it a yellow alert
// icon in the status bar and Firefox will display a script error.
if (!System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached)
{
// NOTE: This will allow the application to continue running after an exception has been thrown
// but not handled.
// For production applications this error handling should be replaced with something that will
// report the error to the website and stop the application.
e.Handled = true;
Deployment.Current.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(
delegate { ReportErrorToDOM(e); });
}
}
private void ReportErrorToDOM(ApplicationUnhandledExceptionEventArgs e)
{
try
{
string errorMsg = e.ExceptionObject.Message + e.ExceptionObject.StackTrace;
errorMsg = errorMsg.Replace('"', '\'').Replace("\r\n", @"\n");
System.Windows.Browser.HtmlPage.Window.Eval(
"throw new Error(\"Unhandled Error in Silverlight Application " +
errorMsg + "\");");
}
catch (Exception)
{
}
}
}
}
Once we took care of placing the values of the initialization parameters within properties accessible from within our code we can now access from every page in our Silverlight application. Referring Application.Current returns the reference for the App object currently running.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Documents;
using System.Windows.Input;
using System.Windows.Media;
using System.Windows.Media.Animation;
using System.Windows.Shapes;
namespace SilverlightApplication19
{
public partial class MainPage : UserControl
{
public MainPage()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
private void Button1Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
CountryTextBox.Text = ((App)Application.Current).Country;
LangTextBox.Text = ((App)Application.Current).Language;
}
}
}
The following video clip shows how does it work.
