The Silverlight PivotViewer makes it easier to interact with massive amounts of data on the web in ways that are powerful, informative, and valuable. PivotViewer lets us present thousands of things at once and visualize them in a way that exposes value from the group. PivotViewer experiences range in complexity to build. All involve the creation of a collection. PivotViewer is now available for you to begin building and embedding your collections directly onto your webpage. Click on the Download Now to install the PivotViewer and begin building your collections.

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Pivot Videos

Overview Video    4 minutes Watch a brief overview of the PivotViewer Control and its value to web developers and designers.

How To Video    12 minutes Getting started with PivotViewer is easy. Learn best practices for design, hosting and more.

Scenarios Video    4 minutes The Silverlight PivotViewer Control can be used in a variety of applications and industries to present large amounts of information intuitively. This video outlines several of these scenarios.

Use Scenarios:

• Business Intelligence
• Intranet Navigation
• Living Info Graphics
• Academic Research
• Retail
• Image Galleries
• Others, the possibilities are endless

Developer Info: Overview

Collections combine large groups of similar items on the internet, so we can begin viewing the Web as a "web" rather than a series of isolated pages. As a developer, you can create collections of your own. New collections can be created with no code – it’s only data. This page contains an overview of the collection-building process, as well as links to more detailed pages on specific topics. You can also join our technical discussion forum to interact directly with the PivotViewer community.

Creating a Collection

Collections are composed of two parts:

• XML - The items in the collection are described in XML, in a ".cxml" file. For details, see: Collection XML Schema.
• Images - The images in the collection are described in Deep Zoom format. For details, see: Collection Image Content.

Creating a collection has four distinct steps:

1. Pick your data - First, pick a set of data to turn into a collection and decide how you want to present it. For tips, see Collection Design.
2. Create XML and images - Once you have your data sources, you’ll need to describe it in Collection XML (CXML) and transform your images to the Deep Zoom format. We’ve build a variety of tools from an Excel plug-in to an open-source software library, or you could build your own. See Collection XML Schema, Collection Image Content, and Collection Design for detailed information.
3. Host it - To share your collection with others, host it on a web server. For more information, see Collection Hosting.
4. Share it - Download our PivotViewer SDK in order to build a Silverlight control to host the collection on your webpage!

Architecture

Conceptually, a collection is just like any other web content. There’s a set of files on a server, and a local client that knows how to display them. In the current web, the files are traditionally HTML and images. In the collection case, the files are CXML and Deep Zoom-formatted (DZC) images. When the user browses the collection from a web page, the PivotViewer will use the Silverlight Control to display the files. See the following figure.

How to build PivotViewer experiences

Building a PivotViewer experience ranges in complexity. All PivotViewer experiences involve the creation of a collection. You can learn how to build a wide variety of collections below.

Learn more about how to design and develop PivotViewer Collections

Join the PivotViewer community

By Microsoft Silverlight Team, Silverlight is a powerful development platform for creating engaging, interactive user experiences for Web, desktop, and mobile applications when online or offline.