Getting started with Silverlight development..

Question

How does one start development in Silverlight?

Does one need a new IDE? or Visual studio will support?

Answer 1

Yes there is tooling support for Visual Studio. It is still in Beta though.

Get Started Building Silverlight 2 Applications

1) Install Visual Studio 2008 then Install Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008 This add-on to Visual Studio 2008 allows you to use .NET to create Silverlight 2 Beta 2 Web sites. The Silverlight 2 Beta 2 Runtime and the Silverlight 2 Beta 2 SDK are installed as part of this install. For additional information read the overview and the Silverlight 2 Beta 2 Readme Notes. Note if you have Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 Beta installed, please see this information for details on installing correctly.

2) Install Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 Preview This is a preview version of Expression Blend for designing Silverlight 2 experiences.

3) Install Deep Zoom Composer This tool allows you to prepare your images for use with the Deep Zoom feature in Silverlight 2.

One thing to watch out for is that Silverlight does not support Synchronous calls to the server. All calls are Asynchronous as of this Beta.

Answer 2

Dan Wahlin has some good Silverlight 2 videos at:

http://weblogs.asp.net/dwahlin/archive/2008/03/07/silverlight-2-0-video-tutorials.aspx

They are quite helpful.

rp

Answer 3

You can start developing for Silverlight with a text editor. It might take a little longer to put things together, but you will understand a lot more about what is going on.

Answer 4

Most documentation for Silverlight 2.0 example projects along with the source code is to be found on the Web. A goldmine for finding new and relevant stuff is to do a daily look at http://geekswithblogs.net/WynApseTechnicalMusings/Default.aspx, where links are posted to all the good stuff as it becomes available.

Answer 5

Let's tackle this systematically, because there is a lot to learn and there is a lot of information out there. You may want to start with Microsoft's resources first, as they are highly reviewed, and all in one place, and we're working hard to create a lot of them to produce a smooth on-ramp. Then, when you are comfortable, you can certainly branch out to other resources as well.

My advice would be to memorize this URL: http://silverlight.net

Just about everything you'll need for some time is there.

Here is how I'd go about getting started, but there are lots of alternative paths as well...

1. Go to the [getting started page][1] but don't download everything you see. Focus on just the big green numbers 1 and 2, that is the links to download Visual Studio 2000, the tools for Beta 2 VS 200, and the Beta 1 pack as well as the Blend 2.5 June 2008 preview.

2. Click on Learn on the menu (or click [here][2] ) and watch on lien or download the first video, the Silverlight install experience.

3. Assuming you haven't worked in Silverlight or WPF before, I'd take a look at our [showcase][3] applications, just to get a sense of what can be done with Silverlight.

4. Once you've done that, the order of videos I’ve recommended in the past is in [this blog entry.][4] (which you'll see is where i cribbed these notes from)

Once the basics are under your belt, be sure to check out our expanding collection of [tutorials][5], [videos][6], [webcasts][7], and we have a lot more on the way, including forthcoming books, and a number of alternatives. Also, tomorrow I start a monthly blog cast with [Sparkling Client][8] which I hope will be fun and informative.

Finally, when you have questions, you certainly can ask here (this looks like a tremendous resource!) but if they are Silverlight related you may also want to post them on our [forums][9]

Hope that helps.

-jesse liberty

Answer 6

My own blog posting on this:

http://www.codersbarn.com/post/2008/05/07/Beginning-Silverlight-First-Steps.aspx

Anthony :-)