Below are some of the resources I refer to in my Silverlight classes.
These include:
- Official Sites
- Tutorial Sites
- Best places to ask questions (forums)
- What’s new in Silverlight 3
- What’s new in Silverlight 4
- Downloads
- Other useful links
Official Sites:
They both claim to be “the official site”!
- The Official Site of Silverlight
http://www.microsoft.com/SILVERLIGHT/ - The Official Microsoft Silverlight Site
http://silverlight.net/
Sites for Expression Blend:
- Expression Community site
http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx
MSDN Library for Silverlight
- Home page for both 3 and 4
“http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee656762(VS.95).aspx - XAML “concepts”
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc189054(VS.96).aspx - XAML object (tags) documentation (hidden in the JavaScript API section!)
Ver 3: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb980170(VS.95).aspx
Ver 4: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb980170(VS.96).aspx
Tutorial Sites:
- Some really great video walkthroughs here:
http://silverlight.net/learn/videos/silverlight-videos/ - Very good Blend videos here:
http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/cc136522.aspx
A few samples: - Creating a Calculator
http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/dd334537.aspx - Creating a Control Template in Expression Blend (Video)
http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/cc263912.aspx - Customizing Silverlight Video Players using Expression Blend
http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/dd565843.aspx - Optimizing Video for Silverlight Playback using Expression Encoder
http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/dd565844.aspx - Using Runtime Storyboarding in Expression Blend
http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/dd334536.aspx
Best places to ask questions:
MSDN forums:
- Silverlight (formerly WPF/E) General Discussion
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/silverlightgeneral/threads - Silverlight (formerly WPF/E) Designer Issues
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/silverlightdesigner/threads
Silverlight.net Forums:
(As of 12/5/09: 178,572 threads and 222,975 posts, contributed by 67,146 members from around the world!)
- http://forums.silverlight.net/default.aspx
- Installation and Setup
- Getting Started
- Hosting and Streaming
- New Features in Silverlight 3
- Silverlight 4 Beta
- Designing with Silverlight
- Video and Media
- Expression Studio
- Programming with JavaScript
- Programming with .NET – General
- Silverlight Controls and Silverlight Toolkit
- Visual Studio & Silverlight Development Tools
- Report a Silverlight Bug
- Accessing Web Services with Silverlight
- Game Development
- WCF RIA Services
What’s new in Silverlight 3:
- What's New in Silverlight 3
http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight3/ - What's New in Silverlight 3
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd772166(VS.95).aspx - New Features in Expression Blend 3
http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight3/ - What's New in Silverlight 3
http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/What-s-New-in-Silverlight-3.aspx - Video from MIX09
http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX09/T14F
What’s new in Silverlight 4:
- What's New in Silverlight 4 Beta Documentation
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd772166(VS.96).aspx
- Ensuring That Your Silverlight 3 Applications Work with Silverlight 4 Bet
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645049(VS.96).aspx - Silverlight 4 - Breaking Changes since Silverlight 3 (things that break your Silverlight 3 app)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645049(VS.96).aspx
Downloads:
- CodePlex – 834 projects as of today!
http://www.codeplex.com/site/search?ProjectSearchText=silverlight - An “everything you need” list:
http://silverlight.net/getstarted/ - Silverlight 2 SDK
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=8D933343-038F-499C-986C-C3C7E87A60B3&displaylang=en - Silverlight 3 SDK
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1ea49236-0de7-41b1-81c8-a126ff39975b&displaylang=en - Silverlight 4 SDK??? See the beta info for now:
http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight-4-beta/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc838158(VS.96).aspx
Other useful links…
What percent of users actually have Silverlight installed?
Datasets and Data Tables with Silverlight:
As a .Net developer we know DataSets and DataTables, and we often deliver these via web services, but Silverlight does not directly support Datasets or Datatables. There are a few workarounds using LINQ, custom libraries and even a custom grid control…
- Displaying SQL Database Data in a DataGrid using LINQ and WCF
http://www.silverlight.net/learn/tutorials/sqldatagrid-cs/ - A dataset for Silverlight project
http://silverlightdataset.net/silverlightdataset/Default.aspx - Silverlight Bindable DataGrid with DataSources (like DataSet and DataTable)
http://slbindabledatagrid.codeplex.com/
Pushing data to Silverlight from a server
- Using Sockets
http://weblogs.asp.net/dwahlin/archive/2008/04/10/pushing-data-to-a-silverlight-client-with-sockets-part-i.aspx
Dealing with Cross-Domain issues
- Official article:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645032(VS.95).aspx - Notes from Yahoo
http://developer.yahoo.com/dotnet/silverlight/2.0/securitypolicy.html - Reading data and RSS with Silverlight and no cross-domain policy
http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2008/06/03/use-silverlight-with-any-feed-without-cross-domain-files.aspx
About loading images (and URLs)
- Different ways for loading images and files in Silverlight 2 applications
http://blogs.msdn.com/katriend/archive/2008/04/27/different-ways-for-loading-images-and-files-in-silverlight-2-applications.aspx
Silverlight to JavaScript, JavaScript to Silverlight:
- A few notes on HTML / JavaScript access from Silverlight
http://techtrainingnotes.blogspot.com/2009/05/silverlight-few-notes-on-html.html
Silverlight and SharePoint
- Using Silverlight in SharePoint 2007
http://blogs.technet.com/vedant/archive/2009/08/07/using-silverlight-in-sharepoint-2007.aspx - Integrating Silverlight 3 in SharePoint 2007
http://karinebosch.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/integrating-silverlight-3-in-sharepoint-2007/
