We are currently developing a web application in ASP.NET MVC which would really benefit from a IDE of sometype to help allow some elements to be visually customised.
Could anyone recommend an approach ? We are thinking of maybe a plugin using Silverlight.
Does anyone have any links or examples that might help ?
Well, Visual Studio 2010 is built using WPF - Jason Zander's WebLog
At the PDC and TechEd EMEA last year we described our new editor support built on the WPF technology in .NET Framework 4.0. Today I’m happy to reveal the new UI for Visual Studio, also built on WPF:
There is an opensource C# IDE that was developed using C# - SharpDevelop. I believe this was developed back when .Net 1.x was the new hotness, so I don't believe it uses WPF or Silverlight.
In addition the MonoDevelop IDE is also built in C# and GTK#, originally based on SharpDevelop.
Expression Blend is almost entirely written in C#/WPF.
There is also at least one text editor component under development (not sure if it is already available) from a commercial third party, Actipro, which is supposedly going to be available in Silverlight and WPF versions.
From your description of what you need, you seem to be looking more for examples or code for writing a full-blown design surface yourself. I am not aware of a suitable library for that.
There was a company in Canada that made a design surface toolkit for WPF, but I can't recall its name right now. I also believe the component is not available any longer.
Our company offers a native Silverlight code editor control that does syntax highlighting, code outlining, IntelliPrompt UI, editing surface adornments, and much more. Basically everything you'd need to create a VS-like code editor in Silverlight apps. Check it out at: http://www.actiprosoftware.com/Products/DotNet/Silverlight/SyntaxEditor/